Would You Return This Call?

Telephone Cold calling…Email…SMS Text…Twitter…Linkedin…Facebook…Webinars…and more.

All standard techniques for sales professionals to try and drum up business leads and get in front of qualified prospects.  Sometimes these methods work.  More often than not, they don’t.  Why?  Because you’re delivering the wrong message.

How many of us have gone into one of the big box stores and run into the poor person walking around with the dreaded clipboard?  All of us!  The person is typically trying to get your attention, offering a deal of some sort, completely different from the product you went into the store to buy.  Why do you most often walk away after saying “I’m not interested”?  Why are these people getting such a low conversion rate?  They are not offering a service YOU think YOU need at the moment and your time is valuable.

That is the underlying problem sales professionals are facing every day during their prospecting efforts.  We email, call, text, tweet etc. to people WE perceive as prospects, interrupting their daily work and expecting them to drop everything and respond to us.  This just doesn’t produce enough results.

So how do successful sales professionals get their prospects interest?  The top sales producers have learned the technique of creating a sense of need with their prospects.  They have redesigned their message from selling their company’s value proposition to offering a sure fire method to grow their prospect’s business.

Consider this scenario, left on voicemail…..

”Hi Mr. Customer, my name is Kevin from ABC Inc., and I’d like to speak with you about my “Widget” program for your company and the value it brings.  Could you please give me a call back at 781-123-4567”

Pretty standard stuff for a voicemail.  Do you think Kevin is going to get a call back? Pretty unlikely……

Now a different approach…..

“Hi Mr. Customer, this is Kevin from ABC Inc. calling.  I’m looking to arrange a brief 15 minute call to discuss how your company can grow a new revenue stream using the same program I designed for …(a company within your prospects industry)……  Please drop me a quick call @ xxxxxx or email with an appropriate time and I‘ll confirm via Outlook invite.”

Do you think “Kevin’s”  2^nd message will get a better response rate?  Absolutely it will.  By delivering the same message but creating the impression of a new income stream, “Mr. Customer” is more likely to respond.  Not guaranteed by any means, but more likely.  It might take a few follow ups to get a response, but any CTO or COO will tell you unless you create a way for them to benefit from your call, they will not give you the time to make your pitch.  And Kevin didn’t even mention the product in his 2^nd message.

Creating a perceived need for a product or service will help justify the prospect agreeing to give you the time on their schedule to make your pitch.  Try imagining yourself in your prospect’s chair and consider what would make you return a call on your product.  Once you’ve crafted the right message, you’ll see your prospecting efforts return more set appointments which will lead to more sales…….

Have a great opening pitch? I'd enjoy hearing about it.....

Good selling……….

Colleges are "Missing the Basket" during March Madness

Some colleges are “missing the basket” this season during March Madness.

With all the upsets during this year’s March Madness, a great opportunity has developed to gain some valuable advertising for their respective school through the use of social media.  This is a perfect example of where a properly managed social media program can impact enrollment.

Last year we had Butler University.  This year we have Creighton, Belmont, and St Mary’s.  While their alumni and friends know where these schools are located, the average fan or more importantly, the average high school junior or senior doesn’t.   The use of a well-run Twitter or Facebook campaign could realize immeasurable returns on enrollment.  At $33k+ for Creighton,  $19k+ for Belmont, and $38k+ for St. Mary’s, successfully recruiting even a few students by taking advantage of the publicity options available by participating in the NCAA Tournament can be invaluable.  After all, who wouldn’t want to go to a college or university whose athletic programs offer the student body the opportunities to participate in big time college athletics? 

If anyone can think of a better time to enhance your school’s reputation and public awareness, I’d love to hear it.  With all the options available today for companies to take advantage of social media outlets, it’s surprising I’m not seeing these schools “trending” on Twitter. 

There are many companies who provide outsourced social media programs for those companies who don’t possess the computer skills or staff to manage it themselves.  The extent to which a company jumps in to social media can also be dictated, for far less overhead cost than it would take to hire a full time staff to manage it.

To find out more information on the available social media options for your business or brand, please contact me @davehanron and I’d be happy to help.

SuperBowl XLVI Ads & Effect on Social Media Sites

It’s that time of year again…..SuperBowl XLVI.

I can’t wait to see how advertising and social media takes off during THE GAME this year.  Whether it’s Wes Welker talking about Tom Brady’s toilet, Gronk’s ankle sprain, Bill Belichick talking about retirement, or just the old fashion TV and radio commercials, all of these things will potentially be leading world-wide “trends” on Twitter and leading the way with “likes” on Facebook.  It will be interesting to follow the effect the ads and discussions have on the various social sites.

