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5 Simple Rules to Reach Business Contacts on Social Networks

27 Apr

An Inquisix member recently sent me this link to an interesting blog posting. The author, Noah Elkin, writes about how marketing professionals can reach out to business contacts on social networking sites. While Inquisix is primarily a business networking site for sales and business development professionals to exchange referrals, I felt Noah had some interesting comments to pass along.

I’m cutting and pasting his comments that I find most relevant but you can read the full posting here.

“The principal difficulty lies in the ever-shifting nature of personal and professional boundaries…..some individuals are more judicious than others in accepting “friend” requests.”

“With etiquette and consideration in mind, here are five simple rules to follow when using social networks for business purposes:

1. Ask permission, not forgiveness — even though they may be public, social networks are highly personal
2. Remember to inquire about each person’s preferred mode of communication
3. Treat each contact as an individual
4. Respect the boundaries each contact sets (but adjust as the relationship develops)
5. Don’t bombard anyone with messages, regardless of the delivery method”

These simple rules should work for everyone, not just marketers and sales people.

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1+4 Cold Calling Tips

1 Apr

Why would a blog posting from Inquisix mention cold calling tips? After all, we’re about exchanging referrals amongst sales people. Unfortunately, there are times when that referral is just not available and cold calling is required. This discussion came up in a previous blog posting, “Cold Calling Works?” where some sales experts chimed in with their thoughts in the comments.

I read a recent posting on DigIt! about a Cold Calling Tip. Just one! Elinor Stutz suggests the following to increase your response rate on cold calls –

“After leaving the voice message, immediately send a duplicate short email. But, here is where it will be slightly different. In the subject line, you can type ‘follow-up’. Begin the message from the reader’s point of view by stating, ‘I realize it is easier to press the reply key then to dial back. Per my telephone message…’ Keep your message down to one or two very short paragraphs.”

What do you think? Will this work effectively? I almost always follow-up a voice mail (cold call or not) with an email because some people prefer to return communications via email instead of phone. So I give them a choice. But to state, “I realize it is easier to press the reply key….” in your email? I’m not sold on that. Tone is often misunderstood in emails and this sentence can be read wrong too easily. What do you think?

Instead, I suggest that cold callers read this posting that provides 4 tips for cold calling from an inside sales rep that’s living it every day.

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Recession Proof Marketing

13 Mar

After reading Joanne’s post yesterday about recession proof selling, I saw this posting about recession proof marketing. Uh oh, it looks like almost everyone is agreeing we’re headed into a recession. (Unless you’re part of the tech industry in Boston, but I digress.)

Brian and Joanne both agree that one of the key areas to focus when economic times are tough is lead generation. Joanne gives her 5 tips for salespeople to improve lead generation through referrals. Brian tells marketers to, “…direct their budgets away from traditional awareness building campaigns that quickly eat up budget and instead expand and optimize lead generation programs that bring measurable results.” And he points to an IDC study that says that 80% of marketing expenditures on lead generation and collateral are wasted because the leads are ignored by sales people.

The Marketing department in a recession needs to focus on those tasks that generate valuable leads for the sales reps. So valuable that these leads are equal in value to the sales rep’s own lead generation through referrals.

Actually, marketing’s lead generation programs should be doing that even when times are booming!

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Get Productive, Drop Your P.I.T.A. Clients

27 Dec

We’ve all had a “PITA client”-perhaps more than one. (PITA stands for “pain in the a**.) A PITA will drain you, consume valuable resources, upset your team, squeeze you on price, pay slowly, and will never be satisfied with the results-even when you’ve agreed on the deliverables.

You know the warning signs. A PITA client will:

  • Nickel and dime you on price
  • Tell you they’re the decision makers when they’re not
  • Threaten you with your competitors
  • Make unreasonable demands, and expect fast, complete, and reliable delivery of your service
  • Not return phone calls

Talk about loss of productivity! PITAs are our biggest time wasters and they erode our profits. When we accept a PITA, it’s an opportunity cost-an opportunity lost to do business with our ideal clients. Yet companies continue to accept this bad business, all the while thinking it’s better than no business. But is it?

