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How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Sales

July 26, 2010 By Bill Rice

Social Media & Sales Fuel

Really social media isn’t so different from the skills you use daily to sell. The anxiety comes with learning to use those skills in a new environment. For many of us in sales, technology beyond our cell phones and email is a bit intimidating. However, if you straight arm social media you are giving up opportunity in your sale pipeline.

Social Media 101 for Sales

The name itself makes social media sound like a marketing thing, but rest assured its more like a telephone–definitely a sales thing. The difference? Marketing is good at blasting and broadcasting. Sales is good at connecting and having conversations.

Social media is about good conversations.

So, lets start with the mind-set that social media is for sales. And we are going to use it like any other sales tool. We’re going to learn it, exploit it, and generate as many good conversations as possible.

Here are the basic social media tools sales people should learn:

Linkedin - More than a resume, this social network is full of information on prospects and competitive intelligence. Plugging in and connecting your existing database of contacts will certainly reveal previously unknown connections and relationship, ready to be leveraged.

Facebook - Don’t underestimate this as simply a venue for neighborhood busy-bodies and teenagers. Facebook is increasingly becoming the primary destination of a large percentage of the Internet community. Although it is not a big player on the business front it will be–get acquainted now.

Twitter - Often described as micro-blogging or instant messaging on steroid, Twitter is a powerful tool for collecting competitive intelligence, sniffing out opportunities, and breaking through corporate firewalls (i.e., voice mail, email, and other gatekeepers).

Blogs - They’ve been around for years now, but they are still great ways to get closer to influencers in your market. Everyone reads them, your customers trust them, you’re smart to meet these important online publishers–they can help you land deals.

How Social Media Works

Think of social media as a blend between a contact database and a CRM system. If used correctly it will feed you a steady stream of news and updates that are important to your prospects.

Most social media tools immediately ask you to load in your contacts (i.e., from Outlook, GMail, or other email address book). This gives you a head start on find who in your sales database or prospect list is already actively participating in social media.

I guarantee you will be surprised.

Once you have your contacts loaded a few minutes a day reviewing Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter will give you more than enough inspiration and opportunity for calling on these folks. Taking it to an advanced level you can use the tool itself to engage and interact with these folks–commenting and promoting their own agendas and credibility in the social media channel.

Very possibly you will see opportunities to help these sales prospects advance their own objectives. Can you introduce them to people they want to meet? Can you help them with advice or expertise before you even discuss a sale? Can you help increase their standing or credibility in their industry or peer group?

Searching Social Media Content

Finding sales opportunities in the sea of disconnected social media tools and networks used to be complex. Not so anymore. A little time spent practicing with Google Advanced Search can bring you all the sales leads you can possibly work. However, you do need to practice and refine your social media search techniques.

Start by thinking like a customer, not a sales person. Stop using your language and use theirs to develop your searches. Think through the characteristics of your ideal sales lead.

Here are some ideas to fuel your quest for opportunity, search for:

Competitor’s names, products, and sales people
Common problems your product solves
Frequently asked questions you get on sales calls
The names of influencers in your industry or market

Creating these simple searches and then toggling between Google’s News, Blogs, Updates, and Discussions searches will bring you a 360 degree view of your sales opportunities and angles.

Give social media a try in your sales process.

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of using social media as a sales professional?

Filed Under: Social Media, Social Selling Tagged With: facebook, linkedin, marketing, Social Media, Social network, Social Selling

7 Reasons Social Media is for Sales Too

July 21, 2010 By Bill Rice

Social Media Sales

So, you’ve finally heard enough about social media. You’re to the point you actually think you might be missing something. You might even be hearing whisperings around the sales floor that this might be some of the top producers’ secret weapon to grab a few extra wins every month.

I’m glad you took the initiative to be here. We’re going to do a little equalizing.

You’re going to learn some of the basics of social medias. However, much more importantly we’re going to show you how to get value from it immediately–long before you’re a guru.

Why Try Social Media?

Okay, not quite convinced this is going to be worth your time to figure out? Let take a little walk down memory lane and talk about sales history.

Back in the day it all started with carrying a bag and walking door to door, getting a foot in the door, showcasing the product, and selling belly-to-belly at the kitchen table. (Notice all of our cliches come from old school sales).

Then things changed a bit. We started to send sales letters, picked up the telephone for a little cold calling, and blasted a few emails to stay top of mind. That’s right took a few marketing tricks to help us cover our prospects and sales pipeline a little more thoroughly and efficiently.