Let’s list a few to follow……there are lots so I’ll list a few randomly (Stats as of 2-3-2012 7:00pm est)

Toyota is planning to highlight its newest Camry by showing a plant and some of its workers in Kentucky.  Showing US production of its car may be just the kicker needed to boost its sales.  Toyota’s Facebook page (Toyota) currently has 40,897 likes and their Twitter account (@Toyota) has 74,974 followers.

Pepsi is planning on using Regis Philbin in a convenience store skit, giving a customer a year’s supply of Pepsi.  Should be funny!  Pepsi has 7,338,977 “likes” on Facebook and 632,785 followers on Twitter (@Pepsi).

Here’s a new one for us.  The job opening company, Career Builder is planning on showcasing why you should be looking for a new job.  In these tough economic times, this could be a good fit.  The question will be are chimpanzees the right actors to deliver the message.  We’ll see.  They have 147,601 “likes” on Facebook and 64,773 followers on Twitter.

Then we have Doritos.  Looks like no matter how attractive a woman may be to men, it can only get better when you cover yourself in Doritos!  Wonder how this one will work?  Doritos has 10,416 followers on Twitter (@DoritosUSA) and 2,728,151 “likes” on its USA Facebook page.

There are many more to follow but you get the idea.  It will be interesting to follow up on this after the Superbowl to see which ad campaign actually returns the best results on social media.  Could this type of measurement be the future in calculating the costs of advertsing?

Let me know what you think?  If you have a favorite commercial coming up and know the statistics from Facebook and Twitter, please post in the comments for everyone to read and follow.

Enjoy the game and GO PATS!

Let's Talk Cold Calling

Let’s talk sales cold calls for a little bit……

Sales managers have been beating the concept of business development achieved through cold calls into sales professionals for decades. When I first started in sales at AT&T in the 1980’s, I had to go through a “role play” scenario where I made the initial appointment, sat with the client and fact found, then developed and presented a solution based program. My skills were “assessed” by a team of sales managers and trainers and I was hired because I followed what was considered proper process. I was practicing “Sales 101”.

When I was in my 20’s and starting out, this was overwhelming and I was brainwashed by the managers that this was the time proven method towards success in sales. After years of mediocre results following the classroom methods taught by sales managers, I learned cold calling is really a waste of precious time which a salesperson could better spend closing leads, not trying to generate them at a clip of less than 2% per attempt (and if you’re seeing 2% success rate on your cold calling, congratulations! You’re doing GREAT!)

Problem here is today’s companies typically have two types of executives:

The first type is people who have large capital to invest and fund the start-up of the organization. This is the true wildcard. Many of these people come from financial backgrounds, and feel the best way to run a profitable company is to watch every dollar and purchase the lowest priced product or commodity on the market. In the short term, this approach may save money, but the lowest price isn’t always the best option. In addition, most of the companies run by those with financial backgrounds look to buy low, and then sell their own product high. This inconsistent approach will in the long run, most likely cause the business model to fail.

The second type of executive is those that have worked their way up the corporate ladders, either through operations or sales. These are the most difficult folks to cold call. They’ve been through the ringer, know the “ropes”, and have used all the “tricks of the sales trade” that get taught to up and coming sales personnel.


Problem is this type of executive often manages today’s sales people, and employs yesterday’s sales management statistics (number of cold calls x close ratio = number of sales). This just doesn’t work. If you have a 2% success rate of presenting a proposal via cold calls, neither you nor the company will ever make any significant revenue. Think of the major league baseball player….if he had 2 hits per 100 at-bats, he’d have a 0.020 batting average and would be out of baseball within weeks. Why sales managers keep pushing the cold calling technique with results like this is puzzling?


So how do we develop new business leads, contact the appropriate decision maker, and close the sale?

Today’s intelligence explosion through the internet and other social channels is the wave of the future. Every show I watch on TV is trying to get their message (product) to “trend on Twitter” or be “liked on Facebook”. Many of us have fought the evolution of social media’s usefulness, but we need to accept the fact that it’s here to stay. Next time you’re sitting at home, watching your favorite show, pay attention to the “pop-ups” on the screen, telling you how to “follow” your favorite actor, or “like” your favorite product.


If social media is working for the most successful shows aired today, why can’t it be successful for your product and brand? It most certainly can.

Let’s look at a quick scenario…..last time you were interested in purchasing a new product, whether it be a TV, a car, a plane ticket, or almost any other commodity, how did you buy it? Did you run down to the closest store and buy the first one you saw? Maybe….but most likely you researched it on the internet and compared your options. This is what we need to accomplish for ourselves in our professional career.

