I had a conversation yesterday about the state of modern selling and the person I spoke with was bemoaning the crazy number of buzz words that stand in for actual real content or ideas.
In that vein, I wanted to put down a few ideas that will really help you excel in modern selling.
Some type of scraper:
Email prospecting is something you need to do at some level.
While I am not anti-phone calls, I am aware that I don’t answer phone calls from people or numbers I don’t know. Which means that likely I am not the only one.
That means that we need to get better at finding email addresses and using them to open up sales conversations.
That’s where an email scraper comes in.
You use the scraper to build a list of emails of people that you need to contact.
My personal favorite is eGrabber. If you want to try out the tools, send me a note and I will get you a free trial so you can get your first 50 contacts.
Social media:
I’m pretty much a big time reader and learner, so I am always looking for something that I can learn about my prospects.
That’s where social media comes in.
Because I write and speak regularly, I get a lot of engagement on social media.
This gives me a lot of power to use social media to open sales conversations.
But I don’t want you to use it like a fool.
You need to learn how to use social media as a tool to create and distribute content, quality content that puts you in a good light.
And, to express your opinions, but also to figure out what your clients and prospects are struggling with.
Skype or some sort of conference call type software:
We need to be prepared to talk with people around the globe these days.
That’s where modern call tools are really powerful.
I have clients and colleagues around the world because I am willing to use Skype to connect with people.
While there are a lot of people that use Skype or Google Hangouts to connect with people, there are tons of people that aren’t.
To really be a modern salesperson, you need to be comfortable using all the tools and that’s what Skype symbolizes to me.
The idea that you can connect with people all over the world at any time in many different ways.