Social media is the next trick for personal lead generation. Think of it as the new telephone and the email of the future. Believe it or not surveys show that youngsters under 20 never use email–it’s Facebook or text message if you want to pull their chain.

7 Reasons Sales Should Be Using Social Media

Enough coaxing, you either want to learn this or you don’t. Here are 7 specific ways social media is going to immediately improve your sales process:

1. People hang out on social media - The fact of the matter is that millions of people are now congregating on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and hundreds of other social networking sites to stay connected and share ideas. If you’re in sales, why would you hang out on the Internet alone? (It’s kinda like eating alone).

2. Social media is stitch the fabric of referral networks – In the real (physical) world it is really hard to refer business. When someone hears a friends ask, “Do you know a good…” You have to recall the name of the great person you used, search around for a crumpled business card or a scribbled down number, and then you need to get it back to the person who asked the question. Most often these referrals don’t happen–in social media these friend just search the profiles of their Facebook friends and connect to the expert.

3. Trust is already inherent in social networking - Normally when we find people on the Internet or and advertisement for a service we start skeptical. Will they treat me right? Do they care about my business? Will they screw me over? There’s none of that in social media. If you’re in my social network and my friends vouch for you–that’s good enough to get started.

4. You can spot opportunities without cold calling – Cold calling is hard work. You have to break through the firewall and then start peppering the prospect with questions to see if there is a fit. Incorporating social media into your sales process lets you do most of the pre-qualification of a lead long before any call is made or email sent. Just read their profile and content. Is there a reason to do business, or not?

5. If you’re connected referring you is much easier – Outside of social networks you rarely refer someone you’ve never used. It’s too much of a risk and you probably don’t even know about these people and their services, unless it pops up in a random conversation with friends. However in social media you can search for great people to refer by seeing who your friends are endorsing, referring, and raving about. So, there are many times with social media you may get a referrals and endorsement from people you’re never even met.

6. Social media makes finding the right angle a snap – Starting a conversation is the hardest part of sales. What will trip their trigger? What is their burning objective right now? How can I make them a hero in their own company? These are the questions we love to know the answer to–they makes getting an executive’s ear easier. Interestingly enough managers and executives talk about these things all the time in their social networks, using them like advisory networks. And it’s all there for you to read and plan the perfect angle of attack.

7. You are going to find ins you never thought you had - Here’s my favorite. One of the first step in signing up with a social media or networking website is to automatically load in your address book. You will be floored by how many of your friends, colleagues, and prospects are already in the social media channel–instant ins and referral networks.

As you can see social media is not necessarily about engaging and Twittering all day. It’s about observing, listening, and searching for folks that need your products and services.

Then you can use all the user-generated chatter to guide you in the right approach to doing some of your traditional sales stuff–like cold calling, emailing, or even belly-to-belly selling.

Sales is Personal, Why Isn’t Your Lead Generation? (bettercloser.com)
Have You Signed Up for My Newsletter? (bettercloser.com)

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media, Social Selling Tagged With: facebook, linkedin, marketing, Social Media, Social network, twitter

Sales is Personal, Why Isn’t Your Lead Generation?

July 15, 2010 By Bill Rice

I always think it odd how disconnected most sales people are from marketing. In most cases we sit back and wait for (hope for) marketing to feed us leads. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been comfortable trusting my sale number that completely to anyone.

I’ve also thought sales leads generated by marketing are often some of the hardest to convert. Most of my big sales have come from referrals or people asking for me by name.

Good Sales is Personal, Conversational

So, after looking at all this (highly scientific) data I come to an interesting revelation–selling is personal. Your customers value the personal touch and familiarity as much as you do. No one wants to be tossed into the sales blender. They would much prefer the insider treatment.

Think about it…Isn’t this why you ask your friends and neighbors for their mortgage broker, plumber, tax expert, or (insert other) person. We’re always trying to find someone who knows someone in the business.

We, in sales, like this too. There’s nothing better than getting a call for Bobby or Susie and hearing, “I gotta a friend who’s looking for someone in the (blank) business.” You know you have at the very least an easy sales call ahead. No need to rehearse your cold call intro or how to hook their interest–they’re expecting you.

What’s more, conversations that start on a first name basis dramatically increase the probaility f closing the deal.

