On a recent webinar with Renee Walkup, we were discussing ways to get people to return our telephone calls. The answer is pretty simple really. Consistently get back on the telephone. Yet, surprisingly, many people will often give up after just one or two calls. I’ve met countless people who complain that they never receive a call back and when I dig deeper, I discover they called their prospect just once. Really? Frankly, it can take as many as 7, 10 or 15 calls just to connect with someone. Given how pressured people are in business these days, that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is why people give up so easily.

Using the telephone as a component of your social sales process is often forgotten these days. In my opinion, too many people with something to sell are hiding behind email. Just this morning, I received a sales pitch from someone that I don’t know. We happen to share a LinkedIn group, but beyond that I have no idea who they are. Still, I’m receiving their sales pitch as the very first connection with me, not to mention that their message was all about them. So what? What’s in it for me? This spam approach is a surefire way to lose a sales opportunity before it even begins. I’m not sure if “phone phobia” is about fear of rejection or because someone thinks that sending a mass email is easier than picking up the phone. But in my experience, once you have a qualified lead (I emphasize qualified) in hand, using the telephone is a great way to move the sales process forward more quickly.

Let’s face it, sales success is about follow up and follow up is tough. As I write this post, I’m staring at a stack of business cards that are screaming at me to connect with the people I’ve met this last week who expressed interest in my services. So, I get it, especially if you are a smaller business where most of the hats are being worn by you.

Here are 3 things that you need to accept about the sales process; otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy.

1. People are busy. Your prospect has their own work to tend to. It’s not personal, and it is your job to stick with it. Follow up and remaining visible are critical.
2. You aren’t the only game in town. Hate to put it so bluntly, but all of us have competition and they are just as hungry for the deal as you are. Remember that you need to find ways to stand out – be memorable. By the way, your competitors are probably giving up pretty quickly themselves. If you don’t – you have the edge!
3. A sale rarely happens immediately after a first meeting. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. Building a relationship takes some time.

Let me put it into perspective…

In Dan McDade’s book, The Truth About Leads, he points out that 45% of “qualified” leads will close within a year. He goes on to say that:

• 10% will close in 3 months
• another 16% in 6 months
• another 19% within the year

That suggests a big sales problem if you are giving up after a couple of phone calls. I find that it’s a delicate balance between closing business now and nurturing the sales potential that won’t close until later down the road.

Look at it this way…if you give up too quickly, you are guaranteed not to close the sale. What have you got to lose by continuing to stay in touch?

Today, I’ve got my social sales evangelism hat on, because I sometimes forget that not everyone sees the value in using new technology to augment their sales process. Though by now it’s pretty obvious that social media is here to stay, there continues to be debate about whether or not the use of social media can actually have any impact on your sales. Many sales professionals still view the use of social media as either something that “the kids” are using, or they believe that the use of social media has no real role to play in the sales process. Unfortunately, these attitudes cause many folks to completely ignore the opportunity that social technologies offer them. That, in my opinion, is a shame.

Let’s do away with the first myth right now…that social media is just a kid’s thing.

As you might expect, this sentiment is most often expressed by the boomer generation who’ve not quite accepted that social goes way beyond their kid’s texting about the concert they attended last night. Yes, the younger set has grown up digital, so it’s more natural for them to use Facebook or Twitter to keep up with their social networks. But as evidenced by the skyrocketing growth of LinkedIn, more than 90 million business professionals are using LinkedIn as a viable medium for networking with potential buyers, referral partners and current customers. In fact, did you know that roughly 70% of those LinkedIn users are decision makers? In other words, these are the people who can buy your products and services. Now, it is true that far too many LinkedIn users aren’t using the technology as effectively as they could be, but that’s a subject for another post.

What about the mistaken belief that social media has no role to play in sales?

After hundreds of conversations with business owners and sales executives, I think one main reason many sales people resist using social technology is because they have unrealistic expectations about what social media can do for them. A LinkedIn profile today doesn’t mean an immediate sale tomorrow. Frankly, that’s just as unrealistic as thinking you’ll meet someone tonight at a networking event and by morning will have a deal. The value of social media is about increased exposure with a wider audience of people who can buy from you. I like to say that just because you have something to sell, it doesn’t mean that your prospect is ready to buy. If you aren’t visible in the social space, it’s not likely that your name will rise to the top of potential vendors when the time comes.

Remember…

Your prospects have far more options than ever before. They also spend a fair amount of time gathering information online. It’s cool if you don’t feel the need to have presence in the social space, but your savvy competitors are no doubt there. Are you sure that’s a risk you are willing to take?

