Sales

CRM, Customer Relational Management software, as a concept is outdated and needs to change, now.  Who has the time or inclination to update yet another software system with mundane data about your clients.  You don’t want to do it.  I guarantee the people that work for you don’t want to do it.  Notes, conversations, call backs, forecasts….it never ends.

Sure, it sounds impressive when you can say to a client, “we spoke about this three months ago and determined that you had interest in updating your website.”  But really, where is the value?

These times call for a new interpretation of CRM. Call it CRM 2.0.  Call it CRM for social media.  Doesn’t matter.  The way we communicate has fundamentally changed over the last twenty-four months.  Yes, that quickly.  In the last two years, nascent technologies like blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and RSS have moved into the mainstream.  These new conduits for conversation are being rapidly adopted by business professionals. 

Your customers are speaking via these new mediums.  Are you listening?  Here is what they are saying:

* “I am working on project X”

* “I need to learn more about Y”

* “I am concerned about Z”

Your customers are posting, venting, and expressing their needs and wants on social media outlets.  Rich data is being presented.  Data, that if listened to properly, can point you in the direction of crafting valuable offers for your clients.

The “New CRM” needs to capture and organize these streams of valuable information.  Captured in a way that a complete profile of your customer’s social media interactions can be viewed simply and effortlessly. Organized in a way, that a dashboard of all new customer “feeds” can alert you instantly to what your customers are saying.  

Oh, and one more thing.  The New CRM will gather information on the profiles of your clients, then troll social networks and blogs for potential clients with similar concerns. Now we’re talking!

Couple these feeds from the new social conduits with traditional email communications, add in a pinch of voice mail to text transcription, and we have a recipe for CRM success.  A tool that requires very little input from us, but delivers exceptional value by dramatically increasing our ability to act.

Stay tuned.  Its coming.

To your success!

Scott

Social media and social networks have created a new opening for design in the domain of Sales.  Historically, growing and scaling our service business beyond our current capacity required the hiring of salespeople.  Sure, “sales capacity”, the relative power to increase revenues, can be expanded somewhat by networking our way into more referrals.  But at some point, this strategy also reaches its limits.

The hiring of salespeople for our service business offers opportunity, but also entails substantial financial risk.  The financial risk coming in the form of base compensation and benefits.  Additional risk comes from making the wrong choice in salespeople.  It has been my experience that one in three hires for sales positions end up working out.

Let’s think about a new way to expand our Sales capacity:  The New Salesforce.  The New Salesforce is an army of people that are potentially available to introduce your service to your target customers.  

Who are these people?

These are people that have built an identity of trust within your target market.  People listen to what they have to say and take their recommendations and advice seriously.  They are not generalists.  They specialize in specific industry knowledge. 

Where do I find these people?

The New Salesforce are leading bloggers, admins of LinkedIn and Facebook groups, and thought leaders (o.k. maybe tweet leaders) on Twitter.  People (your customers) “follow” them.

How do they become my New Salesforce?

You reach out to them with a compelling offer, just as you would any salesperson.  Here’s an example.  Let’s say you are a designer, specializing in producing high quality websites for medical practices.  [BTW, if you are not specializing in certain niches, red flag, full stop.]   Your goal is to find the social media, social network influencers in this space.  Once found, make them an offer!

About the Offer

Your offer should be a compelling way for them to benefit financially for referring potential clients to you.  Craft an attractive commission plan that rewards them based upon prospects referred and new clients obtained.  You cannot expect them to close the deal for you.  This, you must do yourself in most cases.  However, a steady stream of new prospects is critical to the long term growth of your business.

Why is this attractive to the New Salesforce

These people are already engaged in “conversations” with your target market.  Bringing up your service as part of these conversations on LinkeIn, Facebook, and Twitter requires very little additional effort on their part.  Additionally, the “selling” is something that can be accomplished in their down time, or off hours.

Action:  seek out the New Salesforce in your target market and start making offers!

To your success.