If you are in sales (or looking to get into sales), sign up for Twitter. Start following a few people within your industry and before long you’ll begin to build a list of “followers”. As your list builds, you will see your name start to appear more prominently within the various internet search engines, creating a presence for yourself. If you work this over time, you will begin to see prospects contacting you, looking to buy your product. Most decision makers today will search on the internet for a supplier, and the more prominent you name is in the search results, the better your chances of being contacted.

I have written several previous posts about additional methods to assist on developing brands and increasing your search results. Check out “Can Twitter Really Do That for Me”, posted on 5/11/2011 and “Social Power by Use of Personal Sites” posted on 10/26/2010 for some more specific info on building a personal brand.

I’d enjoy hearing any suggestions you may have to help build a brand and drive customers to your sites. The more input we are get, the quicker we’ll develop new sales techniques to succeed in today’s information age.

Social Media & A Bad Economy

Today’s economy is definitely going in a downward spiral.  Companies are making personnel moves to cut costs to remain profitable.  After 5+ years of economic downturn, are ongoing layoffs and operating budget cuts still the answer?

In any economic model, the basic principle of “Supply & Demand” can be applied.  Is it a sound financial decision to continue to reduce a company’s payroll and marketing budget (which will reduce the “Demand” side of the equation as fewer new customers are brought into the mix, in turn reducing the “Supply” side of the business which is represented by the company’s products which generate the revenues necessary to run the company) to keep profits and EBITDA (a widely used term by those in finance, “Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation & Amortization) at a targeted level? 

Let’s talk about that for a bit…….

By cutting marketing and advertising budgets, a corporation can certainly give the appearance of maintaining profits at an acceptable level.  But is that decision a wise decision by the company’s executives in the long run.  By cutting marketing, future sales will inevitably be lost….and new sales are the lifeblood of any company’s future.  Many of today’s marketing efforts rely on the use of social media.  While social media may seem “free” to the individual user, the cost for corporate programs can reach as high as $10,000+ per month.  The problem we face is being able to quantify the value of social efforts.  Implementing and maintaining a sound social media program can be extremely labor intensive for large corporations.  In order to justify the budget required to maintain the social media efforts, the program directors have the difficult task of demonstrating the “Return on Investment” or “ROI”. 

Demonstrating ROI on a social media program has been debated over and over recently and there are many opinions on how to do it.  Some companies count “Followers” on their Twitter account, some look at “Friends” on Facebook, others look to reviews on Digg or Yelp as a success.  But how do you turn this into real dollars when trying to present to a Board of Directors looking to slash the budget?

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer.  It is individual preference on how to present your case.  I’ve always kept track of prospective customers generated by my social media efforts and could easily track the closed sales resulting from them.  But I’m only one person.  When we talk corporate level social media with hundreds of people working on it, the reach of ROI becomes exponentially larger and more difficult to demonstrate. 

If you have had success representing ROI from your social media program or have any ideas or thoughts on how to do so, I’d be interested in hearing them and helping everyone learn from your experience.

Note about the Author:  Dave Hanron has more than 20 years proven experience in corporate sales and marketing and possesses a bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Rhode Island

Hurricane Irene, Gillette Stadium, & Social Media...a Great Story

Hurricane Irene….another big topic for social media.  As the latest hurricane swept up the east coast of the United States last week, millions of storm victims stayed in touch by using the various forms of social media.

Twitter was feeding the local news casts with up to the minute local events like downed trees, power outages, flooding rivers, and more.  Fox 25 Boston spent a good portion of their storm coverage simply reading their “tweets” directly from the web. 

Facebook users were also heavily engaged.  My small following of Facebook “friends” were busy posting news about trees down in their yards, tales of sad children with no power to watch TV or play video games (remember those days?), etc.  Those without power were typing away on their smartphones and iPads.

In the days following the storm, Twitter and Facebook were used extensively to criticize the power companies for the perceived lack of attention to the power outages.  Whether true or not, residents of the Boston suburb of Foxboro were particularly harsh in their opinions of Gillette Stadium getting power restored in time for the New England Patriots’ Thursday night home game against the NY Giants while the majority of the town remained without electricity.  The Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, and his staff reacted to the story swiftly, explaining that the home of the Patriots actually ran off a sub-station in the nearby town of Wrentham and that the Patriots had paid a substantial sum to the local power company in 1996, National Grid, to have upgrades done to the substation in case of an outage.  According to James Nolan, senior vice president of operations, administration and finance for the stadium and the Patriots, ''This would guarantee that we would still have power if the feed was lost from one of the substations,'' he said.

