This week I had the opportunity to write a couple of guest posts for the Sales 2.0 Conference blog that offer salespeople tips for ensuring that prospects can easily contact them. The first focused on LinkedIn and the other focused on the things that you can do to enhance your Twitter profile and you can read both of them here on my site also.

Let’s start with LinkedIn…

When was the last time you viewed your social profiles through the eyes of your prospects? Although many salespeople have LinkedIn accounts precisely to network and build referrals, a high percentage of them unwittingly make it difficult for prospects to connect with them.

Buyers are impatient. Make it difficult for them to reach you, and guess what? They move on to your competitor.

If you want to shrink the sales cycle and improve your chances of being contacted by a prospect, here are four things you can do immediately:

1)     Add your phone number to your LinkedIn profile.

Select “Edit Profile” (under the “Profile” tab) and scroll down to the Personal Information section (all the way at the bottom). Although the section is titled “Personal,” add your business phone number and address. Because LinkedIn only makes your phone number visible to first-level connections, I also suggest that you include your phone number in your profile summary and specialties areas.

2)     Include your business email so that your first-level connections have another communication option beyond emailing through the social site.

Remember, not everyone visits LinkedIn on a daily basis.

3)     Set your email settings so that LinkedIn invitations and messages come directly into your email inbox.

View your inbox as your communications hub. Use inbox rules to automatically organize and forward your message to folders you designate for your LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook messages. Be careful, though—don’t forget to check those folders regularly.

4)     Download the LinkedIn mobile app so your LinkedIn network is always with you.

This lets you respond quickly to connection requests and incoming messages; it also allows you to reach out to others when you have down time.

By the way, on November 15, I will present “Sales Meets Social: Identifying and Reaching High-Profile Prospects: at the Sales Strategies in a Social & Mobile World Conference. Perhaps I’ll see you there?

Sales executives are feeling the pressure to ensure that sales quotas are met and that pressure often leads to fear, desperation and a focus on short-term sales results.

Don’t get me wrong…achieving monthly sales objectives are important. If there are no sales then ultimately there is no business to run. I’ve been a sales professional for close to 30-years and a business owner for almost 10, so I get it. Consistent revenue flowing in the door month after month is a must. Here’s what worries me though. This short-term focus leads many sales reps to ignore some of the basic fundamentals of selling in a social sales world. I know this because of the steady stream of unsolicited sales pitches I receive on a daily basis.

Don’t Abuse the Medium

A phrase that I’m fond of using is “Just because you can, that doesn’t mean that you should.” As the world of sales continues to evolve and transform as a result of the widespread use of social media, many sales professionals need to take a crash course in online etiquette. Sending potential buyers a spam sales pitch is akin to a cold call only worse. With voice mail, your message leaving time is typically pretty short, but when you send email you can go on forever about how grand your product is service is and believe me…many do.

Relationship First, Selling Second

If sales teams aren’t producing consistently, perhaps the answer isn’t in pushing them to “work harder”. Let’s face it folks… activity should never be confused with sales effectiveness. Insisting that your sales reps make 100 cold calls per day is activity, but is it truly effective? Though many old school sales folks will respond with a resounding – yes, cold calling works – the reality is that cold calling doesn’t work and adds expense to the sales cycle to boot. To me, it seems a bit delusional to think that calling 100 strangers whose business you know nothing about will lead to anything meaningful from a sales perspective. The same goes for sending your peeps out into the world telling them to “go bang on doors”. Seriously?

Social media provides a unique opportunity for today’s social sales professional. Instead of banging on doors, sending spam email or calling 100 strangers, why not put that time to better use? To improve your sales close ratio, what if..

• You created a target list of the top 50 companies that you want to do business with and you used tools like LinkedIn or InsideView to learn more about their people and their business BEFORE making that first connection.
• You looked for ways to do something of benefit for the prospects that you are targeting without asking for anything in return? Use LinkedIn to share industry presentations, articles, white papers or perhaps send a sales lead their way.
• You understood that you get ONE chance to make a solid connection and a great impression. Don’t blow it by sending people the same old boring sales spam email that you just sent to everyone else.

Fix the Right Thing

When sales are off, please avoid the temptation to insist that your sales people just “do more”. Doing more of what already isn’t working will not lead to different results. Einstein defined that as insanity.

If you want different results – do something differently!

As technology continues to influence the way in which we do business, social selling can be thought of as a model that allows sellers to attract, interact and close business with buyers online by tapping the conversational power of the web. This new approach – when done right – leads to higher sales velocity, volume and profits.

Getting Started

As with any business initiative, it is important that you don’t shortcut the process. Utilizing the appropriate social media tools to improve sales performance represents an investment of time and money. Though many of the social technologies you might choose to implement are largely free, people will need the proper training to ensure their success.

1. Begin with a strategy and tactical plan.

This doesn’t need to be a long drawn out process, but it does require slowing down long enough to think through:

• What do you want to accomplish?
• What will be the best technology to support what we want to accomplish?
• What type of training will be needed on both the technology and new communication approach?

Sales executives should schedule a social media planning session with their teams. Make sure that everyone on the team has the same understanding of what and why you want to participate online. Discuss how you will measure and track results. Following that initial planning, discuss progress, lessons learned and share best practices during regular team meetings. This will help to keep everyone on track.

