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Tweet This- A Regular Sales Guy's View on How Social Marketing Sells!
| Guest post by: Brian Sullivan |
Article Overview: This article is designed to teach a regular salesperson how social networking can lead to more prospects and more sales. And it's not written for Nerds!
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Free Download - Are They Nodding? - Medical Sales Training By Brian Sullivan |
Tweet This- A Regular Sales Guy's View on How Social Marketing Sells!
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So are you sick of hearing about it yet? Social media,
social networking, Web 3.0? Can’t we just leave that stuff up to the marketing
guys and let us just do our job? Like many, my early thoughts about this new
“connected” world ranged from skepticism to trashing, but I realized that if I
was to effectively “diss” it, I would at least have to better understand what
the buzz was all about. I am now only several weeks into my social experiment
and I must report…I’m beginning to break. Trust me, I’m not happy about it. I
mean, what am I going to say now to all my fellow regular sales guys at the
next sales meeting cocktail party while they all sit around mocking all those
nerdy “tweeterers.” What am I becoming? For now, my intention is to lay low.
But this doesn’t mean I can’t share my “schooling” with you.
So here are the early results. Let’s first start with my
original concerns about social networking:
Before: Tweeting and Facebooking (I think that’s a verb now)
is a Time Waste- Do people really
care that what the hell I just ate for lunch? Do they really need to know that
it’s a gloomy day in Kansas City? That the color yellow makes me sad?
After: They may not care about meals, weather and colors, but
they DO care about something I just learned that can make them more effective
at work or at home. Perhaps by posting cutting edge industry trends, changes in
the marketplace or a quicker way to do something, they may actually look
forward to hearing from me. They may even get used to it. Perhaps miss me when
I’m not there!
Before: It’s a
company’s job to spread the corporate image and deliver product information to
the marketplace.
After: With so
many products and services looking, performing and priced the same, perhaps one
of the only differentiators in the sale is…YOU. So maybe we need to begin
marketing ourselves with these tools. Isn’t Facebook just a personal webpage
that tells people (including prospects and customers), what we are all about? So
why don’t I turn it into a living brochure that informs others just how smart I
am and how I am NOT like the other sales guys.
Before: Do people really care what I think? What ever
happened to humility in sales? I am not a self-promoter. My performance will do
the talking.
After: Get over it! Self-promotion is a GOOD thing. But only
if you want to, well, get PROMOTED in your career. If your competition is
getting more attention because they are more visible, then your humility is
doing nothing to advance your business.
Before: I don’t want my competition to know what I am up to?
I am “stealthy” and I like it that way.
After: Yea, your so “stealthy” that your customers and
marketplace don’t even know you exist. So let the world know how hard you are
working at making your customers better. Hide nothing. Share your thoughts, an
idea that saved a customer time, an example of how your company made somebody’s
life easier, etc
Before: If I get into this stuff, I might lose focus and be
tweeting every five minutes.
After: Maybe I am not as weak as I thought. By setting aside
specific times each day to post something valuable, I am actually touching more
customers than I would with a cold call. And it is NOT making me less
productive.
Before: I communicate enough with my customers and fully
understand how they feel about me and my company.
After: WRONG. In fact, while working with a recent corporate
client we did a search of their company name on Twitter. The CEO was SHOCKED
when he saw an unhappy customer had posted to his list of over 1000 followers
just how bad their service was. We also learned about a website called
Groubal.com that let’s unhappy customers share their service horrors. Does that
CEO still think Twitter is worthless? He immediately signed up for an account
and offered to make things right with the customer. By tweeting, he not only
made things right, but the customer was amazed the CEO cared so much. BINGO!
Before: There are enough research tools for me to understand
my customers and industry. This stuff is overkill.
After: By doing a Twitter keyword search on a any topic
including the name of a hospital you will get up to date information that comes
not only from the PR department but from some fellow Tweeters in the building.
That’s what you call intelligence.
Before: You can’t get sales leads on Twitter.
After: Hell yes you can. As I write this article, I just
typed in “Audiometer” to see what a regular sales guy can find. (1 minute
later)
Tweet
This is a
request for quotation for the following items: ACS 100 Audiometer and
calibration system, Manufacturing. Due date 2011-02-02. (link provided)
How many cold calls would it take to find THIS out?
Before: Don’t people have to sign up to follow you? It’s
going to take three years before I have enough followers to make my tips and
knowledge worth spreading.
After: I now use software that allows me to TARGET specific
prospects. For instance, I just typed in “Physician” and the software found
2517 physicians who I can “follow.” Good news is, when we follow people, they
often follow us back. We now have a captive and targeted audience to share our
message with. (If you want to know more about the software, drop me an email at
bsullivan@preciseselling.com
and I will give you the secret. It’s pretty cool.)
So that’s what I have so far. And there is so much more I
can share but I’ve run out of time. While typing away with this article, FIVE
new followers joined my team. It would be rude of me not to share with them
some tip that they would find value in. Oh, and if they like what I have to
say, they just might like me enough to issue a purchase order or flash a credit
card for the products and services that I DON’T give away. And if that’s what
social marketing means to a Regular Sales Guy, count me in. I can hardly wait
to tell the fellas.
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"Learn How To Become A Better Tweeter in Twitter" by Jiri Majkus
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Before You Dismiss Twitter
How To Use Twitter Made Easy
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About the Author: Brian Sullivan RSS for Brian's articles - Visit Brian's website Click here to visit Brian's website   Leave Your Mark Medical Sales Training How a Humble Man Did His Job With PRIDE Thanksgiving Day is a Jewel Fix the Roof Medical Sales Training Shut Up and Listen |
Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional
- [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan,
I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz]
I second the request...
Re: Subscribe to Your Category
- Hi guys - since I'm interested in posts from every category here's what I do:
When you log into the forums, on the home page at the top you'll see:
View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • View active topics
I just click through the "View unread posts" so I'm sure not to miss anything new.
Re: Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category?
- Hi Kevin,
Like GT suggested, I also think you can add Internet Marketing as a sub category in the Marketing section and also a Social marketing as subcategory.
Online marketing/internet marketing/online promotion are the same, and it will be best to use the common term - Internet marketing.
I can't think about someone to moderate a Social Marketing category. We all use it, we all know how to make it work and we all have our own different experience with it.
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f
- Hi,
Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few,
great looking site btw Jeff,
take care,
Carol
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