What a great webinar session I held today with our guest expert, Peggy Duncan. Though I’m a bit of a tech dweeb myself, I picked up some great tips, which I plan to implement immediately. In fact, I’ve already put a few of Peggy’s suggestions into action. Since it was such a power packed presentation, I thought that I would summarize some of her key points. You’ll find a list of the “technology” suggestions listed at the bottom with links to their sites.

• Benefits include: boosting your search engine rankings (SEO), building your brand and providing another way to reach the masses. These things translate into building credibility, loyalty and increased sales.




• Email is still a very viable marketing vehicle and should be an integral part of your overall social media strategy.  And on that note, remember that your social media plan can also incorporate things like blogging, webinars, video, as well as using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.




• Always remember to provide compelling information that not only showcases your core expertise, but creates value in advance of the sales opportunity. You always want to give people a reason to keep coming back to your blog or sign up for your email list.




• Write for people. Every day things are happening in your business world that can become a great blog post. As an example, as I’m summarizing the webinar information from our session today, I now have a blog post.




• What if I’m not a writer? Hire someone to help you. If you are better verbally, get a tape recorder to record your thoughts and then type them up. Also consider a service like www.jott.com for both recording and transcribing. Plus, the service will help push out your messages through your social sites.




• When you are getting started, consider setting up a “hosted” WordPress blog from the beginning. You can host with companies like Host Gator, GoDaddy or any number of hosting platforms. The benefit to doing this from the start is that you can customize to your specifications. When you run a “free blog” with WordPress.com you are limited (due to security issues) to the number of widgets and gadgets you can add to your site.




• As you create your content, Peggy recommended that you write about what you know. Talk about how what you do solves problems for prospective buyers. Don’t forget that blogging isn’t just about writing. You can have guest bloggers, video interviews, whitepapers and more.




• Make those posts sizzle with compelling headlines and don’t forget to incorporate phrases that tell someone how you solve their problem. Remember that when someone has a problem to solve, that’s what they Google. For example, “I need help creating a Twitter background.” If you’ve created your headline to incorporate that message, your rankings improve.




• Build traffic by promoting to your various social sites. And for you LinkedIn users (and you better be using LinkedIn as a sales networking tool!), you can integrate your blog to feed your LinkedIn profile.

Take Action

As I concluded the webinar today, I reminded everyone of the importance of taking action. What’s the point of sitting in on webinars, whether you paid for them or not, if you never do anything with the information? If you are looking for a low cost learning and coaching option to help your put social media to work for you in driving sales revenue, I’ve just launched a group coaching community that not only will give you the training that you need, but the coaching and encouragement along the way to help you put learning into action. Learn more here. You’ll find other individual coaching options here.

Technology List

Finally, here is a list of the technology that Peggy discussed during the session. I plan to get started with a few of them myself!!

www.viddler.com Incorporate your video into your blog, as well as host on YouTube. You’ll find the vidget tool that Peggy mentioned here http://vidgets.viddler.com/

www.feedjit.com This nifty little tool lets you know when someone visits your site. Remember, just because people may not be actively commenting on your blog that doesn’t mean they haven’t dropped by to read what you’ve posted.

www.linkwithin.com This WordPress plugin increases page views and keeps your readers engaged. The widget links to stories that are relevant and interesting to readers of a particular post, keeping them engaged with your blog, and increasing your traffic.

www.facebook.com Use the notes section (to the left under create group. Note, you may have to expand the list), to drive additional traffic to your blog, webinar or events.

www.google.com/addurl Use this to register your blog URL. Why? To increase traffic of course. If you want more visibility for your business locally use https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=lbc&passive=1209600&continue=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter&followup=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

www.hootsuite.com For managing your content posts, you can use Hootsuite to post to multiple social media sites. The free version lets you post to 5 social sites and/or RSS feeds.

www.postling.com Similar to Hootsuite, but here is the core difference. The free version of PostLing only allows you to post to 1 social media site. The free version of Hootsuite lets your post to 5 sites. Could be Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Most of us recognize the influence that corporate brands such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Zappos, Google, Microsoft, Nike or Starbucks have on our buying decisions. But how much focus do most of us put on the most important brand of all – our own?

Wikipedia defines personal branding “as the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.”

Just a few short years ago, personal branding wasn’t really such a big topic of discussion. These days, however, it has everything to do with succeeding, especially in the social selling space. According to William Arruda, a personal branding guru, personal branding is a revolution in the way we manage our careers or businesses. It’s a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different and using those qualities to separate yourself from your competitors.

