It is no wonder that sales often gets a bad rap. Desperation, lack of training, perhaps pressure from sales management…whatever the reason, it isn’t difficult to find examples of shoddy sales techniques being used on unsuspecting buyers every day. At a minimum, I receive one sales spam email like the one below that I’m showcasing today. It’s more common to receive two or three more just like it.

Take a minute to read it through. You tell me. Would you buy from this individual? Does this sales representative even know if I’m the right type of customer for him? Does he know anything about my business?

“Barbara – I was checking on this This ends at 5 PM PST today. Let me know if you would be interested Regards XYZ Representative

Barbara

2010 BlowOut Sale on Training and HR Executives Email List

We have new contacts (VPs ,Dir and Managers ) within the Training and HR Departments in corporations within the US.  We are offering these contacts, which you will own and can use as often as possible.These are all new contacts and have nt been sold before.

We are offering a 60% promotional discount on this list (valid thro Friday 09/24/10).It is being offered as given below.

• 5000 New Training Contacts for $350(Regular Price- $1100)
• 10,000 New Training Contacts for $600(Regular Price-$1800)
• 20,000 New Training Contacts for $1100(Regular Price-$3500)
• 40,000 New Training Contacts for $2000(Regular Price-$5000)
• 5,000 New HR Contacts for $350(Regular Price- $1100)
• 10,000 New HR Contacts for $600(Regular Price-$1800)
• 20,000 New HR Contacts for $1100(Regular Price-$3500)
• 40,000 New HR Contacts for $2000(Regular Price-$5000)

We will also provide a 120 day guarantee on the contacts and will replace each contact you find is inaccurate with an updated one.  Just to make sure that the new contact is valid and accurate we’ll guarantee it for 120 days as well.

With each record you receive:

Complete data: Name, Title, Direct E-Mail Address, Physical address, Phone Number, Company Name etc

Unlimited license: Most companies only rent you the data for one time use, we allow you to use this database as many times as you want, however you want.

If you need a more specific list – let us put together a custom contact list for you using geography, industry, revenue or titles.

If you are interested in the type of companies and titles we have I will send you a list with everything else removed so you can get an idea.”

To the sender…

Spam as a sales tactic is not an effective strategy. Yes, you might get some takers, but on the whole, you are far more likely to offend. I’ll remember you, of course. But, I won’t be buying from you. I only buy from people that I know, like and trust. I don’t buy from people who spam my inbox. Oh, and thanks for the competitive pricing information. You never know, it might come in handy someday. I probably should give you a break for making such a dumb sales mistake, but given the product you sell, maybe I understand why you feel sending email spam is a sound business practice.

Discussion about how to “build relationships” in the online world and what’s acceptable in terms of “how to sell your stuff” seems to be on the rise lately. That’s to be expected I suppose, especially when you see some fairly obvious multi-level marketing tactics being displayed. It is a quandary I guess, isn’t it?

The whole idea of using social media/social networking from a sales point of view is to build relationships that lead to sales. Done right, I totally believe using social media helps you to better qualify leads and shrink the sales process. That’s all good and helps you to build your business. But notice that I said “done right”. What a conundrum. If you “sell from the podium” you risk trashing your brand. And if you don’t, what’s the point of being online if you can’t convert your activity into sales?

Good questions. I don’t know if I have the “right” answers…I just have my perspective.

In over 25 years of professional selling, I can honestly say that blatant self promotion has never been in vogue. Ever. Done in the online space, it’s worse.

What leads to people to…

• Ask questions that they then answer by talking about how great they are? We are not fooled!
• Answer questions and not actually contribute to the dialog, but just yak, yak, yak about themselves and their products?
• Provide answers to questions that are clearly a push to their affiliate site? At least be honest about what you are doing.  Are you really that desperate?
• Pretend they are trying to provide value, but then they manage to “sneak in” their own stuff. Please – do you think we can’t tell?
• Not even answer the question at all, but instead sell their product instead. For example, in a recent LinkedIn group the question was “we are evaluating Achieve Global. Have you used their programs and what do you think?” This wasn’t a request for people to “pitch” their competitive product, but out of the first 5 responses – 4 did exactly that. Disgraceful!

I don’t know. Is it really that tough to just want to be in service to others knowing that you’ll get your just desserts at some other point? My belief is in the “do unto others” model…I don’t pollute the dialog with my sales pitch…maybe you could refrain from yours.

HALF of adults in America judge people’s intelligence based on email content and format, reports GMX, a free email service for more than 11 million active users in survey research just released today.

Of the 1,002 US Adults surveyed who use e-mail for both work and personal reasons, 58 percent of Americans admitted they judge intelligence based on the writing style, tone and language used in email. You can bet they make the same sorts of judgments when you (or your people) send “tweets“, email newsletters, respond on blogs, chat on Facebook or comment in group discussions.

Words – what we say and how we say them – have always been an important factor in our ability to connect with others…or not. And in this new conversation economy your sales people must be acutely aware of what impression they create when communicating online. When contributing to the dialog in social networking communities, careful thought must be given to the words that are penned to the virtual paper. If you aren’t paying attention to what your people are saying – you put your brand at risk!

Here are 5 tips to improve how your sales people communicate online:

* Tell don’t sell. Storytelling is a way to create a picture in the mind of your buyer that will lead them to want to know more. In conversations avoid using common catch phrases that everyone else uses too. Who doesn’t think that their product or service is amazing, revolutionary, transformative, results oriented or cutting edge? Be more creative. For example, if your buyer plays tennis, you might say something like “when you work with us, we help you hit ace serves every single time.”

* Speak your buyer’s language. Sales people are often caught up in using jargon that makes sense to them and to their co-workers, but can completely turn off a potential buyer. This is about connecting with your next client, so drop the industry buzz words and get to know and use “their business language” not yours.

* Add value to the conversation. Demonstrate expertise by “adding more” to the conversation. Perhaps add a unique twist to how you would approach the situation being discussed. Resist the temptation to “talk about yourself and what you sell”. For several weeks, I’ve observed a Sales VP in one of my LinkedIn groups who just doesn’t understand this at all. In every question he poses and every question he answers, he talks about how great his company and their products are. He’s says he’s passionate, I think he’s arrogant and crushing his brand.

* Be transparent. In the online world (I would suggest in business in general), transparency is key. Although a lot of people use the word, I’m not sure they actually know what it means. Be crystal clear about your intentions, your affiliations and disclose anything that might be perceived as a bias on your part – up front. Way up front! For example, if you push a particular service and you earn an affiliate commission – say so. If you are trying to broker a partner deal then be honest about pushing them as a speaker at that next event you happen to chair. We figure it out anyway and you look bad for not disclosing your intentions ahead of time!

* Establish writing guidelines. It is very important that your sales folks get engaged in online conversations, and it is a wise idea to put some communication guidelines in place. Make sure you set expectations about what is acceptable when they are representing your company! Good rules of thumb are: leave your agenda at the door, manage your tone, be respectful, add value and be transparent when answering questions.

By the way, putting this topic front and center is a bit of a risk for me given you are judging my IQ at this very moment. Let’s hope I make the cut:)