As long as I’ve got the subject of time on the brain, I thought I’d write a post about the biggest objection that I hear from salespeople with respect to using social media as part of their sales routine.

“I don’t have time”.

That always gets me a little riled, because it says to me three things. One, they haven’t accepted that social media is as critical to their sales business, as email and smart phones have become. Two, these reps still believe that running around to lots of networking events is what gets them the greatest return on their effort even though, at most of those events, their buyer isn’t even in the room. Three, they don’t understand how to use technology to their advantage.

Adapt or fall further behind.

Whether you like it or not, buyer behavior has changed. Your sales approach needs to change too. Buyers do a significant amount of research online before ever engaging with a salesperson. Can they find you? And, if they do find you, is the information that you’ve shared on your LinkedIn profile (as an example) compelling enough for them to want to talk to you at all?

I know, I know. You never thought we’d do business over email either. Well, you were wrong. You are wrong about social media too! Every day business is being transacted over social sites. Unless you want your competitors to step up and kick your bootie, it’s time to move.

Ok, so let’s talk about those networking events.

When is the last time you carefully evaluated if the events that you are attending is netting you any sort of sales return? In general, you can choose to attend events for two reasons. One, you want the education, because you think the speaker is going to be awesome. Two, you are going to make connections with people who can buy your products and services. Let’s hope that most of you are using your networking time focused on #2. But here’s the problem. Buyers aren’t spending time at networking events like they used to. A friend of mine – he’s the decision maker for the technology providers who get in at his company -  tells me that not only does he not spend much time at networking events anymore, he also doesn’t carry business cards to the ones he does attend. Buyers aren’t showing up, because they are tired of being pitched by sellers. Why are you spending so much time there?

What to do?

Free up some time by cutting out events you know aren’t getting you connected to sales opportunities. Spread that time throughout the week and use it to share content, post updates, research your target list of prospects, etc. using LinkedIn, Focus, InsideView, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, whatever. You can create some serious opportunities working social just 30-minutes a day. I know, because I do it. The key is to have a plan and know exactly what you want to accomplish.

Finally, use technology to your advantage. Unless you enjoy posting on LinkedIn, then jumping over to Twitter or your Facebook page, use Hootsuite as your social media dashboard and content organizer. Hootsuite’s free version lets you connect to five social media sites and/or RSS feeds. Got a blog you like to follow? Curate the content by setting up the blog RSS feed in your Hootsuite account. Every time a new post is published, a message shoots out from your account to your various social media sites. From your Hootsuite dashboard, you can send messages to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and you can monitor the conversations from there as well. And, you have the ability to schedule messages in advance.

So, stop making excuses.

You do have time to integrate social media into your sales activities and like any change to the way that you do things, you have to decide if you will spend time on the activities that actually lead to sales – or not.

Today marks seven years since I first began using LinkedIn. As a raving fan, I use the networking tool daily for making connections, sharing referrals, prospecting, conducting pre-sales call research and more. It is an amazing sales tool with power far greater than what most people realize, which is why salespeople need to to invest the time to learn how to use LinkedIn effectively.

Making and accepting invitations is the first step in building your network, so I’d like to share 3 brief tips about how to do it the right way. Before I do, I need to tell you that I do not subscribe to the “open networker” philosophy, and I do not say yes to everyone who asks me to connect with them. Our networks are business assets and should be treated as such. If I’m going to allow someone access to my connections, I need to know that I can trust them to behave professionally. I’m about the quality of connections not the sheer number of them.

Ok, now that I’ve set the stage with my feelings about building my network, here are 3 tips for making and accepting LinkedIn invitations.

1. Invite people that you know. LinkedIn’s official policy is that you connect with people that you know. Daily, I receive invitations from people that I’ve never heard of, never met and never conversed with in a LinkedIn group. These invitations usually indicate that we are friends when we aren’t. Or, they suggest that we’ve done business together, which we haven’t. I keep an open mind about connecting with people that I do not know yet, but you have to give me a compelling reason to do so. What’s the benefit to me? That leads me to point number two.

