Technology Backlash: Good Old-fashioned Business Success Comes with the Personal Touch

Hello? Is anybody there? 

One of the biggest problems sales people face with social media and technology is the lack of real, meaningful contact and communication.  Sure, it’s quick and easy. But when it comes to closing deals, does it really produce the results you need?
Joanne S. Black, author of the new book Pick Up the Damn Phone! , How People, Not Technology, Seal the Deal, is on a mission to help people learn the importance of personal contact.  Her manifesto is simple – to make a real connection and achieve true, meaningful communication, you have to make a personal and even in-person contact. Her goal is to get people to tweet less and talk more to the customers and contacts who really matter.

“It’s easy to get sucked into technology,” she says. “But the personal touch is the best deal maker there is.  Relationships matter more than anything else. The digital world—as great as it is—threatens personal connections. Humans need personal contact with others. Email, texting, social networking—these certainly have a place in business today, but none of them replaces the power of a personal connection.”

Based on years of research and experience, her book describes what she sees are the critical elements for success, particularly in business, where the creation of the powerful personal trust with executives and clients is necessary to produce immediate and long-term mutual economic benefits. Here they are:

1. Stop Typing. Stop Texting. Get Personal Right Now. Pick up the phone and call. Go down the hall, take a walk, get in your car, take a train, get on a plane, hop on a bus, take the metro, and GO AND SEE THE RIGHT PERSON OR PEOPLE RIGHT NOW.  Make arrangements to see the people you work with face-to face. Go and meet your prospects and clients in-person. Thrash your competition. They are still tapping away on the keyboard. Even in our technology-driven world, nothing replaces a handshake and in-person interaction for both building and maintaining business relationships. Face-to-face meetings aren’t luxuries.

2. Our Smart Phones Are Not So Smart Everyone looks down at their phones–bumping into people on the street, at networking events, on muni, at restaurants, in bed, at home. Our addiction to technology is bleeding into our personal lives. There’s no conversation. Kids are ignored. When you used to go into a public place, you assumed everyone was in that place with you. Now everyone is somewhere else. No one is talking. No one is connecting.

3. Are You Spammed? Salespeople think that technology can do their job. They are under the mistaken beliefs, that if they do some research, identify specific trigger events and mutual connections that they can now spam away. It’s like digital snake oil. Executives don’t have “Meet with Salesperson” on the top of their list. They will always take a meeting with a personal introduction from someone they know and trust.

4. We’re Smarter Than Our Buyers The digital buyer, Buyer 2.0 learns all about us with a click of the mouse. Salespeople are armed with the same tools. Even though buyers may know a lot about us, we know just as much or more about them. Clients don’t usually recognize exactly what they need. We do. Because so much information can be found online, the standard is now higher for sales to add value. Information isn’t knowledge. Knowledge comes from wisdom and experience. Just being tech savvy doesn’t mean you’re smarter than your buyer.

5. Message to Marketing:  Keep Your Hands Off My Clients It’s up to salespeople to nurture their own relationships—not just with marketing automation, but with one-on-one conversations. Marketing should not be qualifying leads. That’s our job. Not only is generating leads our responsibility, it’s a task you don’t want marketing (or anyone else) doing for you. These are your clients, and you must continue to cultivate these relationships. These are the people who can send you the best, hottest referrals. So marketing–keep your hands off my clients.

6. Bring In Your Team! Don’t be a lone ranger. If you are the manager, bring your technology experts with you. If you are the technology expert, bring your manager with you! Knock people’s socks off by giving them access to the right people that matter to the solution of their problem.. Show clients that you trust your teammates and that they can trust you. When we share data, strategies, best practices and even people, you make the best impression and win loyalty that lasts for a long time.

7. There’s No Such Thing as a “Warm” Call.  If you don’t have a referral introduction, your lead is freezing cold—even though you mistakenly think you’ve been able to avoid sounding like a pesky telemarketer. Walk straight into meetings with your ideal prospects—without cold calling or trying to figure out how to bypass the gatekeeper. If you’ve been introduced by a trusted source, these gatekeepers will welcome your call. The secret isn’t duping them (trust me, they’re onto you). Make referral selling your primary sales driver and convert more than 50% of prospects to clients.

8. Shine the Light! Prove that Live and in Person is the Best! Social networking isn’t the next big thing. You are! It’s not technology, but rather the person using the technology, that sets people apart. Social selling is a great way to expedite the first few important steps in prospecting; researching potential clients and identifying referral sources. Beyond that, it’s not social intelligence we need; it’s relationship intelligence that seals the deal.

It’s people, not technology, that seal the deal. It’s the real thing.