Mr. Kraft also reminded people that the New England Patriots and his other business interests had donated the use of their privately owned backup generators to the town to help provide emergency power for key locations in Foxboro.

This story is a great example of how monitoring and reacting to social media feeds can have a dramatic impact on a business brand.  While the Patriots were initially subject to criticism because of perceived favoritism by National Grid, they did a great job of turning it around by explaining to the public they had not only funded the improvements to the substation, but that they also had donated their own private generators to the town.  What could have been a publicity nightmare was handled swiftly and professionally due to the presence of a social media monitoring and engagement program.

IMO, I think the Patriots should be commended on their handling of this potentially damaging publicity, and their quick actions of presenting their side of the story.  As more and more people are exposed to social media, the need of monitoring will continue to grow exponentially.

If you are interested in learning more about available programs, drop me a note @DaveHanron on Twitter or email me at d.hanron@earthlink.net

Business Growth Promoted Through Consumer Conversations

A lot of companies today have realized that their brand is an important thing to protect. They’ve developed SEO strategies to push their names higher on Google and Bing searches. Executives have come to realize they need to monitor and respond to the conversations taking place on line about their products. Some businesses have even taken to scrutinize the discussions taking place about their key employees.

But the one thing most firms have neglected to include in their social programs is perhaps the most important capability: sales lead generation.

Yes, social media programs can actually be tailored to produce high quality, readily available sales leads. The key questions here is “How could you possibly get real revenue producing leads from social media?”

Simple. A high quality social intelligence program goes much further than keeping an eye on Facebook and Twitter for people talking about your company. The provider will “listen” for the conversations taking place across all sources, including among others personal & business blogs, news media, consumer boards, and traditional ad campaigns. The key component of the program requires real human interaction at this point to streamline the conversations into useful data. Without the human factor, the program will produce so many “hits” that the information becomes muddled. An expert analyst will filter through the conversations and aggregate the relative discussions to present to your staff.

A key information topic many companies neglect is to follow their competition. By following your competitors closely, you'll be able to respond to new ads and products, react to changes in the market, and most importantly, find out who your competitors’ customers are. By following a competitor’s brand, you can listen for consumer sentiment on their offerings. Opportunity often develops when a consumer has been disappointed in their expectations for some reason.

As an example of what I’m referring to here, if a person is complaining on Facebook about their Kia (nothing personal here folks at Kia, just an example; it could be easily switched around the other way) being in the shop all the time, it would be a great time for a Chevrolet dealer to send some information to the consumer. Maybe a friendly post on their wall or a quick “tweet” on an upcoming sales event could generate a new customer.

By finding out your competitor is holding an event like a webinar or luncheon with a keynote speaker, it gives your marketing staff a chance to monitor the program and respond accordingly. If you look deep enough, it may even be possible to find an attendee list or program agenda. 

Acquiring new business and keeping satisfied clients are the long term keys to any successful business plan. We have emerged today into an information rich society with millions of people talking and tweeting and posting on a daily basis. It is imperative business don’t ignore the conversations and they must react accordingly. The only way you can react accordingly is to know what is being said.

I ‘d enjoy hearing how all of you are handling your on-line listening and what types of programs you’ve put in place to respond to what you’re hearing.

If you want some direction on launching your listening and reacting program, please contact me directly on Twitter @DaveHanron or via email at Dave@socialstrategy1.com

Is Your Business Engaged with the Consumer?

How engaged is your company?  Have you added an interactive component to your web site so Consumers can share their sentiments?  Do you have a full time staff whose function it is to listen and react to your Customers’ comments and concerns?

The explosive growth of today’s social channels like Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Digg, Linkedin, Consumer Complaints, and many, many more has created an instant need for businesses to respond publicly to the conversations and topics brought forth through social channels.

Only a few short years ago, the typical business website would contain non “click-able” pages of information for a Consumer to review. There’d be pages for product descriptions, the dreaded  “About Us” page that is only read by sales people, and usually some legal stuff like privacy disclosures. The leading edge companies might have had a video of some sort but the with the dial up internet connections of years ago, many Consumers couldn’t realize the true benefits of video.  All this has changed with the readily available high speed connections most of us have today.

These days if your company doesn’t have a “page” on Facebook, a “username” on Twitter and Digg, or a “profile” on Linkedin, you’re business is not involved in the social conversation and may be doing tremendous harm to your business name and brand.  By not participating, you are taking one of the biggest risks of your professional career :  not knowing what is being said about you! 

