Not often that your C-level prospect will tell you how to sell to them.  They’ll hide behind email spam filters and executive assistants but won’t take the time to tell you what you’re doing wrong.  Until this CEO opened up with their automated email reply telling you to do more than just call the vendor hotline at purchasing – a voice mail no one ever picks up.

Top ways to get noticed:

• Let your prospect find you – ie Inbound Marketing
• Get introduced by someone they trust – ie Referrals

Top ways to annoy:

• Constant cold-calls
• Mass emails to entire executive team
• Trying to connect via social media

Thanks to Hubspot for the full article.

Ivan Misner posted on his blog – What Is the Number-One Trait of a Master Networker? this week and I thought, “Absolutely dead-on!”

Nothing frustrates me more than giving a referral to someone and then they DON’T FOLLOW UP. I’ve asked my colleague if they’d accept this referral to and now I have to explain why there was no follow up. This affects my reputation. That’s why Inquisix allows members to rate the referral in both ways – rating how well one party handled the referral and how well the other party gave the referral.

I just ordered this book because that’s what Inquisix members do – they build business relationships that last.

If you’ve already read the book, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

I called a division of Acme Industrial [name changed to protect the guilty] a week ago and asked to speak to someone in sales as I had some questions.   The service runs about $7500-12,000 per year, not an insubstantial amount of investment. The phone system asked me to press 1 if I wanted to speak to someone who “would be happy to answer your questions about our services.” The person I got didn’t know anything about the product at all, and said someone would call me back.  Already a bad precedent, I wonder how the sales rep covering my territory would feel about their inside team dropping the ball.

A week goes by. A week!

So I call back today and go thru the menu prompts again and again I’m told I’ll be transferred to someone who “would be happy to answer your questions about our services.” When they did answer, they said that they have no record of my call last week. They put me on hold for 4 minutes. They come back on the line and ask me for the same contact information I provided a week earlier. Didn’t ask any qualifying questions, curiously, like budget, timeframe, or even what 2-3 top questions I wanted answered. Said “someone will call you back.” When I asked when I would hear from them or who would call me, the rep didn’t know. I pointed out it had been a week and I wanted this information as soon as possible so I could make a final decision – would I get a call back today? “I’ll ask them to call you sooner rather than later.”

By contrast, their competitor took my call live on the first time I called them, answered my questions reasonably well, and sent me email today to follow up.

What company can afford to put themselves in this situation? How many other calls did they handle this way? Sales live by the numbers, but this team isn’t doing themselves any good. And with marketers scrambling to justify their existence and their budgets based on closed leads, its clear that getting the metrics right is only part of the equation. What does this experience communicate to me as a prospective buyer about what it may be like to work with these guys? I felt a lack of accountability, lack of concern for me as a customer, and a very low service experience.   Guess who’s product I purchased?  And that Acme Industrial sales rep handling my territory never even knew what they lost.

Thanks to Malay Pharma Sales Rep Rant  for the picture.

Ever hit the “send” button on your email too quickly and then wished you could pull it back?  And if you try Outlook’s “Recall Message…” all it really does is highlight to the recipient that you made a mistake.

Here’s a perfect example of not proofing before you email.  And this was a cold call email blast to me from someone I don’t know.  Think I’ll be responding to this email with anything but “unsubscribe?”

Why Social Networking Isn’t the Next Best Thing…
… You are! It’s the personal connection—still—that seals the deal.

The Internet, social networking, and other breakthroughs in technology have fundamentally changed the way we do business. New technology drives communications, messaging, and information access at warp speed, and our clients expect immediate contact. This pattern of ever-increasing speed and sophistication not only creates an intensely competitive marketplace, but places further demands on us to act and respond quickly.

The rise of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and LinkedIn have lured many sales pros into scaling back their personal interactions and relying on social media to surface “qualified leads.”

Get Real

Social media is a powerful tool for three things and three things only:

• Search engine optimization—use your key words and raise your presence on the web
• Find out who people are—learn about a person’s background and your connections
• Find out who people know—look for close connections that you can leverage

Some salespeople tell me they actually get clients through social media. Well, maybe if you have a commodity business. Could it happen? Yes. Do I rely on it? Absolutely not. I only count on what I bring about—through a proactive, intentional, referral strategy with personal introductions.

To Know You Is to Like You

There’s a saying in sales: Clients buy with emotion and justify with fact. If our clients don’t like us or don’t feel comfortable with us, they won’t buy from us. You can wow your clients with technology know-how now and try to win them over later, once they find out you’re honest and reliable. But the reality is, you need people to start liking you within the first few seconds of your relationship. You need to start off on the right foot. Fancy gizmos won’t make that happen. But a trusted referral and a personal connection will.

Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, in his commencement address to the graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania in May 2009, urged college graduates to step away from the virtual world and make human connections. “Turn off your computer. You’re actually going to have to turn off your phone and discover all that is human around us.” (View the commencement address video here)

To Like You Is to Trust You

The most important business decisions are still based on personal relationships. There is significant research about why customers make buying decisions. Bottom line: It’s because they like and trust the salesperson and his organization. Think about it. We’re selling services, investments, systems, products… we’re asking for people’s time and money! Why would they work with someone who hasn’t been referred?

3 Winning Tips

That said, a social media presence is a must-have in today’s world. Start this way:

• Develop a social media strategy —Like a sales plan or a marketing plan, write your social media plan. What is your goal, who is your audience, what do you communicate? Leverage social media as part of your go-to-market strategy. How does your strategy link to your customer’s needs and your business priorities?
• Establish relationships —Take the time to build your personal connections, pick up the phone and talk to people. Just because you have a name in hand, doesn’t mean you have a relationship.
• Communicate useful information — Social sites are not for selling. They are for establishing connections, identifying ways to collaborate, and providing value. What tips can you provide? Link to other sites that you recommend. Be recognized as the expert and build your web presence. Be a resource.

To Trust You Paves the Way

The most energizing and exciting part of our work is the relationships with our clients—the interaction. We enjoy learning about our client’s business and matching our solutions to their needs. In an era dominated by ever-expanding technology and social media pressures, always remember that personal connections, referrals, and earning trust are what count. Yes, it requires brainpower. But isn’t that what we love about what we do? Indeed.

I had an amazing Blog Talk Radio with Jon Hansen of PI Window on Business last week.  We spoke over our allotted time, almost an hour, on the emergence of reputation networks such as Inquisix.  With it being so easy to make connections on the web and trade recommendations, how can people who don’t know you really trust what they read about you?

Topics we discussed included:

• Value of References
• Giving vs Getting
• Political Patronage and References
• Verifying References
• Integrity of Referral/Reference Process
• Does Social Media Help or Hurt
• Extending Your Reference Base with Integrity
• Emergence of Reputation Networks with Social/Business Networking

If BTR podcast doesn’t show above, please go to Jon’s site to listen to it.

On a side note, talking with Jon was one of the easiest and most enjoyable online discussions I’ve had.  Jon prepared me for the call by sending me some topics to think about prior to our interview.  He was calm when we had a few technical difficulties to iron out before we went on the air.  And his engaging demeanor and conversation made the conversation lively, interesting and valuable.   I was certainly surprised to learn later that Jon’s only been a BTR host for a short time.  Jon has written a book, “Your Show Will Go Live in 5 Seconds” about his experiences as a Blog Talk Radio Host.  If  you’re thinking of becoming a BTR host or are thinking of your personal branding via Social Media, you owe it to yourself to read this book.  An excerpt is available at no charge at Jon’s site.  Not surprising, his book reads as breezy and well as listening to him online.

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.

Please join us.

Wednesday September 23, 2009 at 12.30pm ET

Did anyone see JigSaw’s recent announcement that they’ve sent up an exchange where you can sell a referral to your contacts?  It’s called “JigSaw Connect” and given the number of members they have (850K registered  members), this could be the first exchange to make selling a referral by the individual sales rep successful.

Selling a referral to your customer isn’t anything new.  Companies have been doing it at the corporate level for years.  They call it the affiliate program or the business development partner program or just the reseller program.  And this seems to be a well understood and accepted practice by the customers.

Individual sales reps and agents selling a referral to their customer in certain industries isn’t new, either.  The introduction of a mortgage broker by the real estate agent that just found your new home probably comes with a kick-back to the agent from the mortgage broker.  Maybe the referral fee is not as well understood by the consumer but I don’t think anyone would be surprised.

Now JigSaw is taking this to a new level.  It’s at the rep level where an individual rep can earn $200 by referring their customer to any vendor that’s signed up to advertise on JigSaw Connect.  And it’s many industries, even ones where traditionally the selling of referrals at the rep level is frowned upon.  The only other site I’ve seen that offers this exchange of referrals for cash is SalesConx, a startup based in New York City.  But they don’t have the membership scale that JigSaw has.

I’ll be very interested to see how JigSaw Connect fares.  JigSaw itself received a lot of negative press early on because people were offended that their business information was sold anonymously.  JigSaw will say that they’re just collecting business information differently than a Hoovers or OneSource but aren’t any different in the information they deliver.  I’ve used JigSaw for years and Inquisix is a JigSaw data partner so I don’t have an issue with the service.

Still, selling referrals versus giving referrals is an interesting dilemma for some.  BNI members give referrals to get them in return, i.e. “Givers Gain“.  At Inquisix, we encourage members to give referrals to increase their reputation with their own customer.  But no money is exchanged.

Would you anonymously sell the business cards you’ve collected to a data broker, i.e. JigSaw?

Would you sell a referral to a business contact you have?

There’s a big jump in effort, responsibility, and reputation between the 2 questions.  Let’s see how this pans out.

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.