The Best Lead Generation is Personal Too

Why are you relying on marketing to pump you full of impersonal sales leads?

It time to get off the sidelines and make lead generation personal. There are lots of ways to get you and your value proposition out there. Pick one or two channels and perfect your attraction strategy.

Start with what you sell and think about what makes your customer the most comfortable opening up a conversation. Usually this requires some level of education and trust.

This is why social media, social networking, or a blog can be a perfect personal lead generation platform. And the good news–none of these options take a lot of technical know-how any more.

Personal Lead Generation Tools

We’ll talk more about strategy and tactics in upcoming personal lead generation articles. For now (if you haven’t already) I want you to dig into these specific tools.

Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Blogging

You’re first reaction might be to think there isn’t much to dig into, after all you probably already have accounts or maybe even a blog. Here’s the twist I want you to noodle on until my next post:

Who are the people you’re most familiar with in each of these venues?
Why are you so aware of them? What did they do to get your attention?
What do they do? What is their expertise?
How do they spend their time in these channels? What’s their angle/objective?
What seems to work and what doesn’t in attracting fans?
Who seems to be able to rally the community or start trends?

Save these notes. I’d love to see some of them in the comments below. We’ll use them soon.

Bettercloser.com - Personal Lead Generation

Filed Under: Lead Generation Tagged With: facebook, Handshake, marketing, Social Media, twitter

Social Media Engagement Starts with Monitoring

March 23, 2010 By Bill Rice

There is lots of talk in marketing and PR circles about how important social media engagement is. The experts are telling us to get involved with our customers. Interact with customers. Engage customers for ideas and feedback. Participate with them as they experience your products and services.

That sounds good, but you are probably asking: How do I find them? Then how do I connect with them? And finally how do I speak their language?

All simple, logical, and often ignored questions. Interestingly enough they all have the same answer–social media monitoring. Do you have a plan to find and monitor your target?

Find Your Community

It is hard to have a conversation anywhere, online or offline, without having someone to talk to. Social media and social networks are full of people. But, randomly talking to people isn’t very interesting or rewarding. You need to find people like yourself or interested in your expertise.

Finding your community starts with monitoring various social networks (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) and finding out where your people hang-out.

Start Monitoring Social Networks

Tapping into and monitoring these networks can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Here are a few of the most popular:

1. Join the social network. Most social media website require you to join to listen in. And social media works best if you are participating, not just lurking, anyway.

2. Find a way to aggregate your social networks. Google (RSS) Reader, Browser bookmarks, Delicious, and FriendFeed are some of the popular ways I use to aggregate some of my favorite social websites and conversations. The king of social Web aggregation though is RSS. You should learn more if you want to really monitor social media well.

3. Use a professional social media monitoring tool. This is the most efficient way to pull in all the available social media venues and layers in good noise filtering and keyword monitoring.

Listening Makes Engaging Simple

Really the end-game in all of this monitoring is to make your engagement more effective. Regardless of whether you are selling something, learning something, or buying something listening first will make your engagement more effective.

Ultimately, your time online and in social media has some goal or objective. If you begin your strategy with a good monitoring plan you are going to be better prepared–smarter about your audience and the opportunity. Getting you to your objective faster and more efficiently.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: facebook, linkedin, monitoring, Social Media, twitter, youtube

Black Ops Social Media Marketing

March 4, 2010 By Bill Rice

Important Note: There is a more in-depth e-book that I wrote (after the response to this post) on my Black Ops approach to Social Media Marketing and Sales. It’s FREE, but only available when you sign-up for the Better Closer Newsletter. It’s a low volume newsletter, but always packed with something a little less mainstream that always gets results. Subscribe now and I’ll send Black Ops Social Media Marketing to you right away.

Black Ops Social Media Marketing and Sales

I just finished up the latest book in the Jason Bourne series, Bourne Deception. I love the action and intrigue of a good spy thriller. It pulls me back to my early days in the intelligence community…

Okay, maybe not quite the same–I never had to kill quite so many people to accomplish my objectives. However, it did get my creative thoughts going on how similar our “tradecraft” was to savvy social networking and marketing.

That’s right I spent quite a few years in the Air Force and later in a boutique consulting firm in Washington DC practicing the fine art of Information Warfare. This experience taught me a lot about motivating people to help you meet your own objectives.

I have a few quick thoughts that may be useful in applying these methodologies to your social media marketing strategy.

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