Tag: YouTube

Reverse Prospecting: Your Buyer’s Looking For You

On By Joe DeRosaIn Leadership, Marketing, SalesLeave a comment

 

Reverse

Understanding your buyer’s journey is the first step to delivering explosive growth results.  The age of the buyer has arrived and the seller no longer is in control.  Buyers today are prospecting more than sales people.  How?  By scouring the internet and leveraging social channels to learn and make decisions.  In fact, if you’re the seller, you’ve become the passenger on this purchasing trip.  So make yourself comfortable, stay observant, and most of all have fun on the trip.

Your buyers know more about what they need than ever before.  There was a time (and it goes further and further back each day) when the buyer had to rely on a sales person to identify his problem and present a solution…the seller’s solution.  Not any more.  Have a runny nose and sore lower back?  A quick trip to the website WebMD can provide you with information on what may be going on with you.  You need to put in a new garbage disposal?  There are hundreds of how-to videos on YouTube that provide step-by-step instructions that take a job that previously required a plumber and turned it into a DIY project.

We have all become addicted to information.  In fact, more than 80% of 18 – 44 year olds say the first thing they do in the morning, immediately after opening their eyes, is to check their phones.  Information.  We want lots of it, all the time.

Buyers have this access to information and are using it more and more.  They Google, Facebook, YouTube, Tweet, and ask their LinkedIn groups for information, recommendations, and ideas.  If you’re a seller without a social selling strategy you’re already trailing the pack.  And if you think your product or service is too complex to promote via social channels think again.  General Electric has hundreds of videos on YouTube on MRI equipment, jet turbines, and lighting.  Toll Brothers, a national builder of custom homes, provides a website that allows someone to design and build their dream home and see it!  Buyers are not just using the internet to shop for shoes, sweaters, or books.

Having a social presence isn’t enough. You can’t set up a Facebook or LinkedIn page and check off the box and say its done.  You have to be active…engaged.  You have to create content, share content, weigh in on content others have shared.  This is where your buyers are looking for you.  Your paradigm must shift.  Buyers are now conducting a form of reverse prospecting.  They’re looking for you…you just don’t know it.  So if you’re a seller, and you’re not visible in the areas your buyers are looking for you, you simply won’t be found.

So get started.  Take it slow.  Don’t try to boil the ocean in a day.  A retweet here, a LinkedIn post there, a blog here, are all activities to get you on the road to being found by your buyer.

5 Things Social Sellers Do Differently: SCOPE

On By Joe DeRosaIn SalesLeave a comment

socialselling

Social sellers are today’s modern day sales people.  They know how to connect, where to connect, and when to connect.  Establishing a personal brand is the cornerstone of today’s social seller.  It’s no longer enough to sell a well-known, or respected product, from a great company.  Today’s buyers want more…they want to buy from someone who delivers an equally great experience…on a personal level…beyond the company brand.

Here are 5 things social sellers do differently than sales people of yesteryear:

  1. Share.  Social sellers are reading, absorbing, processing, and sharing large amounts of information on a daily basis across their network.  They are both sources, and producers, of content, insights, and information.
  2. Connect. Social sellers recognize birthdays, anniversaries, key milestones, accomplishments, as well as, the periodic “hello”. They are following – not stalking – key influencers and thought leaders and connecting via Twitter, InMail, or directly through email.
  3. Observe.  Social sellers are constantly observing. They are looking at who’s who, what she’s sharing, who she’s following, her ideas, insights, actions. These sellers are constantly balancing the importance of context and content. Content without the right context has as much value as a snow shovel provides to a resident of Jackson, WY, with a hundred foot driveway, where 60 inches of snow each year is the average. Not a lot you’re going to do with a shovel.
  4. Participate. Social sellers are active in LinkedIn groups, tweets, Likes, and Shares.  They raise discussions, respond to conversations.  They have a voice for their ideas and viewpoints and are active participants, not armchair quarterbacks.
  5. Empathize. Social sellers understand.  They relate. They feel.  They empathize.  This ability to connect with others, to “walk a mile in my shoes”, to make others feel valued and relevant are key attributes of today’s social seller. Empathy is what ties the previous 4 items together.  For without it, sharing, connecting, observing and participating would lack relevance, and irrelevance is a manifestation of inauthenticity. Genuine empathy equals authenticity.

To Social Media or Not to Social Media

On By Joe DeRosaIn Business, MarketingLeave a comment

idea

I’m often asked “should I be doing social media?”  Teachers, athletes, corporate executives, doctors, and lawyers all struggle with answering this question. And even if they’ve answered “yes”, they still need to decide just how active they want to be. Jumping into the realm of social media requires time, knowledge, and consistency.

Here are some reasons why you should participate in social media regardless of your occupation:
1. More than 1 billion people on Facebook
2. Nearly 300 million LinkedIn users
3. More than a billion people watch more than 6 billion hours of YouTube every month
4. A quarter of a billion people on Twitter

Need more reasons why you should get involved with social media? Here goes:
1. News and world events are unfolding on social media often times faster than they hit traditional media. Accidents, disasters, and gossip, all originate via social media channels first before the Main Street media picks it up.
2. Sales, offers, deals, etc are all launched on social media. See ads for Nordstrom, Jos. A. Bank, Macy’s, and even your local bakery via Twitter, Facebook, or a daily blog.
3. Embrace technology and the new communication of the world. You can fight it all you want but social media is not just here to stay but is growing. New social media platforms are being born all the time. Think Instagram and selfies.
4. Social media is where your friends, family, customers and prospects are hanging out. It’s where conversations begin, problems are voiced and solutions are provided. Many companies are employing a social media staff to build a community they can engage and learn from. It provides these companies with real-time insight into the customers wants, needs, problems, etc.

How should you get started? Here are a couple of ideas:
1. If you’re a business person you MUST have a LinkedIn profile. This profile must be complete with a photo and contain sufficient background information. Less formal than a resume, yet powerful enough to provide the reader with a clear view of who you are and your capabilities, interests, and accomplishments. Join some groups. There is a group for just about any of your interests. Join and participate in their discussion boards, or better yet start a discussion of your own.
2. Tweet. Set up a Twitter account and Tweet. HubSpot, a major Inbound Marketing firm, suggests tweeting 5 – 7 times each day throughout the day. Anything less than that is insufficient. Once you set up your Twitter handle look for people to “follow”. You’ll find that those you follow will open your door to followers of you. Tweet relevant content. Stay away from personal, emotional tweets. Don’t drink and tweet as your comments once posted live forever and can be found by any one.
3. Set up a Facebook page. Yes Facebook is a bit more personal than LinkedIn or Twitter but you must have one. Prospects you’re targeting, if you’re a business, or customers you’re trying to learn from are all on Facebook. If you’re not there, rest assured one of your competitors is.

Jump in. Get involved. You’ll be amazed at how much you learn and how many doors begin to open.