Years ago, it was pretty difficult for a single Consumer to cause any harm or add any significant value to a business reputation.  Methods of communication were pretty limited.  Maybe the Consumer could file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, or write an editorial in your local paper, maybe even call in to a local radio station and get 30 seconds of air time, but ultimately, there weren’t a lot of options and the audience was very limited. 

Same problem with a recommendation.  If a Consumer had a great meal at a restaurant or received excellent service from their cable company (I know, that’s highly unlikely) options for praise were just as limited. Maybe a call to the owner of the business or a letter of praise about the specific employees involved, but again, unless someone saw the letter of praise hanging on a wall somewhere, there was not a great deal of benefit for the company to be derived from this type of positive feedback.

Today’s social media channels have changed all this.  A Consumer actively involved with Twitter or Facebook can literally have millions of “Followers” or “Fans” they can reach out to instantly and either positive or negative feedback can have a dramatic impact on a business or brand.  Comments can spread like wildfire, allowing a single point of view to go viral and become known worldwide almost instantly.  If not handled appropriately, the results could be catastrophic for a business.  For example, the data breach Sony experienced with their Playstation 3 online was publicized worldwide only moments after it happened.  It involved up to 77 million Consumers!  Think of how many X-Boxes must have been sold in the following weeks because people were afraid to be compromised using a Sony Playstation?  Sony has been trying to repair their reputation ever since.

In order to effectively protect your business name and brand, you need to develop a social strategy to gather information, and engage your Customers and potential Customers.  Add a blog to your web page, create a “feedback” page for your Customers to use, consider a “live chat” feature to interact immediately, and add video sessions to your site and if possible, use different employees when you film them.  We all like to see fresh faces and it creates a picture of a more diverse company if you have more faces in front of the public.

How many people remember the auto attendant “Claire” from Sprint PCS?........A big pet peeve of mine is on the “Contact Us” pages where you click on it and it goes to an email address like Support@abccompany.com  I always recommend to businesses that they make this piece more personal, and have it go to a person of some sort.  It doesn’t have to be a real person, but it can be made to appear as one.  Many companies have created “People” to engage Consumers.  Just create an email that goes to something like Claire@abccompany.com and you’ll get a lot better feedback.  You can still route it to a group of support reps if that’s your plan but it definitely gives a better personal presentation that the Consumers' experience with your brand matters to your business.

And lastly and most importantly, you must monitor the social conversations about your company and brand.  You need to develop a staff to listen and react to any publicity, either negative or positive about your products.  If you respond quickly to negative discussions, you will limit the impact of them.  If you respond to positive praise, you will gain tremendous benefits from the good publicity.  You’ll need to contract with a company to provide the monitoring capabilities for your business and then create a plan to deal with what you uncover.  If you search within your existing staff and don’t have the required skill set to handle this task internally, don’t ignore it as it will not be going away any time soon…….Outsource the process to a professional.

Contact me @DaveHanron on Twitter or leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to assist in your selection of a supplier for your social media research or development.

Buttons, Buttons, & More Buttons --Where Does It Stop?

Buttons, buttons, and more buttons……..

First we had the “Follow Me” button from Twitter.  Originally, this button would link a reader to a Twitter account and you would have to manually follow the individual or business.  This button did allow readers to easily link an individual to their personal Twitter account and follow their tweets. It simply was a two step process.  You see this button on virtually everything these days, from blogs, to news articles, to corporate websites, to TV shows and movies.

Shortly after the “Follow Me” button, Twitter announced a new “Follow” button which eliminated the two step process and automatically starts following the individual or business without ever leaving the web page.

Then there is the “Tweet” button.  On August 12, 2010, Twitter launched the “Tweet” button.  This button allows you to share links directly from the page you’re on. When you click on the Tweet Button, a Tweet box will appear -- pre-populated with a shortened url link that points to the item that you’re sharing.  This made the act of tweeting something much more simple.

The buttons don’t end with Twitter.  Facebook has gotten into the act with their “Like” and “Share” buttons.  On April 21, 2010, Facebook announced the new “Like” button which allows users to show their approval of any piece of content on these sites with one click. You can also include a little note saying why you like the item.   The “Like” button has basically replaced the “Share” button.

On June 1^st, 2011, the social media company Klout launched it’s “+Klout” button which allows people logging into their dashboard to add “Klout” to any of their peers spheres of influence like social media, technology, music, films, sports, etc.  Each day, Klout users get 5 “+Klout’s” to add to whomever they wish.

Google has jumped into the fray with it’s “+1” button.  This allows users the add their support to any article or website they visit, helping to push the site up in Google’s SEO ranking.  As Google’s web crawlers scour the web, they  will see the “+1’s” on sites and place them higher on their credibility scale.

