Tag Archives: Prospecting

What Happens In Your Home Should Stay In Your Home

I always found it a bit ironic that salespeople rank the highest in not wanting to be annoyed by telemarketers calling their homes. “Don’t they realize it’s dinnertime and, no I don’t need carpeting or draperies? Who would buy something over the phone anyway? I don’t even know these people.”

Yet 14 hours later, following direction from their sales manager, they plow through lists of strangers calling them cold, hoping they feel differently about the interruption.

It is unfortunate that we have to encounter this torture in our own homes but to take it to our workplace and duplicate the madness makes no sense. Better it should stay in the home. Integrated Social Selling puts practices like this to the test and makes sure that as we pursue business, our initiatives are congruent with our mission.

Author: Rich Lucia
www.RichLucia.com

It’s Not the Same Door Your Father Knocked on

Buyers have changed and how they get their information has changed along with how they now want to be treated. Your father worked with a totally different buyer from another generation who is nothing like the buyer of today. So why do sales people today still use the techniques their fathers did? Hockey players understand if you skate to where the puck was, you missed the play, however sales people waste so much time working in the past.

Your father’s prospect invited him in for a chat. They welcomed him with open arms to find out the latest about their industry, new products and services. That is how his prospects gained information. The door you are knocking on has a much different buyer on the other side. Your prospect now gets their information from the Internet and now chats to gain industry knowledge, with their peers via social media. Those open arms your father once saw are now hugging more easily accessible information and the need for that cold call chat is all but non-existent. Even though those doors are now locked and lights are turned off, some sales reps today still pull out their father’s sales manual and continue to wear out their knuckles cold calling until they get frustrated and find another profession or their sales manager convinces them to just cold call more people.

Today, sales reps knocking harder won’t get those doors unlocked and lights turned back on, however they can be personally introduced to this new kind of buyer, from a trusted associate by using Social Selling.  Social selling is a Selling in the Now technique, that supports the concept of becoming more “customer intimate” by using social media to gain insight into a prospects industry, buying preferences and get that locked door reopened by using a friendly introduction. A well-orchestrated plan using integrated social selling techniques is more aligned with today’s buyer than how it was done in the past. Your father was smart enough to understand what his prospects wanted to get the opportunity to make sales. It’s time for all of use to do the same thing and start “Selling in the Now”.

Author: Rich Lucia
www.RichLucia.com

Your Customers Should be Building Your Website

This is going to be great, you finally decided to build or rebuild your website. So off you go, searching through the web, looking at other sites to collect great looking ideas. Banners on the top? No, you think down the side looks better. How about color? Your spouse really likes red but blue is more your shade and it will match your logo. How about content, font style and color? You always liked that Century Gothic 12 pitch script. Someone mentioned that everyone is using video, so now you are writing a script about your company, what you do, and then practicing it in front of a mirror. Next, you’re shopping for a web designer because you don’t have a clue how to create that dancing baby you want in the upper right corner of your home page. Now here comes the harsh truth … It maybe your website but it is not about you. It is about your prospects and customers and what they want not what you want. Using your website creation methodology is like going fishing and using your favorite doughnut as bait. I know you really like that glazed chocolate but fish don’t eat doughnuts.

It’s your customers that should be building your website. You should be taking into account what they like to see when they click on your URL. How do you do this? You ask. Ask your current customers what they like most about your company. What sold them on your product or service and what were the most important criteria they used when they decided to do business with you. It’s their comments that will give you clues to who your ideal customers are, and what they are using to make their decisions. If it turns out that service is higher at the top of their list, then a picture depicting a robust service organization might be a better choice than that dancing baby. Smart companies spend more time with their customers than fishing with doughnuts. Your customers can more accurately articulate your value and light the way to others like themselves. Connecting with your customers and prospects, in this way, is an integral part of Social Selling.

Social Selling is all about connecting with people and using those connections efficiently and profitably. When your customer-designed website is used with other social media tools, as part of an Integrated Social Selling Plan, you will not only be on target with your resources but will be using a holistic approach to success.

Author: Rich Lucia
www.RichLucia.com

Copyright Rich Lucia 2007-2013