2. Personalize your invitations. I’m pretty much over the standard “I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network.” Really, why? Why am I a good connection for you and vice versa? The “you are a person that I trust” message also gets under my skin. These invitations are especially irritating when I have no idea who you are. How do you know that you can trust me? The way I see it, if the connection is important to you – stop and take a moment to customize your message. Guess what, I don’t have the time to look up your profile and figure out if we’d be good connections for each other. Other people don’t either. Your job is to make it clear why connecting makes sense for both parties.

3. When you accept a connection, send a personalized message saying “thank you”. It’s a small, but very important way to stand out. In fact, I conducted social media training for a group of salespeople on Wednesday, and one gal in the room said that it bugged her when people never responded to her after connecting. All it takes is a minute to click on “send a message” once you’ve accepted the invite. It lets the other person know that you actually care about being connected.

People buy from people that they know, like and trust. Sales referrals are shared with other professionals for the same reasons. Relationships matter. Remembering that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, make your first LinkedIn interaction count!

Last Thursday was one superfantastic day! At Atlanta Women in Business, we held the 7th Annual “Results Count” award luncheon at one of my fave restaurants, Maggiano’s. What an amazingly good time! The room was packed and the networking took on a fever frenzy. It was clear that people were not only enjoying the opportunity to network with other like minded professionals, but they were in celebration mode. Think Oscars but smaller:).

And the winner is…

Eleanor Morgan, President/CEO of MD&E. An absolutely amazing business woman with grace, charm and humility to boot, Eleanor embodies the true spirit and meaning of the annual award. Congrats Eleanor!

While Eleanor was speaking, I was fondly remembering back to last year when I was honored with the award, and it occurred to me that as an entrepreneur, I don’t receive accolades like I used to back in my corporate sales days. I mean, who’s gonna pat me on the back and give me that sales award anyway? Me? During Eleanor’s comments, she also mentioned how nice it was to be recognized by her peers. I couldn’t agree more!

To all of you who own your own businesses, I am giving you the high 5 right now! If you came from the corporate world, you know what it really takes to make your own rain every single day. “Success is an inside job” takes on new meaning, doesn’t it? It isn’t always easy, but you do it day in and day out. For that, I salute you all!

By the way…that’s Eleanor on the left and Lya Sorano, Founder and CEO of Atlanta Women in Business on the right.

If you read posts 1 and 2 on the topic of busting your brand, you know that I didn’t take kindly to the dimwit who decided it was okay to send me spam, because we were members of the same LinkedIn group. You also know that he didn’t care for me making the suggestion that spamming people wasn’t the way to go about driving successful sales. His response said it all.

But, that wasn’t the end of it, because as you know I felt compelled to let him know for the second time that he’d now taken rude to another level. I figured that would be the end of it. Ah, but not for this guy. Here is his final response. There are soooo many things that I wanted to say in return, but what would be the point? He considers me “sanctimonious”, perhaps because I was the first one to tell him his approach might be losing him sales. As for the rest of his logic…one can only wonder.

“You were never going to buy from me to begin with. Just because you wrote just another book on sales doesn’t mean your way is the only way to get new business. (Hey I have a book published too. 5 stars on Amazon.com – which is really great, but I don’t consider my book to be the definitive answer to anything). There is still plenty of room for cold calling in the market today – and you are wrong if you think otherwise. There is rude, and there is sanctimonious. Besides, those in your network, who like you, believe that there is no room for Cold Calling were never going to buy from me anyway, so be sure to let them know. Actually, I am sure that some sales professionals will be interested to speak with me just because you tell them not too.”

By the way, some of my colleagues suggested that I was only wasting my precious time responding to this guy and then blogging about the situation. My feeling is that every now and then you’ve got to take a stand. I’m getting far to many of these cheezy sales pitches thrown at me via LinkedIn, as are many others, and I felt that I needed to speak up. Whether he hears the message or not is really not the point. Oh, and if you are one of the sales professionals who want to talk to this guy just because I suggest you look elsewhere, please let me know. I’ll happily pass along his contact information:)