I so love LinkedIn! This amazing business networking site boasts an impressive 65M+ user base and climbing. Roughly 65% of LinkedIn’s users are tagged as key decision makers, which is sales code for…they can buy from you! That, in and of itself, is a HUGE reason for you to use LinkedIn as a sales relationship tool that becomes a part of your natural sales/networking process. Decision makers, with money to spend, are using LinkedIn to check out your capabilities (and that of your competitor), polling colleagues for recommendations and doing research into what is available. They are talking about their like’s, dislike’s and sharing their current business frustrations and challenges. Are you listening? For sales people, LinkedIn should be the #1 place they go to prepare for their sales meeting. The amount of real-time information to be leveraged is…well…just plain staggering.

Speaking of leveraging conversation and information…I want to tell you about a really great question that was posed recently by Dana Detrick-Clark in one of my LinkedIn groups. She’s curious about the approach that others are taking in determining their blogging voice. And because the question is so applicable to “What approach do I take/voice do I use when answering group questions in a social community?”, I wanted to share Dana’s question and a part of my response.

Dana asks…Which is more important in a blog: speaking to a particular kind of reader, or speaking in your own ‘voice’? I’m curious as to what other business owners prefer, especially in business and/or marketing related blogs. Do you like the more journalistic approach, where you get “just the facts” for the information you’re after, or would you rather read a blog that’s more personal (even if that means at times it can be irreverent or reveal more personally about the author than what you normally find in a biz blog)?

Here was a portion of my answer…

You asked a great question that comes up a lot with clients. How much is too much information? Of course, like all such questions, the answer invariably is “it depends”.:)

Given that I own my business, I have more latitude with the approach I choose to take. So to be fair, I have a little more freedom when it comes to the information that I share in my blog posts. Each company has to decide what supports their core values and customer loyalty statement. But I urge companies to move away from their fear of “what could happen if someone says the wrong thing” and embrace the opportunity for building brand loyalty through media like blogs. There are a number of great stories about how companies were humanized in the eyes of their buyers and all because they “got real” on a blog. Sure, guidelines need to be established so that people know what’s cool and what isn’t (had to do it with email, remember?). From there, give employees training and then hold them accountable to be responsible when having conversations in the social space.

So what’s your take? Real in the blogosphere or not?

LinkedIn has made the Company section more robust. It is now even easier to research companies and keep up with the people changes happening with those companies.

The Improvement

You can now “follow” companies. Okay, STOP right there! Before you close your mind to it, because images of nonsensical conversation on Twitter just popped into your head, please hear me when I say that “the concept” is similar, but definitely different. This is the kind of follow that you want to engage in, because…

Sales Benefit

You will hear about key developments such as who’s joined, left or been promoted at the companies you follow, business opportunities and job openings. This moves your ability to research target companies you want to work with to another level.

Once you elect to follow a company… when you log into the Company Home Page on LinkedIn, you will see a list of updates for the companies that you follow. You will also see a “company updates” section now showing up on your LinkedIn Home Page.

This is so much easier than tracking the individual movements of people within in a company. LinkedIn aggregates the list of changes for you. You can easily scan the list to keep up with what’s changed. Here’s a quick screen shot of the company I set up to follow today to check out how this works.

How To

Find Companies under the “More” menu. Click on Companies. Search companies you want to track. Once you’ve pulled up their company page…look to the upper right and click on “follow company”. Scan the updates once a day or once a week.

Definitely check it out! Share your success stories.

Since the early days of John Patterson and his NCR sales playbook, “cold calling” seems to be ingrained in the collective sales consciousness as an expected part of the sales process. I still wonder why. Come on. Cold calling doesn’t work (it never has, and I don’t care what that last sales trainer told you).

This ridiculous notion of “dialing for dollars” is so yesterday. Sales people resist cold calling like the plague and with good reason. At some level, they know it doesn’t make any sense to call a stranger and expect them to buy within seconds of receiving their call no matter how charming they may be. Old school sales thinking is that you just call enough numbers and eventually somebody buys. What a waste of time and energy! Not to mention how potential buyers detest this approach. They don’t appreciate your rambling, inarticulate, blathering feature dumps and the evident randomness of the call. As a business owner, I can relate. Maybe I’ll create an audio book one of these days with the “best of the worst” phone calls that I’ve ever received. I save them. Hilarious and painfully sad at the same time. Hint: if you have to cold call then at least do some remedial homework. Make sure I’m in the market for what you sell. Everyone is NOT your customer!

