Bill Rice Internet Marketing > bill rice

Using Social Media to Prep Your Next Sales Call

January 16, 2012 By 1 Comment

Getting your prospect to listen to your first sales call can be a matter of 1-3 seconds.

Success in this first 1-3 seconds is often the result of making some sort of personal connection–you voice, location, common interest–something that makes you seem human and interested in the person you called.

Unfortunately, you are typically calling a complete stranger and that makes it hard to personally connect that fast. Unless you use the power of social media to warm up that relationship.

Here are a few of my suggestions…

What do you think? Do you have proven ways to warm up your sales calls? Leave a comment, we’ll talk about it.

Filed Under: Quick Sales Tips Tagged With: bill rice, Social Media, Social Selling

Stop Hiding Your Damn Phone Number and Email

November 2, 2010 By
Bill Rice - bill@bettercloser.com - 734.775.4487

Contact Bill Rice - BetterCloser.com

Are you in sales or what?

Then why are you making it so hard for people to get in touch with you?

I see this over and over again.

Here are 7 common ways I see sales people turning away leads:

  1. No phone number in their email signature
  2. Not giving prospects their cell phone
  3. No sales landing page (website, blog, sales page, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.)
  4. Sales landing page doesn’t have a phone number (front page, top right)
  5. Sales landing page doesn’t have an email, in addition to contact form (front page)
  6. Contact form is hidden or only lives on the Contact page (front page)
  7. Captcha (evil, impossible to read Captcha) on the contact form

Decide right now. Are you in sales or not?

If you’re IN, make it (crazy) easy to connect with you.

Oh, by the way you can reach out to me by calling 734.775.4487 or email me at bill@bettercloser.com, but you already knew that.

Filed Under: Lead Generation Tagged With: bill rice, email, Lead Generation, phone

10 Mistakes Sales People Make Online

November 1, 2010 By

Doing a Little Social Selling at Our Favorite Pie Place

Doing a Little Social Selling at Our Favorite Pie Place

1. They talk/write about selling. This is a big sales killer (and waste of time). Yet, I see it all the time. Seriously, unless you are a sales coach, trainer, or somehow make money from TEACHING sales—don’t do this. You annoying your prospects and educate your competitors.

2. They collect, friend, follow sales people. Goes hand and hand with number one. It’s okay to monitor and collect intelligence on your competitors, but don’t make this your audience.

3. They talk about their product. You’re customers don’t care about your product, even the ones that buy. They want to know about you (BTW, this doesn’t mean what you ate for dinner or did in Vegas). They want to know how you are helping people like them succeed. Talk about this.

4. They don’t prospect. Oh my gosh! This is a ridiculous, but consistent mistake. I make a lot of money off this mistake. People will come to me a say, “Bill I’m having a hard time prospecting.” I will open up a browser, go to Google.com, Twitter, or Linkedin.com (doesn’t matter which), and I can guarantee in 1-3 searches I can find 10+ people to call. Not anonymous names and phone numbers, but people that are in the market.

5. They don’t use what prospects give them. Social media it the world’s largest sales database. Everyday millions of people shout out in pain, reveal who they buy from, what they buy, what they need to buy next, and their preferred way to be pitched and contacted. Seriously, pay attention!

6. They don’t scout the competition. Social media is a double edged sword, but don’t worry about it your competition is lazy and won’t do this. Scout, snoop, collect information on your competitive sales people. Identify them, follow them, beat them!

7. They don’t reference the competition. If your competition is worth anything or your prospect is the least bit diligent, they are or will be talking to your competition. Acknowledge it. Set trap doors. Don’t talk bad about them, but you know where they are weak so make sure you emphasize your counter-strengths to each weakness. The next time your prospect talks to your competitor, you’re prospect will question your competitor into the hem and haw shuffle.

8. They don’t know about thought leaders. This is another big credibility killer. Your prospect is trying to make a decision about spending money, investing in you. Chances are good that they are doing a reasonable amount of due diligence. In this day and age that means a Google search. What will they find? Make sure you do this kind of search regularly. Who shows up? These are the thought leaders.

9. They don’t know thought leaders. Assuming these aren’t your competitors, and there is a very good chance they’re not, reach out to them. Read their stuff, analyze it, weave it into your sales pitch. If you really want to be powerful—meet them (in person). The jackpot? They might start referencing you.

10. They don’t cite thought leaders. See mistake #9. Weave these people and their perspective into your sales pitch. You don’t have to agree with everything they say, but you do need to acknowledge it and reference it. It builds trust and reliance on you as the “big picture” expert.

Bonus: They aren’t thought leaders! The best sales people ARE the EXPERTS. Write, present, speak. Be the first person and the most frequent person your customers run into when they are doing due diligence.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Selling Tagged With: bill rice, joe-lobsinger, Social Selling, social selling, thought-leader

Have You Signed Up for My Newsletter?

May 12, 2010 By

Nick MartiniIt’s different from the blog. It’s only weekly. It’s endorsed by Nick Martini (@nick_martini), see the smiling endorsement in the picture. Okay, full disclosure: He works for me. But, I’m certain you’ll give it the same smiling thumbs up.