Scott

So here I was.  A young, eager, hungry, software consultant.  Business was going o.k. with a fair amount of small jobs coming my way.  Then I got “the call”.  The call came in from Jody, the V.P. of manufacturing of a fairly large manufacturing company.  Jody had heard about my work / identity from another client.  Jody was looking for someone to design a software system for their manufacturing process.  She needed to “start right away”.  The funds for the project has been budgeted………and it was a BIG number.  ”When could I start?”, was Jody’s only question for me.   

Well, that was easy.  Pick up phone. Listen patiently. Get contract.  This is my kind of business!  Or so I thought.

With gusto, I plunged into the project.  I spent hours upon hours researching analyzing, examining, and documenting their arcane manufacturing processes.  I then produced a report of recommendations.  Not just any report mind you.  This was art.  A masterpiece, laying out in every detail, the specifications for a new system.  Revenue here I come!

Now for the presentation.  I’m talking charts, graphs, circles and arrows.  Lasted about an hour.  At the time, it didn’t strike me as odd that they didn’t have any questions as I flashed my forty-fifth Powerpoint slide. Must be stunned by my brilliance, I concluded. 

me:  ”Questions?”

Jody: “This isn’t what we wanted.  You just told us what we already know.  We need “X”, and you gave us “Y”   (detail omitted here to prevent boredom).

So what went wrong?  I neglected to specify the most important part of my offer, the Conditions of Satisfaction (COS).  Very simply stated, conditions of satisfaction are what you, the service provider, need to produce for the client to declare she is satisfied with your work.  In this case, Jody had a completely different expectation than I did about what was going to be delivered.  In my eagerness to grab the largest assignment of my nascent business, I neglected to specify and agree on the COS.  

So, how to specify the Conditions of Satisfaction with a client:

* be clear, in writing (especially if this is a new client) about what you will deliver

* make a promise of when you will deliver.  There are two dimensions that clients use to assess satisfaction with service providers.  Content and timeliness.

* get the client to agree to the conditions.  Sounds basic.  I like to get a signature and a verbal acknowledgment. 

* here comes the most important one.  Get the client to agree, that if you meet the COS, she will:

1. pay you on time

2. speak well of you in the marketplace and refer other customers to you.  Setting this expectation is critical to the growth of your business.

Specifying the COS upfront, will position you as a true professional and differentiate you from your competitors.  

Action: incorporate COS into your next contract.

Your thoughts?

To your success!

Scott

I’ll bet you’re thinking this is going to be a political commentary.  Not so.  Please read on.

When times are tough, we may look for ways to tranquilize ourselves.  Instinctively, our brain looks for ways to relieve the pain that thinking about the future causes.  In the worst of cases, we turn to alcohol and drugs as a way to “quiet” our mood about the future.

Almost as dangerous to us, our business and the people we care about, is the tranquilizer called “hope”. Hope in its purest sense, is an ungrounded assessment about how the future will turn out for us. Hope is not based upon solid facts or actions that we plan to undertake.  Hope is a way for us to temporarily remove ourselves from the reality we are in.

Some examples of dangerous hope for the small business person:

* I really hope the economy gets better

* I really hope I get this big contract

* I really hope my struggling customer will pay me

These examples of Hope imply lack of specific action on our part.  We are leaving our future in the hands of the gods.  To be successful, and realize the future we envision for ourselves, we must turn hope into action.

* I will work to assess the current economic environment and its impact on my business and my customers’ businesses.

* I will work on making compelling offers to my clients targeted at the specific concerns they have

* I will assess the credit worthiness of current and new customers and be diligent in following up with my accounts receivable.

The winners and survivors of the recession will be those business owners, contractors and freelancers that commit themselves to growing their business through specific, customer focused actions.

Action for today:  Setup a meeting with one of your best clients to discuss their company’s outlook for 2009.  For some who need help constructing the conversation, here is an example.

You:  ”I would like to set up a visit to learn more about where your company is headed in 2009″

Client:  ”What do you mean, ‘where we are headed?’”

You: “I am interested in learning more about the strategic and tactical goals of your business.  What new initiatives will you be working on.  What are your customers thinking.  All with an eye towards being able to serve you better in 2009.”

Client:  ”Wow.  You are the first person to take a deep interest in our business.  When would you like to come out?”

Make the call.  How did it go?

Thoughts, observations?