Get over the notion of cold calling. Nobody likes it, it doesn’t work. Instead, what about using social media/social networks, email, Twitter, Facebook, referrals and the like to start paving the way for a great relationship? There is just NO excuse anymore for sales management to think that “dialing for dollars” has much chance at success. Instead, invest time in learning to use social media to augment and extend your sales reach. Insist that your sales people use social tools and social networks to begin conversations that will lead to finding common ground and getting to know each other. Then, when you do reach out to secure that sales appointment there will be nothing cold about it!

Ironic isn’t it? We live and work in a digital age, and the discourse about the power of social media to communicate with potential buyers and current customers in more effective ways reached deafening proportions in 2009. Yet a current poll running over on LinkedIn shows that 46% of the respondents thus far still think that the most effective way to gather customer feedback is in direct, face-to-face meetings. Hum… me thinks there is a disconnect.

Your customers and potential customers are sharing a wealth of information and insight about what they want – online. In 3 easy steps, here’s how you can begin to capitalize on the wealth of opportunity staring you in the face.

1. Determine where your current customer (or prospect) is likely to “participate” online. Don’t assume they are using Facebook or Twitter or any other social technology people tell you is the hot thing. Put your thinking cap on. Consider the demographics of your audience. What do you know about them now that can help you identify where they travel in the online space. EXAMPLE: Your customer is the VP of Sales in technology and telecommunications companies. What does he/she care about? What challenges are top of mind? In what forums or groups are they talking about what they need or wish vendors provided?
2. Listen to what is being said. Now that you know where your customers live…listen to what they are talking about. What questions are they asking? How are they gathering feedback about products and services on the market? Don’t show up in a group and start pitching your wares. Take the time to listen.
3. Engage them in dialog. Ask relevant questions and don’t argue the answers. Defending your turf  only looks and sounds self serving. Your goal is to set your agenda aside. How else can you really understand what is important to your most valuable asset – your customer? Use what you learn to innovate your products and services and build stronger loyalty with your customer base.

It’s hard to know what that 46% was thinking when they answered the question posed in the poll, but it seems certain they may be missing the entire point and opportunity that social media represents.

2009 will be a year remembered for many things. Most of them non too positive. Financial meltdowns, rampant greed, thousands put out of work. Fear, negativity, anger and often complete disrespect for other human beings showed up everywhere. For entrepreneurs, it proved tough just trying to make it through, while at the same time companies beat them down on price and strung out the process of paying their bills to boot. Sales organizations began to finally realize that strategies that used to work, no longer did. Consumer confidence hit an all time low. Not all was gloom and doom though, and what I will remember most is how people began waking up to the power and potential of social media. Budget cuts and spending freezes forced companies to look at new alternatives to old processes that no longer made sense, and that, I think, is a very good thing.

Social Media’s Role in Sales

Here are just a few of the benefits that, I believe, social media brings to the sales process:

• Fill the pipeline with “better qualified” buyers.
• Improved efficiency of lead generation efforts.
• Shrunken sales cycle and reduction in the “cost per sales hour”.
• Increased conversion rate of leads generated to clients enrolled.
• Enhanced customer loyalty that leads to sustained revenue and higher profits.

One key to success using social media as a sales prospecting and lead generation tool is in the ability to reach more people with less effort and cost. It is a way to build visibility, demonstrate expertise and capability to potential buyers, while also keeping abreast of what’s happening on the competitive front. Done well, social media reinforces your brand so that when your ideal buyer is ready to make that purchase, they think of you!

No Magic Bullet

The opportunity to increase sales using social media is real, but success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes thought. It takes planning. It takes training. It takes commitment to use the tools – often. It most definitely requires patience. There is no quick fix, regardless what so many of the so-called “experts”, who inevitably arrived on the scene, would have you believe. They would tell you that the key to success lies in your ability to get 200 Twitter followers a day, and other such silly nonsense.

Getting Results

For each sales organization and sales person, the approach taken and the technologies used will vary, but the fundamentals of getting started will not. Boring as it may sound…determining your purpose, identifying the characteristics of your ideal buyer, developing your brand message and creating your plan are the things that must come first. Without these things, what difference does it make how many people follow you on Twitter or belong to your LinkedIn network? Better to have 20 of the right people following you than 200 of the wrong, an important fact conveniently ignored by those desperate to believe that a social media profile today means an influx of sales tomorrow.