As you transition some of your sales prospecting and lead generation activities over to the use of social sites, the principle when communicating in the online world is much the same as meeting someone face-to-face. Create opportunities for connection and visibility without direct selling approaches. You want to get your potential buyers engaged in a conversation with you, and you do that at the right time, in the right way, the right place and without talking about yourself. Ask a thought provoking question that engages them and others in dialog.
Remember that your sales role is what it has always been: to create a relationship with a prospective buyer that then moves the buying process forward. The social web changes everything and nothing more significantly than the changes in buyer behavior. Now that your prospects have moved to online social communities to acquire information about products and services to meet their needs, you must move there too.
Listening plays a critical role in the online space and can benefit sales professionals in two ways:
A good rule of thumb when getting started with your online networking efforts is to invest the time to learn the spoken and unspoken rules of each community that you join. Always begin by joining groups where your potential buyer is most likely to participate. Observe how people communicate with each other in the group before diving in.
The social web provides sales professionals fantastic opportunities to build emotional equity with within groups and with potential buyers before actually engaging in a 1-1 sales dialog with anyone. As you gain experience working in the online space, creating new business relationships will begin to happen naturally. You won't even worry if you are engaging at the right time, because you will know that you are. That's lead generation at its best.
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