Sometimes it’s because we have a quota to meet, or our company insists we do a deal, or we think we can turn a bad situation into a good one. We’re dreaming. Bad business is bad business. Period.

Salespeople frequently say that they will sell to “anyone who fogs a mirror.” Avoid this kind of thinking. We shouldn’t target just “anyone.” “Anyone” all too frequently turns out to be the PITA customer.

Fire the PITA! Most of the time we can identify the PITA client before we even begin to work with them. Say no. It’s OK to walk away. In walking away from the PITA, you’ll have time to attract the kind of clients you really want, to do the work you love, and your productivity will soar!

Want more?
Listen to my podcast on Productivity on Salesopedia

Get the No More Cold Calling Self-Study Workbook

This self-study program equips you with referral strategies for finding clients who truly need your product or service.

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Where to start networking?

5 Dec

Everyone agrees that getting referrals to new prospects is so much better than cold calling down that long list that your company provided you. But how do you get started? John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame has put together a brief video primer on just this very topic. He focuses on

– defining your value proposition
– who you tell this to
– why you are asking for the referral

http://workbench.ducttapemarketing.com/kickapps/flash/premium_drop_v3.swf?b=1&widgetHost=workbench.ducttapemarketing.com&mediaType=VIDEO&mediaId=114181&as=10266

In principle I agree with how John suggests you get started even if it seems a bit pushy and low-tech. A vital part of any networking program is to ensure the people you want referrals from understand exactly what you do – ie your value proposition. Sure, your customers probably know that already but what about your friends, family and colleagues? Don’t bore them with a feature/benefit pitch – think of your elevator pitch that gets makes them chuckle and excited about telling other people about you. What do I tell people we do at Inquisix? “We’re matchmakers [pause] for salespeople!” Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling” announces, “I’m the Referral Queen!”What do you tell people so they’re remember you?

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Social Networking–Technology or People?

5 Nov

I attended the first-ever Corporate Social Network Design Council hosted by Visible Path on October 29th in San Francisco. The concept of social networking was explored. There are some interesting challenges, but the emergence of thousands of social networking sites proves again that people want to talk to other people. Whether they decide to share their personal contacts with their business contacts is another story.

Check out Jeremiah Owyang’s post here.

Social networks can help identify specific contacts, but once that is done, we need to build the relationship and earn the right for the referral. At the end of the day, it’s all about a referred introduction. When we get the introduction, we get the meeting. And that’s what we want.

Now it’s going to be easier and easier to develop social networks. As of November 1st, Google announced OpenSocial. In non-techie parlance, developers can now use OpenSocial to create applications that work on any social network.

Get ready for the ride!

Networking vs Not Working

19 Oct

Rick Roberge, a Sales Consultant with Dave Kurlan & Associates, spoke at this week’s New England Expo and invited me to join the audience. His topic was about “…how effective networking can begin the sales process with a warm prospect and avoid cold sales calls.” A very engaging speaker, Rick spoke for about an hour about networking, how to do it and why to do it. He provided numerous examples on the power of networking by encouraging the audience to network amongst themselves.

The most important idea that I brought away from his talk is the theory of the Giver’s Gain – you network to introduce new services to your customer so that your customer will remember and value you. You don’t network to help the person you just met!

By providing new and valuable services to your customer, you move from a transaction-based sales rep to consultant to trusted advisor and finally to the go-to resource. As Rick joked, you network to become the second speed-dial on your customer’s phone after their spouse.

Rick then walked-the-talk as he and I strolled the exhibit floor together for an hour while he introduced me to his customers and colleagues. And when I left, I had 20 business cards in my pocket of people he introduced me to that wanted follow up.

And so I’ll close with the second most important idea from Rick’s talk – follow up with those introductions you just made! So I’m getting on the phone….