2. Secure management buy-in, at all levels, from the beginning.

Many sales executives are unfortunately, still living in yesterday’s business world. They either see social media as a passing fad or a threat to their view of how the sales process works. Fear of what they do not understand keeps them rooted in outdated approaches to acquiring new customers and serving the ones that they already have. Bring in outside help to properly educate your management teams on the business value and benefits to using social media.

3. Invest in training.

The old saying “you get what you pay for” applies here. Don’t assume that your sales people can figure out the technology on their own. Rather than clicking buttons, do they know how to use the tools to drive a specific sales result; i.e. lead generation? Your sales team members probably understand how to invite colleagues to join them on LinkedIn, but do they know how to create dynamic lead generation lists that they can use for their prospecting efforts? Do they understand how to create a compelling profile? Inadequate training is guaranteed to deliver lackluster results. Make the investment. It’s worth it.

4. Do not expect immediate results.

There is no quick fix! You need to put a plan of action into place that is followed regularly and tracked along the way. Expecting an immediate ROI is highly unrealistic and will lead to sales people rushing the process. Sales management needs to maintain a focus on the bigger picture. Building a solid brand reputation online takes time, participation and patience. By the way, the same philosophy holds true with traditional offline networking too!

5. Train, Track, Monitor.

Give your sales people the proper technology training, educate them on your social media usage guidelines and help them set goals that are then tracked and measured. Remember that ROI can be measured in many ways. It might be measuring sales revenue, number of new leads in the pipeline, shortened time from lead to sales close or increased sales percentages with existing accounts. Monitor the progress of your people by the results they achieve.

6. Invest the time.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is your social sales success. Not having time for social media is a common sales complaint, because to often the perception is that using social media is an “add-on” to an already packed day. The reality is that there is wasted time on the calendar of every sales person in your organization. Meetings with non-decision makers. Networking events that fall flat. Chasing down leads that are poorly qualified. Too many internal meetings. The question to ask is “What can I let go of that will bring me a greater sales return if I used that time for social media instead?”

The world of sales has changed.  If you are not integrating social media into your sales and marketing plans, you are setting yourself up for decreasing sales and increased competitive pressure.

How long can you afford to wait before you get started?

When I originally started this post, I was quite firm in my belief that “cold calling” as a tactic for driving sales was largely ineffective. I still am for the most part. But to be fair, I may have generalized a bit too much. Perhaps I’m jaded. As a business owner, I receive some of the dumbest phone sales calls imaginable. Everything from mortgage brokers trying to sell me refinancing for a building that I do not own, budding rap stars looking for their next big break, people selling products that compete with what I offer…really?…the list is endless. Didn’t check the website and clearly didn’t listen to our corporate voicemail message.

Still, during a recent sales program I facilitated, a senior sales executive challenged my assertion that cold calling gets you nowhere saying that, “Cold calling does work.  I’ve brought in a number of large deals as a result of cold calls that I’ve made.” So, I couldn’t help but be curious. What makes it work for you, I asked.  Listening to him answer, I realized that his success was due to his planning and preparation. This executive knew what he wanted to accomplish. He researched his target companies. He planned what he was going to say. And, when he did pick up the phone, he managed to successfully connect with his prospective buyer. So, I’ll change my tune slightly. Cold calling is generally a waste of time, and there are some people who are able to make it work.

For everyone else, here are 5 reasons why cold calling leads to sales frostbite:

1. It’s about relationships first, sales second. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. If they don’t know you, they are very unlikely to respond favorably to your unsolicited call. Cold calling runs counter to what the social revolution is all about. In the social sales world, it’s all about delivering value in advance of the sale. That requires getting to know a little something about your prospective buyer first and then offering to do for them without expecting an immediate return.
2. It is an interruption – think phone spam. To do lists are already tough enough to manage, so when you interrupt a busy executive that you have no relationship with at all, you risk blowing your sales opportunity altogether.  Buyers are not looking to have information pushed at them from sources they do not yet trust. Use LinkedIn to learn about the people on your lead generation list. Find commonality and then use your social networks to facilitate warm introductions that lead to securing sales appointments.
3. The spiel is boring and focuses only on you. Worse than the practice of dialing for dollars (calling a list of people you know nothing about) is that sales scripts are usually not tailored to each person called. More often than not the focus is on the seller not the buyer. Sales scripts are nothing more than a verbal dump of the features of the product on the unsuspecting person who picked up the phone when you called. That isn’t likely to endear you to them.
4. The world is not your client. This concept is counter-intuitive for sales managers who believe that calling a lead list works, but you can accelerate your sales traction if you go narrow and deep within your particular market space. It means you must first be crystal clear about who your ideal client actually is. Calling a random list of 100 names is far less effective than figuring out who the top 10 right people to call on that list really are. If you are in sales, you want to move from lead to close as quickly as you can, right? Wouldn’t it be easier to determine where those 10 right people might be doing business online and start a conversation there? That moves you right to the head of the sales line if you do it well.
5. It’s about perception. If you can’t explain quickly, clearly and succinctly why someone would benefit from buying your product, service or idea, you will lose sales, no matter how great what you have to offer is. During a typical cold call sales scenario it is not uncommon for reps to rush through a rambling speech that annoys rather than engages. If this is the first interaction that your prospect has with your company, are you are creating a positive brand impression or harming it?

There was once a time and a place for the sales practice of cold-calling. Those days are long gone. Thankfully.

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?