Don’t forget Linkedin.  They don’t want to be left out of the button craze.  Linkedin has the “Linkedin Share”, “Login with Linkedin” and “View My Profile on Linkedin” buttons.

Digg, the social news website, has the “Digg This” button where you vote for the content of an article, pushing it up higher on the distribution pages.

Bottom line here is every social media type site we have been exposed to is trying to find ways to get it’s presence included on as many sites as possible.  It’s too early to tell if there is any type of underlying data mining going on with these buttons.  Are they recording topics we “Like” and “Digg” for future marketing purposes?  The official responses to this may be “no” but do we believe it?  I really want to as I enjoy the social media world and find the more social intelligence I’m able to gather, the better off I am.

But remember, the use of these buttons is exploding in volumes.  According to a May 24, 2011 interview with Techcrunch Disrupt, Carolyn Everson, Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Facebook, revealed that 50 million likes are clicked for brands each day.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots of buttons and would love to hear from my readers on any I’ve missed…I’d like to see how many we can actually come up with.

WOW! Can Using Twitter Really Do that for Me?

140 characters…..a shelf life of approximately 1 hour…..a “free” service…..no point of sale application……

Can using Twitter really help my business?  Is it worth the investment of my time each day?  How much can interacting with strangers really help? How do I possibly measure Return on Investment (ROI)?

All legitimate questions that get asked everyday by people considering the entry into the social foray so prevalent today.  I believe there are some compounding reasons why you should jump in with both feet to the Twitter world and start “Tweeting” today.

The 1990’s saw the technology explosion on many of the everyday items we all use today.  Cell phones became mainstream and affordable for the general public.  Wide screen TV’s began to appear in homes of people other than the super wealthy.  The space shuttle became an expected occurrence every 3 months or so.  The personal computer was accepted as a necessity. There are too many of these examples to note here but you get the picture.  Technologies are constantly changing the way we live our lives and operate our businesses.

Twitter was launched in July 2006 by Jack Dorsey and has expanded today to have more than 200 million worldwide users and produces more than 65 million “tweets” per day.  Twitter has developed into a platform that allows anyone to interact on a personal level with any other user.  No other place in society allows for the ease of communicating between two people, regardless of where they live or what they do for a living.   For example, a school child in Australia could in theory communicate with the President of the United States by simply entering his name and performing a search to find his Twitter user name and then send an “@name” message.

This accessibility component is exactly why every business and every business professional should be using Twitter and other social sites to grow their reach.  There is no other media available which makes it as easy and simple to reach millions of potential customers at the push of a button.  You are able to post links to blogs like this one, discuss your products or field of expertise, share personal thoughts on other subjects, and make yourself available for further discussions on the topics.  It’s the interaction with others that makes Twitter such a powerful business tool.

Today’s executives who make purchase decisions do not regularly take the “cold call” from the 90’s anymore.  They are under time and budget constraints and know what they need.  When they need it, they contact an “expert” or “authority” on the service and buy it.  To quote Alec Baldwin in the 1992 version of Glenngarry Glen Ross “they walk on the lot, looking to buy”. 

The goal here is to get that executive to walk onto YOUR lot and buy YOUR service.  Twitter is a means to help make that happen.

The use of Twitter does many things which improve your chances of landing a sale or gaining a new customer.  Everytime your name hits the web, it’s another landing spot for the “spiders” or “bots” that Google and Bing have scouring the internet for topics.  The more your name is associated with a product or key word phrase, the higher your name will appear in the search engines.  And the higher you appear in the search engines, the more likely you are to be perceived as an “expert” and have your lot chosen to sell the product.

Getting results using Twitter doesn’t happen overnight.  It can take months or even years before you attain the type and size of following necessary to get results, but be patient, it WILL happen if you keep at it.  Before you know it, you’ll be getting “@” messages from people inquiring about your services.  Keep track of these and record any actual sales you make from them.  ROI is easy to determine by doing this and once you get going, you’ll see Twitter can be a real winner and indispensible tool for your business or brand.

A few key points to remember as you “tweet”

1.      Keep the conversation informational -- nobody likes a constant sales pitch.  An occasional plug is OK and basic discussions on the benefits of your product line in general are fine.

2.      Be interactive – don’t just push your “tweets”, but engage your followers and those you follow in meaningful conversations.  Ask questions on their “tweets” and leave pertinent comments on their blog posts.  (and leaving comments gives you another plus with the Google and Bing search engines, as it creates a “Backlink” to your brand)

3.      Try and reference your source of information whenever possible – insert a link or hyperlink to the site where you found your supporting info.