You are the CEO of Brand U

Some years ago, in a Fast Company article, business guru Tom Peters advises individuals to follow the lead of the corporate world and do what they have been doing for years: create your own personal brand. Peters says that no matter what your career title, you are really the CEO of your own personal service company: Me, Incorporated. He says each of us is “a free agent in an economy of free agents” and that we all must establish our own “micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh.”

How does this fit social media?

Your personal brand is the firm impression or image that comes to mind when people think about you. It’s a mental picture someone forms about you when your name is mentioned. Whether we like it or not, prospective buyers Google our name, check out our website and look us up on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In addition to our actions, words, clothes and behavior making a statement about who we are and what we offer, our online presence does the same thing. When you have seconds to create a lasting impression, one that contributes to achieving your revenue goals, it is important to honestly evaluate how your personal brand stacks up. Once you do, you can develop strategies to minimize those things that are detracting from the message you mean to convey.

Consistent branding based on authenticity can help you improve partnering and cultivate loyalty. –David Cohen, Creative Start-Up Veteran and Brand Strategist at Equation Arts.

Starting today – YOU are a brand!

Social media provides everyone the chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of something remarkable and memorable. Take the time to ask yourself the same question that brand managers at top companies ask themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it different? Challenge yourself to shrink it down to 15-words-or-less. Write down your answer. Then take the time to read it – several times. Think about…

• The qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors or your peers.
• How you have made yourself stand out today, this week or this month.
• What others would say is your greatest and clearest strength?

Shelve your biased thinking that a personal brand doesn’t matter when it comes to being successful selling your products or services. In today’s world, it is everything! If you want to achieve your goals, developing your brand is a must not a luxury.

Remember, even if you choose not to proactively define your personal brand, others are certain to do it for you. Will you like what they say?

Today, I spent lunchtime listening to a very informative webinar hosted by the folks at Marketing Profs. I signed up because I was intrigued by the title: How to Be a Social Media Strategist, Not the Social Help Desk. It was 90-minutes well spent. Jeremiah Owyang was the guest presenter, and I learned quite a lot from his session, as I always do.

Frankly, there was enough great information in today’s session to keep me busy blogging for several days, and what really caught my attention was when Jeremiah talked about a framework for social media measurement. I have often said that you can get started with tracking by setting specific and measureable objectives – upfront – as a component of your social media strategy. Truth be told, this works as a starting point, but the larger the organization the more important it is to have a measurement framework in place. In other words, companies need something more formal with which to evaluate their social media success.  In fact, Altimeter’s report on the Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist, notes that 48% of corporations said that their top priority is in creating a solid measurement process for evaluating social ROI.

Cool…how do you do it?

“The novice provide executives with engagement data –causing themselves to be stuck in the churn of obtaining more followers and fans –without a clear business goal.” –Jeremiah Owyang

While Altimeter’s research underscores the importance of measurement, the question businesses executives need to be asking is are you measuring the right things? Too much emphasis these days is placed on number of followers and fans and Altimeter’s own research discovered that some 65% of companies are measuring “engagement” with only 22% using “product revenue” as a metric. Hum. From a sales perspective it seems to me that you want to be tracking product and services sales and not just “engagement”.  Ironically, the focus on engagement means that it’s darn hard to tie the effects of “awareness” to physical sales, so it’s probably time to think about how to move beyond strictly looking at followers and fans and what nice (or not so nice) things they have to say about your brand.

The Social ROI Pyramid

“The seasoned professional provides executives with business metrics first. They know fans and followers aren’t a business goal, but what you do with them is.” –Jeremiah Owyang

5 Elements were referenced in Jeremiah’s presentation with respect to “standardizing” an approach for measuring social success across the organization. They are:

1. Start with a business goal in mind. No argument here, because it is something that I whole heartedly believe in and preach.
2. Provide the right data to the right people. Not everyone in your org needs the same information. Take the time to break it down and make it applicable to the respective roles within the company.
3. Vary the frequency and quantity of the data that you provide. As an example, top execs don’t need to be subjected to nauseating levels of detail that some social strategist’s feel compelled to provide. Similar to public speaking – know your audience and provide the information to them accordingly.
4. Customize your formulas. Industry standards don’t exist at this point and they might not for some time. You don’t need to wait though. Create the analytics that best support your business goals now and plan to adapt and refine them as you move forward.
5. Benchmark over time. According to Jeremiah, specific numbers are not as important as watching for the trend lines over time. In order to determine those monthly, quarterly and annual trends, you must start measuring now in order to gain the insight that you and your social media teams will need going forward.

The message that came through loud and clear today is that anyone responsible for social media strategy must have an organized process and measurement approach nailed down before they dive head first into that next glitzy Facebook campaign! To do otherwise means you’ll probably bomb out.