Welcome to episode 186, this week I really enjoyed chatting with Leif Carlsen, A social selling expert and podcaster from Denmark. Leif and I chat about a range of things in the episode; ROI - Return on Investment It's difficult to measure Statistics are often merely a vanity measure Social selling will always be a ‘long game’ Some ways you can measure RIO; Post comments, likes and views in the feed InMail / message replies Profile views Invitations received True followers (followers minus connections) SSI (social selling index) Successful referrals The influence formula as discussed in episode 167 LinkedIn should be added as a lead source in your CRM The future of social selling Less about content marketing and more about engagement Sales people will need to grow their own following and influence Think of yourself as being a DJ Broadcasting to a wide audience of listeners The attributes of sales people will change; Less selfish, more motivated to help others Driven to help people even when there is no chance of doing business with them Better at written communication Are LinkedIn moving in this direction? The design of Sales Navigator might suggest not! InMail is, in many respects, a form of cold calling via LinkedIn! Does cold calling really work any more? Company Pages I believe that company pages have very limited use, primarily because people do business with people. Most company page posts get the very little, if any engagement Leif Took a more positive stance but believes that Company pages can only work if you deliver high quality educational and interesting updates. Check out Leif’s Company page below Articles Leif has found that Google will find articles but only if the content is of the highest quality. A good technique is to write with a specific person in mind Articles give you credibility, they don't need to be written very regularly but it's important that your prospects and followers can see that there is more to you then just the "Gift of the gab” Writing good articles will make you think more about your market and inevitably make you a better salesperson.