As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Joanne Black and her book, “No More Cold Calling™” because so much of what she writes is the foundation on what Inquisix is built upon. When Dave and I were first sharing the referral exchange idea that became Inquisix, we were introduced to Joanne by Philippe Lavie, sales trainer from Chicago. Joanne and I talked a few times and then agreed to meet at the first Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco. I had a chance to pick up Joanne’s book and read it before meeting her in Chicago. I felt like I was in college again because when I was done reading her book, it was filled with my yellow highlighting. I’ve now met Joanne a few times while I’m in San Francisco and her advice on building a better Inquisix has proven invaluable.
Joanne has now extended her website’s offerings to include a blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. It’s now even easier to get her good advice.
As a salesperson, are you selling to your prospects or helping them solve problems?
Zig Ziglar says, “You can get everything in life you want if you help other people get what they want.” As quoted in Selling Power maagazine, June 2009 issue, page 28.
Zig’s message at first glance seems a bit naive especially since it seems contrary to messages you receive at school, on the playing fields and at work about being number 1.
But in this new Sales 2.0 “empowering the customer” environment, is there any other way to be successful in your career?
Jon Hansen hosts a Talk Radio Show, “PI Window on Business” that reaches an estimated 300,000 syndicated subscribers worldwide every month. The PI Social Media Network is internationally recognized for its ability to identify, structure and disseminate the ideas and visions that are reshaping the emerging global enterprise.
He’s talking with Michael Kreppein, Chief Sales Officer of Inquisix, to examine more closely the emergence of “reputation networks” and their effects on personal branding in the Web 2.0 world. Reputation networks, like Inquisix, are gaining ground to combat the growing problem within the realms of social networking, where references or testimonials are bartered by an ever-expanding network of interloping relationships between name collectors versus relationship builders.
As mentioned in a previous post, Pat Weber runs an online networking group called the Consummate Networkers and she invited me to speak to her group last week.
Pat has three key areas of consummate networking:
* Show Up
* Dive In
* Follow up
Pat asked me to talk about the Dive-In area so I presented to over 30 attendees on, “The Morning After….Attending the Networking Event.” We used the BlitzTime solution so that everyone could see & hear the presentation and then do one-on-one networking afterwards. All from the comfort of their home, office or car.
Pat Weber runs an online networking group called the Consummate Networkers and she’s invited me to speak to her group this week. The event is phone-based and anyone can join the call via BlitzTime.
Date: Thursday, July 23rd at 7pm ET
Topic: The Day After the Networking Event – What Do I Do Now?
Why not join us and participate by signing up here? The event is free and you’ll have a chance to meet other professionals interested in networking.
Michael sends out an e-newsletter focused on writing better e-newsletters. You can read why Michael feels the same way I do about customers and referrals here. If you’d like to listen to the newsletter instead, click here.
What’s really interesting is discussed in Paul’s 3rd pillar. He says, “Your referred prospect will view YOU the same way they view your Client– Good, Bad, or Indifferent” I absolutely agree. Inquisix’s data on the quality of a reputation given shows that the better the relationship between the the person giving the referral and their referred colleague, the better the referral experience. The first hint of a bad referral is how the referral is handled, which is Paul’s 4th Pillar.
So the primary reputation factor in a good referral is not between the person asking and the person giving the referral. Rather, it’s between the person giving the referral and their referred colleague.
Pillars 3 and 4 are why Inquisix allows members to rate each side of the referral via reputation points. If you give a referral, that member will rate you on the quality of the referral given. If you get a referral, that member will rate you on how well you treated their trusted colleague. Your Inquisix reputation rating of giving and getting referrals then becomes the badge that all other members can use to validate your credentials.
Barry Moltz has a radio show where he will, “… talk about all the craziness of small business.” Last week’s theme was sales & marketing networking thru social media and he invited me to talk with him. You can listen to my portion of the show below.
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Barry had a few guests on his show along with me, including Alyssa Dver from my last post. His show was also the inspiration for my post on why the cold calling process is like, “putting lipstick on a pig” which generated quite a few comments. If you’d like to listen to the whole 30 minute talk, go to Barry’s website here and listen to episode #40. You’ll find a wealth of information on his site so enjoy.
Since I have that fancy letter “C” as the first letter in my title as Chief Sales Officer, I get quite a number of cold calls. Of course it just makes me cringe to be called by someone who hasn’t even spent a minute looking at our business and developing a message about their solution that I’d care about. But I do enjoy critiquing in my mind their pitch.
Some would like to rename cold calling. I recently heard it called “introductory calling” in an interview done on Barry Moltz’s talk radio show. I don’t know, seems analogous to putting lipstick on a pig.
Instead of just renaming the term, Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 has written a 24-page ebook on turning cold calls into social calls. He reviews the new Sales 2.0 techniques and tools to “…help you with the three most critical factors: talking to the right people, establishing relationships and using changes in your buyer’s environment.”
You can download Nigel’s book for free here. Adding his blog to your RSS reader is also well worth it.
I worked with Trish Bertuzzi of The Bridge Group on a few inside sales consulting engagements when I ran PeakSales Consulting in the late ’90′s.
Her company specializes in improving the Insides Sales department, especially when the group is involved in the full sales cycle till close. So they’re well qualified to publish reports on Inside Sales Best Practices. Trish’s latest offering is the “Periodic Table of Insides Sales Metrics” which I think is a really neat way to summarize the important data relevant for building a top-tier Inside Sales Group. Best of all, the table is free to download from The Bridge Group website.
If you’re local to Boston and would like to hear Trish speak, why not print out the table and get her to autograph it at the Sales 2.0 Conference on May 21, 2009? I’m first in line!