4.      Be consistent – in order to be successful, you need to be perceived as regular user.  That means making an effort each day (yes, Saturdays & Sundays too) to “Tweet”. Often you’ll reach an entirely different audience on weekends and nights.  I’ve taken the two hours per day I used to block out for cold calling and now use them to develop my social presence.  It has a much better return on my efforts.

Have some other ideas?  Let’s discuss and see what we can come up with to help everyone get the most out of Twitter……..

Become an Expert and Grow Sales

Today’s information explosion has created limitless opportunity for a person to grow his business exponentially. The only thing required is a new perspective and some time to implement a new strategy.


Years ago, in order to write more sales and close more deals, a company had to have an extensive sales force, trained in the 3 major aspects of a successful salesperson: prospecting, presenting, and ultimately, closing. Today, I’m not sure that’s the best method for business growth.

Remember the famous quote in the 1992 movie Glenngarry Glenn Ross, “You want to work here? Close!”? This movie was shown over and over by sales managers across all industries for years. I personally had a sales manager in my early WorldCom days, who could recite nearly all of the sales quotes in the movie. I too developed a fond memory of the quotes and remember many of them to this day.

“The leads are weak!” cries Shelly Levine (played by Jack Lemmon). Blake from Mitch & Murray (played by Alex Baldwin) then counters....”The leads are weak? You’re weak!”.

That’s one of my favorites. Translated into today’s sales market, I agree the traditional “leads” are weak. Today’s buyers were yesterday’s sales people and they know all the old tricks of prospecting. Think of it this way, how often does the executive staff at your company take “cold calls” from sales people? I’d bet not very often. This habit of rejection has turned the job of prospecting into an endless repetition of voice mail and unreturned emails.

So you ask, “Ok, if traditional prospecting methods don’t work, what do I do to generate leads and write more business?”.

Simple. Make yourself into an expert and make people want to buy from you. That’s how.

Today’s decision makers know what they want and typically research it on the web prior to making any purchases. Your goal is to create a personal brand (and not necessarily a business brand) which positions you as an authority on your specific product or industry. When people search the web, you want your name to appear as high on the search engines as possible. In order to make this happen, there are a lot of “get rich quick” schemes advertised. Companies promising Search Engine Optimization or SEO are popping up every day. My advice to you is ignore the website promising you “1st page listing on Google” and get to work on it yourself. It will take some time and effort, but you can do it. It won’t happen overnight but with some persistence and perseverance you can get there.

The easiest way to start building your brand is get a Twitter and Facebook account. These are free and will begin to get your name out on the web. Next, join Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/). It is basically Facebook for the business professional. Create your profile and start linking with your business connections.

Next comes the fun part. Start a blog. Even if you’ve never written before, start a blog and jump in. Blogger from Google is free or you can search the web for “free blog” and you’ll find an extensive list to choose from. Now you won’t have thousands of readers right away, but trust me. Keep at it, post regularly, “tweet” on Twitter, build a following and before you know it, your brand will start creeping up the search engines. Once you get a base of followers, consider going to a hosting company like Go Daddy (http://www.godaddy.com/) and purchase a private web domain. It's not expensive and really gives your writings some credibility.  Remember, you want your writing to be informative, not necessarily a constant sales pitch. Readers want information so include links to support your opinions whenever possible. You can write on a variety of topics, so have fun with it and you’ll get results.

These are just the basics to start building a brand. There’s lots more to it like using backlinks, becoming interactive in social media, webinars, etc. we can talk about in another post but you have enough to get started on your way to success in today’s sales environment.

Don’t wait another day. Start right now and set aside an hour or two a day to work on your personal brand. The returns will be slow but constant and once it gets going, the growth is almost impossible to stop. Before you know it, you’ll be getting inbound calls and direct messages from prospects looking to buy!

I enjoy hearing about your successes or any ideas you might want to add to my techniques. Feel free to leave a comment or I can be reached @DaveHanron on Twitter or at dave@davehanron.com

Twitter - A Social Way for Everyone to Make Money

Social Media…..we’re all deeply embedded into it. And seemingly for good reason. It works! And now people are making real money not only using these sites, but selling their audience base for a fee.


Just this morning, I was glancing through my Twitter account and noticed a “tweet” referring me to eBay. The tweet mentioned “get your product out to 380,000+ followers”. I clicked on the link and VOILA!, there was a genuine product for sale on eBay.

For a mere $40, there is a seller who apparently has amassed 380k+ followers and is willing to share his connections for 28 days for a small fee. Now that’s a novel idea.

