All Entries Tagged With: "web 2.0"
You Are Losing Your Best Leads… to Your Own Company!
Written by Bill Rice, CEO/Founder, Kaleidico
[Contributing Author]
I think the biggest mistake sales people make is giving out their company website to prospects. Whether on a business card, in an email, or on LinkedIn. You’re losing sales leads with this foolish little move.
Think I’m crazy?
Okay, answer me this: How many sales leads did you get from corporate marketing last month labeled website lead or something similar? My guess is zero.
Now answer me this one too: How many prospects did you direct to the corporate website last month? Driven into waiting and appreciative arms of inside sales reps? My guess is many.
Why did you do that? I’m not downing your marketing department, corporate website, or inside sales. But wake-up! You lost a customer you were already in a conversation with. You need to capture your leads!
Personal Lead Generation
The first step is to think about all the ways (and places) that you point prospects away. Here are a few places to start looking:
- Business card
- Emails
- Email signature
- Cold calls
- Linkedin.com
You may not be able to remove your company URL from all of these places. However, you can probably make a good business case for adding Twitter or Linkedin as basic contact information in this Web 2.0 world.
This simple step will start driving your prospect traffic into your own personal blog or social profile(s). Of course, you need to make sure that you are answering your prospects’ questions and giving them a compelling reason to engage with you. Otherwise, you will lose them back to the company website or worse searching and finding the competitor’s website.
Setting Up Sales Content
The best way to make your personal lead generation work is to answer in plain English the questions and objections you get daily. If you are technically inclined this can be as robust as a blog with frequent posts and resources about your products or services. If a blog is out of your technical reach, or writing is not your thing, opt for posting brief but valuable content on Twitter or Linkedin.
These brief pieces of sales collateral will naturally attract prospects searching the Web for your company (and maybe you). It also gives you readily available material to link to in email introductions and follow-ups.
An added bonus to pointing prospects to these kinds of social resources, versus a cold and impersonal corporate website, is that it’s fresh and alive with the latest information and enthusiasm of your community (i.e., comments, Twitter interactions, or Linkedin connections).
Creating your sales content and lead generation outposts on a blog or social networks is one of the more complex steps. You might need a little more guidance. Here are a couple of resources that will guide you in more detail on building out your lead generation system:
- A Simple Presence Framework (by @ChrisBrogan)
- Linkedin for Sales: Resume or Sales Letter (by @Bill Rice)
Capturing Leads
Driving prospects to click on a link and landing them on your blog or social profiles is only half the battle. You need to capture those leads! The easiest way is to simply ask your prospects or readers to email or call you with questions.
Make your call to action clear and direct. Never make them hunt for your email address or telephone number.
Basic contact information and a request to connect with you should be the centerpiece of all your outposts and sales content.
Don’t lose another sales lead! Take the next 30 minutes to replace your company website URL with your personal lead generation system. Start directing prospects into your lead capture system. It’s guaranteed to save you time, money, and frustration… and it will get you a few more sales every quarter!
What does your personal lead generation and lead capture system look like?
Get Noticed On LinkedIn
Guerilla Sales Tip: Using LinkedIn to Generate More Sales!
Written by Silvia Quintanilla, CEO, Industry Gems
[Contributing Author]
Do you want to use LinkedIn to generate more sales? I have a “guerilla sales” tip that I learned about a year ago. It has transformed my sales success! I call it “guerilla sales” because I use LinkedIn as a powerful people-finder rather than just another networking tool.
Most people use LinkedIn as a way to connect with their immediate and extended network. Used in this way, it’s no surprise that the typical member has anywhere from 30 to 150 contacts.
However, if you want to use LinkedIn to find hidden decision makers, there is a better way. The trick is to get “power networkers” at a first level connection. Power networkers are individuals with over 10,000 connections! They are also known as “open networkers.”
When you connect with a power networker, you gain visibility into part of their network. Give it a try. Connect with a few of these highly connected people and see how it affects your Network Statistics (found under the Contacts section on LinkedIn’s top menu bar).
After you’ve made a few connections, use LinkedIn’s search features to find a specific title or role at one of your target accounts. You’ll see a whole lot more names than you did before. Having access to the right contacts can slice months off your sales cycle!
A great place to start building connections with power networkers is to join the LinkedIn groups that attract these users. A few groups to get you started include: LION500.com, 500+, OpenNetworker.com and TopLinked.com.
Once you join these groups, find postings from members looking to add connections to their network. They usually provide their email address for invitations. Prioritize by connecting with those who have the most contacts.
When you build up your connections with these heavy hitters, you will turn your LinkedIn network into the ultimate “people finder” platform!
Social Media Lessons for Small Business
23. When starting your social media marketing efforts for your small business you will get frustrated. Try to keep a long term outlook like six months to a year.
28. Social media in the short term does not work. You must be in it for the long term and be persistent, consistent, and committed.
There’s a guest post by Mark Hayward on ProBlogger that lists 30 Valuable Lessons Learned Using Social Media for Small Business. I especially liked the two points listed above…
I dove into the social media scene two years ago. It’s a lot like sales. A lot of people come and go… but those who are persistent, consistent, and committed produce huge results!
Focus NOT On Social Media ROI
These marketers are focused on where they want to be in the future. They are building what they consider to be a “digital asset.”
So, for now, they give everything (or almost everything) away for FREE in hopes of building a web presence… a following.
ROI takes a back seat… The primary focus is on creating great content and “recruiting”.
pie chart via emarketer.com
SOCIAL MEDIA plus BUSINESS equals…
Social media for the small business is a catalyst, a tool, a way to create awareness and deeper engagement – it’s not a way to take orders.
At some point you’ve got to take orders. If you can convince someone face to face of the value of your proposition, don’t expect to do it in 140 characters or less.
Remember the question I posed last week… “Is Sales 2.0 really about Sales?” Well, I don’t think you can get a better answer than this excerpt from the Duct Tape Marketing blog.