We’re not taking about your fathers’ salesperson, as they say. It’s a new world and the modern salesperson has to keep up or get run over. That’s just that way it is. I was talking to a young salesperson the other day. The first thing that struck me was how confident he was. This guy acted like he knew what he was doing, and after spending just an hour with him…he did.
That hour spent with this young man made me realize that the world really has changed in all ways, and that these changes have completely affected the way a modern salesperson has to operate to be successful.
First of all, if you are over fifty, which by the way, is about twenty five years older than my salesperson, you can forget the golf, the long dinners, the little gifts like coffee cups, and pens, and all of that rigamarole, because it just doesn’t work anymore. The new world of business has no time or inclination to spend hours on a golf course, or hours at a long boring dinner, or has no use for your coffee cup or pens. To the new world customer this has no appeal, nor does it go anywhere towards ingratiating you with her.
And one more thing, unless you’re hanging around with people even older than you, it’s not cool, or funny to say that you don’t believe in that “face page” or “tweetering”, or that other thing, what is it? “Linkeringin” No, if you ever want to sell another thing, then never use these terms again. It’s , well it’s not funny and makes you look old and stupid.
And please stop talking about Millennials! Whether you are putting them down or think you are your older generations “Millennial whisperer” don’t do it.
Got that? Good, now let’s talk the great modern day salesperson. Let’s get into what any salesperson at any age from twenty four to seventy four needs to be doing to be successful today
Use all the tools available today. From Sales Force, to Social Media, from Face Book to Linkedin (especially Linkedin), to Twitter and Instagram, and let’s not forget Texting, stay up on all of these, learn how to use them and then use them to your advantage, constantly and consistently
and professionally.
Learn how to use Constant Contact or some other such software. For you, computer nerds out there please use Constant Contact, it’s the biggest and the best newsletter software period. so, don’t go out of your way to find some obscure little program that no one is using just to prove
your “techiness”.
Use these tools every day. All of these social media tools have a purpose and a function that will help you be a better salesperson:
Linkedin is great for research of all kinds, like finding, and targeting the companies who need your products, finding the right people to talk to at those companies; connecting with those people to help you “warm up” those cold calls; posting useful information about your company and capabilities to your connections to the point where you can actually become an industry influencer for your products specifically and the industry in
general.
Instagram is great for showing quick flashes of your capabilities such as a photo of a twenty eight layer blind and buried via board you built in forty eight hours. That’s impressive!
Twitter is a great way to be constantly pushing your messages and getting them in front of the right audience and with a link moving that audience to your web site or blog.
Texting: If you’re not texting you are truly out of it. This is the best way to touch your customer quickly, efficiently and non-intrusively. According to one study I read recently, the chances of getting an answer back from a text are at least ten times more than getting an answer to a phone call. Start texting now!
Constant Contact: Create your own newsletters. Develop a permission marketing plan including a newsletter plan that will get your message in front of the right customers at the right time. Read Seth Godin’s short book Permission Marketing and you’ll learn everything you need to know about this. By using Constant Contact for your permission marketing newsletter, you will have to opportunity to get your message out regularly to your willing readers, or as Seth calls them, your “Tribe”
Offer value. When you are talking to a customer, always make sure you are giving her something of value. Something that will make her job easier, something that will give her more vital information about your product, or something that is related to a project she is currently working on.
Value his precious time. It’s a fast moving world with no time to spare on chit chat about the game last night or even leaving the office for lunch somewhere. Learn what your customer does, how he spends his time and adapt yourself to his schedule. If he likes to have a double expresso for lunch, go along with it. He is the customer and it is his schedule you have to work with.
And finally work closely on your partnerships with your customers. Use all of these above-mentioned tools to enhance that partnership by providing your tribe of customers with a steady stream of valuable information about you and your company. Do it today!
It’s only common sense.