Not sure whether this is ethical or not. On one hand, it seems to me like they’re basically doing the same thing as selling an email list of contacts. On the other, it is truly taking social media to another level and making use of your personal sphere of influence to make some money. And everyone wants to make money.

If you want to check it out, the seller is “isurf2net” on eBay. There’s also a lower cost model offering re-Tweets to 80k+ followers for 28 days for $10.

It seems inevitable that sites like Twitter and Facebook would evolve into marketing means for small and large businesses alike. There are hundreds of Twitter users out there with millions of followers. As of this writing, Lady Gaga has the largest reach, with over 9.5 million followers. Think of that….if Lady Gaga were to offer her Twitter followers for a fee, what do you think she could charge? If 380k followers are worth $40, would people pay $500 to reach 9.5 million? Not sure, but it’s an interesting thought. Maybe if you pick the right product for the right “follower” audience, we may be onto something here….

I think the bigger question in this topic is will people tolerate being bombarded with solicitations on Twitter and Facebook? I enjoy going through Twitter posts as I find many interesting posts. I question though whether all people will tolerate sales pitches on a personal account level. Could we see a mass “unfollow” on sites that openly sell their follow list or will it become standard practice to gauge your individual advertising power?

If you want to find out your current social media prowess, trying going to http://www.klout.com/ and entering your Twitter name. This is a relatively new site (I found it in a Boston Globe newspaper article on social media a few weeks ago) which will give you a snapshot ranking from 0 to 100 of your social influence. Add your Linkedin and Facebook accounts to it and it will add those into consideration model too.

If you’re looking to get more involved in the social media world and would like to consider adding an experienced team of industry analysts to your social media campaigns to help expand your reach, please drop me a note @DaveHanron on Twitter or at dave@socialstrategy1.com

Where is Butler University?

Founded in 1885 and located 5 miles from downtown Indianapolis, Butler University is home to more than 4,000 students. Butler is ranked as the 2nd best university in the Regional Universities Midwest category of the 2011 U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges. This same publication ranked Butler as the No. 1 "Up-and-Coming" institution among Regional Universities Midwest, and one of 68 nationwide. Of their incoming freshman class for 2011-2012, 50% ranked in the top 10% of their high school class. Pretty impressive stuff…….



But who REALLY knows Butler University? When I was looking for colleges coming out of Boston Latin School in 1981, I had never heard of Butler, never mind thought of going there. This morning, odds are most of the US population knows of Butler University. Why? Because they made it to the finals of one of the world’s premier sporting events…the NCAA Basketball Championship……for the second year in a row! And the national press coverage they’ve been getting has opened our eyes….I was asked twice yesterday by friends “Where is Butler anyways?”….


I think we can all agree that questions like “Where is Butler anyways?” should make the Butler University administration rethink the use of their advertising budget.  After all, we all know Harvard is in Cambridge, Mass, Notre Dame is in South Bend, and UCLA is in Los Angeles.


While the Cinderella story didn’t have the ending Butler was hoping for as the Bulldogs fell to the UConn Huskies last night, 53-41, the Butler season remains a great storyline for millions of fans.


Now is the perfect time for the Butler administration to jump all over the publicity and start a campaign to boost the University’s recruiting efforts. With a jump start from the national press coverage they’ve received, a good, focused informational campaign targeted at high school juniors and seniors would greatly enhance the reputation of Butler University and lift the school to new heights in the recruiting arena.


Not only would this approach help the Bulldogs to continue to recruit world class high school athletes for their sports teams, they also could reach out to more world class scholars to consider their university. There are loads of National Honor Society students who don’t play interscholastic sports, but they may be participating in the marching bands for those teams. Or they could simply be a fan of great college basketball and want to have the opportunity to attend championship level games on their home campus as part of their college experience. What student wouldn’t want to go to a university whose sports programs offer them the opportunity to travel the United States with their friends, attending some of the country’s most prestigious campuses, while supporting your school and getting a great education, all at the same time?


The problem is how could the administration get the message of this great school out to the future high school graduating classes? Social media…..that’s how!


Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flicker, Foursquare, MySpace, and hundreds of other sites are all helpful in delivering your message to the public. The issue is how to get it done?


Like it or not, Social Media is here to stay.  Social Media is an information explosion taking place before our eyes. Most of us are involved in it in some way, shape, or fashion, even if we don’t recognize it. Think you’re not part of the craze? How then did you find this post? Social media….that’s how?

If you have a story like Butler’s or want to create one to capitalize on the opportunity to generate more buzz about your business’ brand, drop me a note @davehanron on Twitter or Dave@socialstrategy1.com on email. I’ll be happy to help provide advice on developing a targeted social media campaign for you.