Digital marketing for reps

Here’s a story of two salesmen James and Adam

Both men are Sales representatives for the Cebu jam company (Hey I like jam, I am not sure if there’s a jam factory in Cebu but just bear with me!)

Each salesman has a quota and attractive bonuses for over quota performance. Both men are tenacious and work hard, but one works smarter than the other, because legend has it that if hard work made you rich then every woman in Africa would be driving around in Bentley convertibles!

James arrives at his office desk at 0800 Monday morning, he’s the only one there, well if you count the cleaner!

He prepares a list of the companies he will cold call today and soon as 9 am comes the phone gets pounded by James. On average on an office day James makes 50-70 calls and gets to speak to around 10 ‘possible decision makers’ but with cold calling now one of the most ineffective ways of lead generation business still use, proven by Baylor university in a intensive controlled study of experienced Telesales people, who’s study found that 89% of decision makers won’t make any kinds of decisions over the phone whatsoever, meaning that poor old James made just two appointments for a ten hour day.

James also went straight from work at 6 pm to a business networking event at the local chamber of commerce, he gets to speak to 10 people all evening, sadly he spends a lot of time chatting with friends, and colleagues. He follows up the next day from the business cards he recieved and makes 2 more appointments. So for his office day and networking evening; James has 4 appointments with possible ‘Jam buyers’ for the next 4 days. Poor James arrives home at 10 PM quite exhausted, dinner is in the oven with a thick skin on it now!

Biz-find articles |success at work

Adam however, strolls into work and is at his desk eating a Macs breakfast muffin and coffee with a smile on his face at around 09 45 am on the same Monday, he sees poor old James banging the phone down shouting; “There’s no need to be rude!!”

Adam switches on his laptop, logs on to all his social media accounts, finds some online conversations on Buzsumo regarding baking and dessert restaurants to which he comments on a few about the types of jam that could go best with those recipes, James is an active member of many hospitality groups and communities on LinkedIn and Google Plus.

Added to this; James has his own blog website where twice a week, he writes great baking secrets about how to use his jam in many different ways to spice up any meal. He shares his blog with all his social media accounts and from his social media work he makes appointments with targeted people who know what he is all about.

Adam receives around 5-8 leads a week directly through blogging and ‘listening to social media’ effectively, meaning on his office day, he is relaxed, makes a few calls to people who already know him and recognize his name, he leaves the office at 4.30 PM with 8 appointments with decision makers, then goes straight home to see his family and a warm meal.

Adam also subscribes to Biz-find as a pro member where he gets extra images, maps, and videos in his listing on Biz-find,  he also receives leads direct in his email box  from the members of the site who have added what they are looking for, he subscribes to the ‘conserves and Jams’ category within the site (well of course he would) and he pays just $10 a month for the service. He receives another 5 leads over the month from people looking for jam, Biz-find supply the contact name and phone number of the contact, to whom he calls immediately and makes an appointment.

He loves the biz-find service because they use the first law of persuasion which is reciprocation, they give all their members a free page to advertise on their websites and they share them to social media to get more visits for their clients.

biz-find leads

Biz-find have a very large social media reach and can get 50 people to see a company in the first 10 minutes, and they continue sharing their clients to their social media every day. Biz-find also give their members incentives to tell them what they want to buy, they then publish the leads direct to the sellers, “What a great idea” Adam thought, and he wondered if he should he tell James about this hmmmmm

James however is on the back foot when he gets to his first appointment,  once there he has to explain a few times to reception who he is again and that he most definitely did make an appointment, finally he gets to see the decision maker, he wastes a lot of time trying to build rapport, thus ending the appointment abruptly promising to send a proposal.

Across town at the same time; Adam walks into his first appointment and a board is waiting to taste his Jam that he brought, “We love your blog Adam” they tell him, “we subscribe through a feed and get your latest posts in our email, and we can’t wait to try your company’s latest jam” they inform him sticking their fingers straight into his new jar and he just lets the rest of the people loose on his pot of jam, then 40 minutes later is filling in an order form.

Biz-find articles |success at work

Selling has changed dramatically since the 80’s and 90’s cold calling and door knocking are certainly to be avoided and companies that are not embracing digital marketing will most certainly struggle to make qualified targeted appointments.

To learn all about how to use social media sites like Biz-find to send leads direct from our members to your inbox, how to use LinkedIn and Google plus,how to blog and how to be seen as an expert in your arena making appointments and rapport as natural as making a jam sandwich; contact Netmedia today.

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