Go Connect! @ Small Business Can
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010Supported by Ulster Bank, Small Business Can is the fastest growing small business network in the UK & Ireland today. (more…)
Supported by Ulster Bank, Small Business Can is the fastest growing small business network in the UK & Ireland today. (more…)
Btb Guest Author
Claire Boyles
I’ve been on facebook a couple of years now, and I love it. It’s fun, I get to have a laugh with my friends- lots of my friends are living in England and I’m based in Dublin so it’s great; a cost effective way to stay connected to people I care about. It has gotten me reconnected with friends that I haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years. Often conversations have been sparked off by comments on friends status updates, and I’ve made new facebook friends in this way. I’ve also made new real friends through facebook- friends of people I already know, that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in “real” life too.
Then there’s the random friend requests I receive from complete strangers, serial networkers, who, for the most part don’t even tell me why they want to be my friend. I’ve accepted these requests in the past, but given them limited access to my information. This has it’s pro’s and cons. I would like to make use of my online presence so that I remain open to business opportunities.
In fact I’ve got clients through facebook- from people clicking through to my website and reading my blog, from reading my status updates & initiating conversations with me. And that’s something I want to maintain and make good use of, especially as I coach because I love what I do- I love making positive differences to people’s lives. I had one experience where I had to remove someone from my friends as they were contacting all my friends and spamming them. I’ve also had to remove posts to my wall that were advertisements for their business!! I mean really, just HOW on earth do you think that is ok?
There is another drawback to this situation- facebook has now, more than ever become my public face. It’s become the way I am seen by the world, it’s become a marketing tool and I’ve become more and more prudent about what I do and don’t share. That has affected the social side of facebook- I can no longer be blaze and carefree about what I’m laughing about. I can no longer openly discuss, or have debates about personal views. Things can often be misinterpreted.
Also at times I want to let off a bit of steam to my friends, have a rant about something that I find irritating, sometimes even I ask for help. These things are not congruent with my brand. They make me human of course, but when people look for coaching/inspiration they want to see the solutions to their own issues, not someone in the middle of one! If you drink then you’ve also got the added risk of drunken photo’s being uploaded, thankfully I don’t have this one but I do attend parties and am in photo’s where others are in this situation!
One solution is to set up a business page- which I’ve done, but having separate status updates for another social media account is really not that attractive for me- I want to be more efficient and reduce the workload, not increase it!
Sadly this means that my facebook profile, although still very sociable, has shifted its emphasis. I’ll miss the open discussions I’ve had in the past. Sure I’ll still be able to keep in touch with my friends, and make new ones, but not in the same way.
Think carefully about how you use your online presence, social media is very useful and practical, but if you’re using it as a marketing tool the social aspect can be reduced dramatically.
It’s the age old dilemma, do we mix business with pleasure?
Connect with my personal account http://www.facebook.com/ClaireBoyles
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Claire Boyles is a leading Irish business coach. In 2007, she founded her own company called Management Matters . She has created a style of coaching which is totally client centred and specifically sets out to identify the clients’ skills, assets and weaknesses; this empowers clients to transform weaknesses into strengths. Clients working with Management Matters have found that obstacles that previously seemed insurmountable soon appear like mole hills and they achieve far more than they ever believed was possible!
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Over at TSE today
Cold Call vs Warm Call vs Social Media
Tuesday July 28th 2009 6.00 PM GMT
Is cold calling dead?
Is email marketing ineffective?
Aren’t you on social media yet?
Feeling a little confused?
A panel of experts from each of these backgrounds will discuss metrics and successes for different sales strategies and YOU can be the judge. Will those on the panel agree? We guess not…. Join the call and add YOUR comments…
Btb Guest Author
Jonathan Farrington
Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research.
Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.
Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.
However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.
And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found.
“Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone has seen it has instantly loved it,” said Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard Business School who carried out the work.
On a typical online social network, he said, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.
“This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,” the team wrote in a blog post.