Personal SFA tool – Outlook!?!

21 Sep

Outlook is the ubiquitous sales tool for sales people. Our companies may offer us salesforce.com or Siebel or Goldmine or a home grown system but Outlook (for better or worse) remains the constant. I keep my contacts, to-do’s and calendar events synchronized between the corporate SFA system, Outlook and my cell/PDA.

In Outlook, I create folders for each customer, prospect and partner. I also create folders for internal things like engineering, legal, corporate, competition. Then, as I communicate, I put the correspondence in the appropriate folder. Emails that need follow-up I mark as unread until they’re completed. Or I’ll leave those emails in my inbox until they’re complete. I can also create to-do’s easily from within contacts. All my email templates are also inside Outlook. Now how about quoting & forecasting?

Some of the additional products to consider using to enhance Outlook include –

* Mapilab offers multiple Outlook add-in’s at very reasonable prices. I especially like their ability to send bulk emails & mail merges from w/in Outlook. They have great solutions for the do-it-yourself sales rep or the small business owner.

* Many SFA systems synchronize with Outlook but only a few are part of Outlook. One of the non-Microsoft ones that comes to mind is Avidian’s Prophet – I’ve tried it but don’t use it currently.

* And for Outlook help, tips & tricks – try slipstick. This site was just recommended to me by Stephen Roy from inside LinkedIn and has already saved me hours of frustration – thanks Stephen!

It’s the community not the application

19 Sep

I enjoyed reading a posting from Brian Carroll, a fellow blogger in the B2B lead generation and sales effectiveness space. The recent posting discusses Lead Management and the challenges in effectively generating leads and measuring program effectiveness, especially as marketing transfers leads to sales.

Towards the end of the post he comments, “It’s certainly is not easy, so start with the mindset that lead management is a process and make that process as simple a possible. Don’t forget that software does NOT create collaboration.”

Dave and I are in complete agreement with this. From Dave’s experience as a CTO at a social networking site, he’s always telling me, “It’s the community that matters, not the product, we just facilitate it.” And I nod my head in agreement. I’ve been the sales liaison at several companies for their new SFA initiative. Although I’m the sales manager, I’d argue that the system first needed to support the rep’s daily activities – calling, to-do’s, calendar, quoting and forecasting. Once reps adopted the SFA system, then management’s wish list could be implemented. Otherwise, the reps would not adopt the software and we’d all be frustrated that the software did not improve productivity.

So as Inquisix gets closer to beta rollout (email me at msk at inquisix dot com if you’re interested in an invitation) we continue to remind ourselves that it’s YOU and the community that makes Inquisix worth using.

No Wires. No Hands. All Business.

4 Sep

That’s the tagline for the on-the-go sales person’s dream – a wireless headset that works with your landline phone, cell phone and Skype account. Finally – the one headset that will work with all of my phones. Now I don’t have to have one headset over my left ear and another over my right ear.

Plantronics Phone

I’m a big proponent of the selling tip – “When on the phone, always stand up and use a headset to talk to customers/prospects.” Why? Simply because by standing up and letting your hands move freely, your voice tone and quality change dramatically for the better. Since the person on the other line can’t see you, there’s no way for you to use your body language to communicate your excitement for the solution you’re selling. So instead of utilizing several methods to communicate, you only have your voice when making a telephone call. And your voice will come across much stronger and vibrant when you are standing and gesturing.

Years ago when I was a telesales manager at Sybase we demonstrated this tip to the team. We put each person in front of a video camera. We had them sit down, pick up the phone and make a prospect call while we video taped them. Next, we gave them a headset, told them to stand up and make another call. Then the telesales rep could watch their videos and see the dramatic difference. Every one of them came away convinced.

Try it yourself – use your web cam to video yourself making calls sitting in front of your monitor and then making calls while standing and gesturing. Share the results as a video link in the comments section. Maybe the tag line should be “No Wires. All Hands. All Business.“

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