I need all professionals in the insurance industry to pay close attention.  Some of you have probably never heard of an SSI or don't know what it is.  Let's start with the definition:

Your Social Selling Index (SSI) is a tool that is updated daily to measure how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights and building relationships on LinkedIn.

Ladies and gentleman, we have some work ahead of us. The average SSI for a sales professional in the insurance industry is 13 out of 100 possible points. 

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To see yours, click here:

Now that we understand what an SSI is and have run our score, let's discuss how to improve the score for ourselves and our industry.

Social selling is the new key to success.  The buying process has changed and we need to adapt to remain relevant.

Per Alexis Silaidis, who has the highest SSI score on LinkedIn at 97:

 

LinkedIn research shows that SSI leaders:

  • Create 45 percent more opportunities per quarter
  • Get promoted 17 months sooner 
  • Are 51 percent more likely to hit quota  

Here are some tips (referenced from Alexis):

1. Create a professional brand

  • Spend time on your profile.  This is not something to take lightly. If you do not have a picture or any detail listed, that is a problem. I'm sure your dog is adorable, but this is not the place for that picture.
  • Make it clear what you are about and why you are at the top of your game.
  • Tell your story! What is unique about you?  What is your Why?
  • Include video, whitepapers, etc.  Get people engaged!

 2. Find the right people

  • Use filtered searches (i.e. Industry, size, location, professional groups, etc.)
  • Upgrade to a paid version of LinkedIn (Sales Navigator or Premium).  Spend the money!  It is a small investment that will pay off.
  • Keep track of who is visiting and viewing your profile.  You should be looking at LinkedIn every day. 

3. Engage with insights

  • Engage with other sales professionals.
  • Join groups that are relevant to your industry. 
  • Share relevant data and content. If you find it interesting, the odds are others will too.
  • Publish your own content.  Establish yourself as a thought leader. 

4. Build strong relationships

  • Follow up and connect with people you meet.
  • Connect with leaders in your industry.
  • Learn and grow from the tremendous amount of content and insights.  

Social selling leaders get better results 

Social selling leaders create 45 percent more opportunities than peers with lower SSI. 

Social selling leaders are 51 percent more likely to reach quota. 

78 percent of social sellers outsell peers who don't use social media. 

For those of you who are fully engaged on LinkedIn and have a reputable score, you can try measuring your effectiveness on Klout:

Klout measures our influence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, amongs other social media platforms.  How effective are you at driving action on social networks?  This is an excellent tool to look at the overall picture of your brand.

You can also utilize Google Analytics, Wildfire and TwitSprout, just to name some other tools for measuring your social media prowess.

Social Media is not a new concept but we (insurance folks) are behind the eight ball.  To give you some perspective on the power of social media, watch this video:

My SSI score as of today is 73.  I challenge you to beat that!

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