Btb Guest Author

Ian Brodie

A topic I’ve blogged about frequently is the importance of good follow-up and of nurturing relationships over time.

In The Importance of Good Follow-Up I highlighted the futility of the “Nice to meet you, if you ever need our services…” email follow-up to networking meetings and suggested a number of value-adding alternatives.

One trend I’ve noticed recently is the increasing use of email newsletters as a follow-up mechanism. The price-point and ease of use have reached a level nowadays that even the smallest of businesses can have their own regular newsletter delivered to clients and prospects.

But just because something is easy doesn’t mean you should do it.

On at least half a dozen occasions recently I’ve found myself subscribed to email newsletters from people and companies who I’ve met briefly at networking meetings. I’ve given them my business card and they’ve plugged it straight into their email distribution list.

This is a follow-up mechanism that has the potential to add value if the newsletter is of high quality and relevant to me. But how does it make me feel to have my details “harvested” in this way?

To be honest, not great.

It feels impersonal. I’ve not had an email or call from them. Nothing mentioning any connection we made at the event and no thought from them on tailoring the message to my specific needs. I’ve just been fed into their email marketing machine.

I wondered whether I was the only one who felt this way, so I posed the question on Twitter to see how others felt:

As you can see from this sample of responses, people’s feelings are almost universally negative. They range from “I want to *smack* them!” and “it sucks!” to at best, “my junk filtering can soon take care of them if they fail to send me anything interesting or useful”. And remember, these negative responses are to something as seemingly innocent as adding someone’s name to an email distribution list after meeting them. For me, Kneale Mann summed up the sentiment best best when he replied: “A handshake does not make you a customer”.

Obviously, Twitter followers are not a sample that’s representative of the public at large. But I do believe they represent an important and growing sensitivity to the appropriate use of information.

So what’s the alternative?

Well, since you are interacting face to face with them, there should be ample opportunity to offer to send the newsletter and get their permission.

If the time isn’t right when you meet them, then send them an email afterwards with a sample copy of the newsletter suggesting it might be of interest and giving a link to sign-up if they are. Personalise the emails – recalling topics you discussed or better still – add value by suggesting ideas for questions they posed or challenges they highlighted when you were talkign with them.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is my opinion as to what you should do rather than something that is proven to have better results. I haven’t done any testing to see what results in better long-term subscriptions, click throughs on the newsletter or eventually sales.

But for me that doesn’t matter. If you want to establish a reputation as someone who can be trusted then you mustn’t do anything early on in the relationship to suggest an abuse of trust. Auto-subscribing people to your newsletter without asking is hardly the crime of the century – but to many people it suggests that you will not treat them as individuals with their best interests at heart.

Personally, I’d rather lose potential newsletter subscribers than lose that reputation of trust.

Ian Brodie has been helping some of the world’s leading organisations with their marketing and sales challenges for over 16 years. He has been interviewed on industry and business issues by the BBC and Business Week magazine. Ian is the editor of Rainmaker Resources – the leading internet portal for partners, businesses developers and marketers in Professional Service Firms – featuring reviews, feeds and links to the leading Professional Services business development resources on the web. He also run the Rainmaker Network – the Linkedin Group for professional service business developers. You can contact Ian on ian@ianbrodie.com or through his website www.ianbrodie.com

In the News

The voting has nearly ended over at Top 10 Sales Articles - if you haven’t voted yet, you can still register your support for your favourite article here

Sales Leadership Ireland continues to go from strength to strength. We now have three further subgroups which are:

INTERNATIONAL SALES

SALES TEAM MANAGEMENT

OWNER MANAGER SALES

Btb Guest Author

Christian Maurer

Yes, but not in the form we know and practice selling today. This is one of my takeaways from the round table discussion between Nigel Edelshain, Jonathan Farrington, Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson and Dave Stein over at the Top Sales Experts. Especially “order takers” and ‘glib talkers” will have a bleak future according to Jonathan Farrington. Intelligent strategic orchestrators and business advisors looking to develop long term allies however will have a bright future according to him. Jill Konrath seconded that she hopes that sales is really changing that much.

So we should expect a lot of organizational transformation within sales forces. However, and this is my second take away, the salespeople are not the primary target for this transformation. The sales profession -if we want to use this term despite the fact that from a scientific standpoint ’sales’ is not yet a profession- faces not only a leadership crisis but a disaster as Dave Stein put it.

The transformation has to start at the very top with company leaders. They should get rid of the myths that super salespersons make good sales managers and that the necessary competences come with the title. Sales Management is an occupation in itself requiring different specific skills than those of a sales superstar.

Relying just on tribal wisdom, where newly appointed sales managers draw on what they have observed their own managers doing, will not bring the desired result as it is very likely that these managers were not properly prepared for the job either. In addition their understanding of selling and of their job role might be outdated and not fit in today’s unforgiving economic context.

In my own opinion there will be no room left for purely action and result oriented managers trying to manage outcomes. It makes little difference if they rely on data from their own home grown spreadsheets or on sophisticated analytical CRM tools in their attempt to manage these outcomes. Outcomes are lagging indicators even if they come in the disguised form of forecasts. Management actions based on these metrics will always be too little too late. The future belongs to sales managers being able to interpret leading indicators helping them to derive coaching needs of their sales people.

The panelist were all in agreement that being able to coach people is a very essential skill for successful sales managers going forward.. There is however a huge skill gap with current sales managers. Linda Richardson’s re-edited book on this subject will help fill this gap. As a questions from a listener indicated, a significant number of sales managers has though not only a skill gap but an outright attitude problem towards coaching. Let’s hope for them that they can be convinced by appropriate business cases to avoid being phased out.

The dilemma for preparing sales managers for their job is though deeper. While a lot has been written with the salesperson in mind, there is a lack of a body of knowledge from which sale managers can be taught how to do their job. This is the reason why already three years ago, I started my blog with the sales executives and managers in mind.

Christian Maurer, The Sales Executive Resource, is an independent sales effectiveness consultant, trainer and coach. He has a proven track record of helping to increase the productivity of large, global B2B sales organizations. For the last ten years Christian has consulted and coached hundreds of sales executives and managers on how to plan and execute their sales strategies by focusing on process management rather than trying to manage results. Visit Christian ’s website: http://ultimatesalesexecresource

In the news

Dave Stein asks “How Do You Fix Sales Ineffectiveness?” This is a BIG BIG question and has already resulting in much debate. As Dave points out “There is a proven path.  The answers are there for everyone to see.  There are companies you can read about and observe that have achieved sales excellence. So, recession aside, why is sales as a profession and function, losing ground?” - I strongly suggest you check it out.

Clayton Shold is in conversation with fellow Top Sales Expert, Jonathan London over at Salesopedia, about the “Upside To Recession Selling”

Top 10 Sales Articles has just announced the “Top Sales Article Of The Month” for April. This a truly great sales resource with articles on every conceivable sales topic.

Over at TSE

The new Top Sales Experts (Public Group) over at LinkedIn is developing into a very lively community, with lots of really interesting discussions - to join us, simply click below.