Silent crowds
Twitter is a social networking website where people can post messages of 140 up to characters - known as “tweets” - that can be seen by other users who subscribe to their feed.
Its growth has been described as “explosive” and has become the poster child of social networking sites, particularly amongst media companies.
Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends.
Recent figures from research firm Nielsen Online show that visitors to the site increased by 1,382%, from 475,000 to seven million, between February 2008 and February 2009. It is thought to have grown beyond 10 million in the last 4 months.
By comparison, Facebook - one of the most popular social networking sites by number of visitors - has 200 million active users and grew by 228% during the same period.
Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return.
Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return the following month.
“The Harvard data says very, very few people tweet and the Nielsen data says very, very few people listen consistently,” Mr Heil told BBC News.
‘Super user’
The Harvard study took a snapshot of 300,542 users in May 2009. As well as usage patterns it looked in detail at gender differences.
For example, it found that men have 15% more followers than women despite there being slightly more females users of Twitter than males.
It also showed that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman, despite the reverse being true on other social networks.
“The sort of content that drives men to look at women on other social networks does not exist on Twitter,” said Mr Heil. “By that I mean pictures, extended articles and biographical information.”
However, said Mr Heil, the most striking result was that so few people used the service to publish information, preferring instead to be passive consumers.
For example, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.
“Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends,” he said. “It looks like a few people are creating content for a few people to read and share.”
Some “super users” can have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers.
Currently, the most popular person to follow on Twitter is the movie star Ashton Kutcher who has over two million followers.
However, the service bills itself as a way to “communicate and stay connected” with “friends, family and co-workers”.
“The Twitter management need to decide if this is a problem,” said Mr Heil. “And if they decide it is, how they will tweak Twitter to become more acceptable to the average user?”
Very interesting!!
Thanks to BBC News.
Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels. He has authored in excess of three hundred skills development programmes, designed a range of unique and innovative process tools and has been published extensively on a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and the customer imperative. Jonathan’s first book, “Tougher At The Top” will be published early in 2009. Visit his website @ www.jonathanfarrington.com
In the News
Here is a second very interesting post from Jonathan called “Dear Customer, Meet Me On Twitter. Dear Vendor, Why Should I Do That? “
“We all know that a vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts, to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency. I happen to believe that “complacency levels” are increasing alarmingly, and this goes some way to explaining declining levels of sales achievement”
Jonathan highlights why increasing dependence on Sales 2.0 tools may end up decreasing the levels of time and activities spent managing existing accounts and relationships. I think he makes a very strong case why salespeople should proceed with caution.
Staying with the Twitter theme, Jordan McCollum tells us that to”Breathe into a paper bag. Put your head between your knees” because Twitter traffic is now at best flat or maybe even declining.I guess I may have to start looking for another replacement addiction 
Over at TSE
TSE Masterclass Schedule
Today @ 6pm
“Engage More…Sell More” presented by Skip Anderson
Thursday @ 6pm
“Cold Calling in the 21st Century: The New Rules” presented by Wendy Weiss
Thursday June 25th
“Mom Was Right! Honesty is the best policy and, in today’s tough selling market, a very profitable one” presented by Colleen Francis
Tuesday June 30th
“The Incredible Value Of Sales Team Audits” presented by Kendra Lee and Jonathan Farrington
Remember each masterclass is $59.50 on it’s own, but if you join through my blog as a VIP member - you get all this and more, much MORE for $25 so why not:
Take the tour
Download a FREE copy of our summer eBook (normally $19.95)
Just click through on the two banners above.
