How many effective sales calls can you make in a day?
This is a question that I ask at many of my sales and social media workshops. Most sales people, even the most experienced, struggle to achieve more than ten effective calls in a day.
That is not a good use of peoples’ time. The cost of sales becomes extremely high.
Cold calling is no longer an effective route to sales
However, it’s important to keep work coming in. What do you do instead?
That’s where social media comes in. It is now an important route to sales for many printing companies in the UK. Here are three reasons why social media is now becoming so important. The first one actually has nothing to do with direct sales.
1- Social media gets your company noticed
Social media is now an important marketing channel. Many of your prospects are now using social media to research new suppliers. If you are not on social media you may get ignored.
I now regularly receive approaches from potential customers who have come across me on social media. They like what they see on my social media profiles. It encourages them to get in touch with me. It makes my sales task much easier.
But it’s not all about customers approaching me. It works the other way as well.
2- Social media is a great way to find new customers
You should use social media in the same way that your clients do. They use social media to find new suppliers. You can use social media to find new customers.
Have a look at the advanced search options on LinkedIn. These offer a route to finding exactly the sort of customers that you want. You can be specific on keywords. You can specify where the client is based. If you invest in the premium version of LinkedIn, you can be even more precise in how you target a search.
This type of search offers a route to finding customers that simply wasn’t possible a few years ago. Once you have completed a search, social media also lets you take things further.
3- Social media allows you to engage with prospects
These days it can be very difficult to get speak to a prospect through cold calling. However, these same prospects are often very open to connecting on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
Once you have connected, it is possible to start a dialogue with these prospects. You are now engaging with new prospects.
Once you are at this stage, there is an important rule to remember.
Social media is not about direct sales
One of the key reasons I see for the failure of much social media activity is the fact that people try and sell too early. Social media is about engagement.
Once you have a firm relationship with your contact, it is then time to move this into the real world. That’s when the sales conversation can begin. However, rather than cold calling, you are now warm calling.
Can social media really make a difference to a printing company?
If you would like to learn more about how to create a successful social media strategy download Matthew’s free e-book: “How to use social media to create warm prospects: 10 social media rules for print sales people”
