Making social selling a weekly habit for an IT services sales team
The firm adopted social selling, but activity faded after launch. A weekly checklist, manager coaching and a set onboarding route make it part of the job.
- Challenge
Social selling launched, then faded because nobody knew the weekly routine.
- Approach
Plain method training, a weekly checklist, manager coaching and onboarding for new hires.
- Result
Managers coach the routine weekly, and new sellers join it from the start.
The situation
IT services firms often launch social selling with a burst of refreshed profiles, connection requests and posts. Activity soon fades, because sellers do not know what to do each week or what to say to a CIO beyond the service catalogue. Managers count connection requests instead of coaching threads, and new hires never learn the routine. Leadership concludes the channel does not work, and the firm drifts back to cold outreach that CIOs ignore.
The question that mattered
How does the team run social selling every week, on its own, and move conversations with IT buyers forward?
What we did
- 1
Teach the method in plain terms
On their own accounts in Sales Navigator, train sellers to pick the right people, follow what they post, add something useful and ask about the problem before asking for a call.
- 2
Write the weekly checklist
Set what each seller does every week: check for triggers such as a FinOps hire or a new CIO at a target account, comment on posts about managed-service renewals or cloud cost overruns, and follow up open threads.
- 3
Coach the managers
Show sales managers how to run a weekly thread review: pick stalled conversations, rewrite the next message together and agree when a thread is ready for a call.
- 4
Bring new hires into the routine
Pair each new seller with a mentor, have them sit in on thread reviews, and start them on a few named accounts.
What we delivered
The evidence and working documents the team kept.
- Plain-language method guide using the firm's own accounts
- Weekly seller checklist with the triggers to watch
- Manager guide for weekly thread reviews and check-ins
- Onboarding plan with a mentor and starter accounts for each new hire
- Topic briefs on managed-service renewals and cloud cost overruns
The outcome
Sellers
working the checklist even in heavy deal weeks
Managers
coaching on what threads say rather than connection counts
New hires
running the routine on starter accounts before taking a territory
Stalled threads
restarted with a question about the buyer's renewal or cloud bill
When a target account hires a FinOps lead or names a new CIO, sellers now spot it that week and open a thread on it.
What changed in the GTM motion
Social selling now has owners below leadership: sales managers run the weekly thread review and review each seller's checklist in regular check-ins. New sellers join through the onboarding plan and a mentor, so the routine no longer depends on who attended the launch.
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