Well, I think sales people don’t have a bad reputation. They are simply no more RELEVANT. Why? Read “death of a sales man”. No no no - I mean read it NOW - read it again - NOW. It will tell you WHY. If you don’t believe me - you don’t believe me like the main character in the plot didn’t listen to the youngsters who took over. Dave (Stein), you want to give them a “entirely different orientation” - wooo how cool is that. Terry, are you still hanging on to the old “solution selling stuff” from 30 years ago? Next comment may be about the “reference selling” method, or all the other good old ways of selling. Anybody up for the “killer instinct” Rarrrrrrr. How about the good schools from Miller Heiman…
Come on people what are you dreaming about at night? You are over fertilized and squeezed out people that try harder and harder to meet the commission, the forecast to walk through your “funnel” that is more like a “tunnel” with no light at the end. You get asked to work harder - you pull in more cold calls, you “align” you call centers… How about finding yet another more fine tuned sales methodology based on Yogi what’s his name. Don’t you realize that YOUR way of selling is DEAD
This is a comment by Axel Schultze from Dave Brock’s post “Why do Sales People have such a Bad Reputation?” on The Customer Collective. This new type of pitch from a new type of salesperson refers to the role of social media tools in the B2B selling environment. Axel followed this up with his own post on this topic Death of a Salesman - Version 2009.
So REALLY, how effective are these new technologies in producing additional sales? and are they now, as has been claimed in some quarters already replacing established sales methodology and processes?
Well according to a new study by ES Research Group, Inc. (ESR), one of the leading research and advisory firms on sales effectiveness, social media tools such as Jigsaw, LinkedIn,Twitter, Plaxo, Facebook, Hoovers and OneSource may be useful for other purposes, but most of them aren’t helping sales teams close many B2B deals today. The survey was developed in cooperation with The TAS Group.
Based on a survey of nearly 400 sales professionals in the U.S., the report found that only LinkedIn (86%) and Hoovers/OneSource combined (61%) were used by more than half of respondents in their selling efforts. Facebook (50%), Plaxo (48%), Twitter (31%), and Jigsaw (26%) trailed in use.
Note: Hoovers and OneSource are separate companies but were combined for survey purposes because of their similar services.
Of respondents actually using the tools for sales, Hoovers and OneSource were the only tools helping more than half (54%) of them win B2B sales sometimes or often. LinkedIn was next at 42% and Jigsaw followed at 35%. Worst were Facebook (15%), Plaxo (13%) and Twitter (13%).
“The results demonstrate that with all the hype and buzz, most social network tools aren’t helping sales teams sell more yet,” Said Dave Stein, CEO and founder, ES Research Group. “For example, Twitter has not come into its own as a salesperson’s tool. It is presently a marketing tool that can potentially benefit the sales organization by contributing to the generation and nurturing of new sales leads. For now, the use of sales methodologies integrated with CRM systems and other sales enablement tools are proving far more successful in driving sales.”
Other key findings include the following:
The ESR survey of sales representatives in a broad set of industries examined the prospecting process, the selling process, and the storage and retrieval of customer and prospect information.
No one doubts, the evolving role that social media technologies will play in the B2B selling environment, however the evidence clearly demonstrates that their present significance is no where near what some would have us believe. This is a topic of conversation that we will no doubt re-visit as the months and years go by. For now though, I applaud Dave and the ES research group for seeking out the facts of the matter, and for giving me the reassurance to continue to deliver the best advice for my customers and their sales people.
Buy the 10-page ESR/Insight™ Brief , The New Social Media: Do They Enable B2B Selling?
Over at Top Sales Experts,
Our Timetable for April includes:
First up in April is the inaugral TSE Roundtable- “The Future Of Professional Selling” featuring five of the world’s leading sales experts: Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson, Dave Stein, Nigel Edelshain, and Jonathan Farrington.
This an event you really should not miss out on - simply click on the banner below for full details and to book your place.
On April 16th, we launch the TSE Webinar Series, and I know that you are going to be very impressed with the line-up of almost FIFTY top sales gurus, who will be delivering top class presentations - simply click on the banner below to see the full schedule.
On April 21st, we launch “Sales Hardtalk” a daily dose of hard hitting advice, commentary and sales tips - easily downloadable and in bite size chunks, not to be missed.
Finally, at the end of April, the Top Sales Experts team will be launching their latest Ebook, packed with contributions from all of us - more details soon.