About the Author

Joanne Black is an expert on referral selling—the only business-development strategy proven to convert prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time. She is the author of the book No More Cold Calling, and a popular speaker who teaches people how to build their referral networks so they can quickly attract more business, decrease operating costs, and ace out the competition every time. Her clients include Autodesk, KPMG, Bank of Marin, California State Automobile Association, Colliers International, Sage Software, and many other companies. She is a member of the National Speakers Association.

She has a Bachelors Degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley and a Certificate in Training and Human Resource Development, with Honors, from the University of California Extension.  Joanne lives in San Francisco, California.

 

Why Cold Calling Has Some B2B Advantages

One of the most effective ways of securing new business is through cold calling – it is a fabulous way of acquiring new leads if you do it right. The unfortunate thing is that many businesses go about their telemarketing the wrong way and are letting potential business just slip through their fingers. Telemarketing can often be an overused tool, so your marketing team should assess when is the right time to start a telemarketing campaign and not just launch one for the sake of it.

The Advantages of B2B Cold Calling

There are four main advantages to running a cold calling or telemarketing campaign, which can be described in the following ways:

• Lead Generation. Telemarketing is a great tool for lead generation. If your business is relying on inbound calls alone for their leads you may find that there are simply not enough to meet your targets. You can’t always be in the position of waiting for business to come to you, there are times when you need to go out and secure that business for yourself.
• Marketplace Education. One of the things that cold calling allows you to do is to get a feel for what is happening in the marketplace. It can give you insight into why the business is not coming to you of its own volition, cold calling provides valuable information about the current marketplace as well as opening up possible sales leads. The act of cold calling puts you in touch with what people actually need, they will tell you what they want and if you don’t have it they will tell you who does! This will give you an insight into possible market trends and the needs of your customer base.
• Business Visibility. During a telemarketing campaign you are throwing the name of your business out into the public domain, raising awareness of your existence and the services that you provide. It could be that one of the reasons you are not receiving as many inbound calls as you would like is the fact that no one knows that you are there.
• Professional Staff. By using experienced cold callers you will find that your telemarketing campaign is more effective than simply utilising your existing staff. Cold calling professions have been doing the job for a long time, they know how to engage the potential client and keep them on the line. They have the knowledge of techniques and strategies for cold calling that you do not, and you should be able to recoup the cost of hiring them through the new leads that they generate for you.

Research

Research is essential before undertaking any marketing campaign. You need to know the names of the purchasing managers, stock controllers and decision makers in the companies that you will be calling. Telemarketing might not be popular with those that are on the receiving end of the calls but by making those you are raising awareness, promoting your business and growing your lead generation figures into a much healthier place.

Mark Adams is an expert author on all aspects of B2B marketing – he regularly visits Sure2Door.co.uk for more details on up and coming marketing strategies.

 

5 Appointment Setting Tips to Keep you Sane

Telemarketers have received much help from the technological advances made these past few years. However, the key in effective appointment setting still revolves around mastering a handful of basic techniques. As you may have already figured out, the road to outbound appointment setting is not for the fainthearted, as this will require a great deal of time and dedication to become successful with what you’re doing. Remember if you ever need help, you can always call an appointment setting company like Vendere Partners.

In this article, we will tackle the 5 basic tips you should know in setting an appointment.

1.  Have a Pen and Paper at all Times

The first thing you should be doing is obviously writing things down. No matter how powerful you think your mind is, you should document all information that is worth noting. This is by far the most obvious thing to do and is sadly, where most people fall short. Always make it a point to carry at least a pen and paper for those desperate times.

2. Have a telemarketing script

Having a telemarketing script is an effective way to keep an outbound call right on track. Before talking to the prospect, one should write a script as this can be very helpful in describing your intent – this also makes your pitch sound natural. If your employees are handling the task of setting appointments, a script helps them gain knowledge of the product, and eliminates any chances of being caught off guard by a question.

3.  You should maintain a list of fresh contacts or leads.

Telemarketers typically make hundreds of calls every day. Always make it a point to move on to newer prospects and add fresh new names to keep yourself on your toes rather than call the same voicemail over and over again. While it may be recommended to move on to new targets once the old ones cannot be contacted, don’t completely disregard them at the first sight, learn to judge the right time to move on.

4.  Be persistent!

This is the most prominent trait of any telemarketer; you shouldn’t just give up right away even if the possible options are already exhausted. You know how annoyingly persistent telemarketers are? Yeah, that’s your goal.

5.  Close the appointment!

Always take note that all appointments that have been settled are basically all sales calls. Don’t be repetitive and alternate schedules when setting appointments in order to make sure that it is convenient for the prospect. Learn to vary scheduled appointments and don’t just stick to what you’ve been used to. And when closing the appointment, always make it a point to use a choice closer in order to make the appointment convenient for the prospect while adding variation to your schedules.

Mark Doyle is a freelance writer who writes about many subjects including Vendere Partners.