Most importantly, the content is exclusive (increasingly so) to the newsletter. If you’re just reading the blog you may miss a few things. I’m not going to slight you here on the blog. However, if you want to come behind the scenes and get some of the exclusive insights you’ll need to sign-up in that form to the right or just below.

In the future, this is where I intend to release my newest thoughts and ideas on social media for sales. That means new projects, tools, and presentations. I’ll be routinely asking for your thoughts and opinions.

In email, we can dig into the details and you can reply directly to me with thoughts and questions.

Does this sound interesting? Sign-up. I’d love to have you join me.

P.S., When you sign-up you will get my Black Ops Guide to Social Selling. Fun read and a very different perspective on sales targeting.

P.S.S., I almost forgot. Next Tuesday (5/18/2010) I’m releasing, exclusive to the newsletter, a special report on how I use Linkedin.com as a lead generation tool–attracting sales prospects with your Linkedin profile.

(Connect to me on Linkedin and see if you spot some of my tricks)

Filed Under: Social Selling Tagged With: bill rice, newsletter, Social Media, Social Selling

Books I Want to Write

December 11, 2009 By

Acknowledgement: This post is inspired by Chris Brogan’s hugely helpful 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write. I recommend you bookmarking this and grabbing a topic the next time you are short of blogging ideas.

Intelligence 2.0

Why Think About Writing a Book?

I have always wanted to write a book, or two.

Unfortunately, it always seems that I am on a treadmill that is set just a step too fast. You see I have had a long-term addiction to start-ups. That means I am usually in the mode of getting things up, running, and profitable. Then I have a tendency to get bored and move to the next challenge.

However, over the last five years things have changed a bit. I bootstrapped my own start-up, which put a lot more skin in the game–my money, my family, my people (second families), my company. It is sort of my legacy and the passion is sticking. That means two important things for a potential book:

  • I have a bit more free allocated time to write the book
  • I have learned a ton and made many mistakes that are sure to be valuable

With the motivation explained and the creative juices flowing, let’s take a look…

Bill Rice’s Book Ideas

Here are a few ideas for books I want to write (and why):

  1. Black Ops Guide to Internet Marketing Strategy - Having spent my early career in the Air Force as a Counterintelligence Case Officer I have a grand appreciation for tradecraft and motivating covert (but impactful) behavior.Internet Marketing is not such a different affair. We are still dealing with humans, motivation, and behavior. And most interestingly, there are little tradecraft secrets that we don’t really talk about. Things that work, but sound a little dark and sinister when said out loud. I would love to compile this sure to be powerful guide to Internet Marketing.
  2. Competitive Intelligence 2.0: Using Social Media to Eavesdrop on the Competition - This is a little of life coming full circle. Kaleidico has been taken deep into the Competitive Intelligence realm by our sales, marketing, and now PR clients. Again, the counterintelligence background comes in handy, only the targets I snoop on have changed.The open and increasingly social Web is enabling the consumer to get closer and closer to the brands they buy. Meanwhile, the companies increasingly are embracing the reduction in buying friction and free promotion it often brings. However, the same social infrastructure is leaking company intentions, strategy, and talent like crazy. Smart competitors are learning how to use this opportunity to get stronger.
  3. Social Media for Sales: Getting Your Sales Team to Engage - Boy, have I seen how hard this is to do. Sales people are either taking this strategy on their own initiative and working through the hard knocks, or simply losing opportunities. The tools are not perfect and there is a steep learning curve. I know to take a lot of the steepness out of that curve with some very specific tools and processes I have refined.
  4. How to Integrate Social Media and Web 2.0 into the Classroom - This one is a bit more personal and would be a research project. Personal because I have three kids, from elementary to middle school. Personal because they are getting little or no introduction to these skills that are going to be critical to them competing in the global economy. And, a research project because I am not sure there are many examples.All the same, as a Trustee on a Public School Board I know this is important to start working on sooner than later.
  5. When the Market Changes, What Do You Do with Your Business? - This is another very personal one, but sure to be a hit with many entrepreneurs. Seth Godin introduces this a bit in his book The Dip.I want to take it a step further and talk about recreating your business when the market changes, or in my case (mortgage sales software) literally goes away overnight. There is nothing quite like 75% of your revenue sending you bankruptcy notices inside of payments, in a single month–ice water on the back.

    What do you do?

What do you think? Which book(s) would you buy and why? I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

Filed Under: Reading List Tagged With: bill rice, book deal, books, writing

Twitter, Your Latest Sales and Marketing Tool

May 6, 2008 By

Have you heard of Twitter? Chances are you haven’t, but everyday I see more and more loan officers and realtors pop into Twitterland. So, chances are your competitors have.

I may do a more complete post on what it is and how to use it effectively in your mortgage business and as a part of your mortgage marketing, but until then listen to my discussion with Owen Raun, of RMC Vanguard about Twitter.

And, of course get an account and follow me. This has become the fast beeline to a conversation with me. I love creating discussions and learning from my colleagues in this forum. Join me!

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Social Selling Tagged With: bill rice, mortgage business, mortgage marketing, twitter
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