Smart Calling in this new Era of Engagement

I see two things that people hate most about their jobs: the stress stemming from the millstone that is their email inbox and cold-calling salespeople. We will take on email another time. Everyone hates cold calling. You do as customers and prospects and we do as sales and marketing folk from IT Solution providers. You hate it because it is relentless, intrusive and keeps you from doing your real job. Plus you only recollect the really bad/rude/don’t-take-no-for-an-answer experiences. We hate doing it because it is highly stressful and mostly  unproductive. Customers would be shocked to know the actual hit rate for getting through to a prospective client with a need is less than ½ of 1%. But we have to do it because no business has ever grown by sitting around waiting for orders or projects.

Unfortunately finding new customers is a necessary evil for every business. For most businesses a certain number of customers will be lost every year (blamelessly) through natural attrition such as acquisition, changed direction, new staff, business failure etc. So in order to grow, a business needs to not only replace the attrition with new customers, but find even more lucrative clients. We are going to seek out new  prospects and we are going to contact you, if we believe your company can derive business value from our services. Plain and simple, that is our responsibility to the business.

The key point from the above paragraph is what research can we do and what engagement can we have with you to justify our belief that your company can derive business value from our services? Our objective is to turn cold calling into smart(er) calling. We want to get through to you and spend quality time with you if there is a fit for both organisations. Whether there is a fit or not should be based on prior knowledge of timing, your business and your IT requirements.

So how are we going to go about it in 2013 so that we achieve the outcomes we want without alienating and annoying the world?

The root of the problem and the cause of bad feelings on both sides of the table is that the first wave of CRM technologies have made it much easier, cheaper and efficient for even small companies to carpet bomb the market with emails, hardcopy flyers and cold calls. Quantity over quality has poisoned the experience for everyone.

Our objective now is to use new technology to “warm up” the call. Social Media Marketing is one of today’s biggest catchphrases. It helps businesses like ours become familiar to/with the prospects we want to engage in a way that was not possible before.  One central tenet of Social Media Marketing is the value of  referrals and recommendations. Referrals and recommendations are the life blood of a business and have been around forever, but new social media technologies have improved their mapping and automation. New technologies such as marketing automation tools and engagement via social media are also  immensely helpful in initiating the engagement/interest so that any calls (solicited or unsolicited) will be more productive. These new technologies enable us to be much more intelligent about who we contact and to which relevant content we direct them.

We are adapting to social media marketing and how it can help grow our business. Count me out if it totally replaces the trust and personal relationships that make being in this business so rewarding. I am far from convinced that our increasing number of twitter followers, page views, hashtags, likes etc.  will have  a direct outcome on the number of new clients we expect to acquire. It is how we develop from that activity. But it gives us an opportunity to provide thought leadership and react effectively to the reactions.  It is a two-way street. We are definitely able gain better intelligence about our prospects from whom they follow, what they saying in social media and by whom we can be referred to them.

Here are 4 examples of how I am using Social Media daily to “warm up” calls and improve probability of more meaningful engagements on both sides with our clients:

•  Accuracy – I use our MS Dynamics CRM system to check recent activity with a customer/prospect, but I trust LinkedIn more than our CRM System for the accuracy and more importantly, currency of its information. That is not a criticism of our CRM, it simply because social media is self-edited and therefore more likely accurate and up to date.
• Best place EVER to find out about the competition – For one, people say too much by nature so there are always competitive nuggets to pick up from the Look Ma, I’m Winning posts. Also by seeing who is connecting to whom mainly in Twitter and LinkedIn, you can glean lots about the competition. Retweets, endorsements  etc.  are great providers of Hmmmm, now I get it moments.
• Keeping connected – People move from one company to another and that information is delivered very efficiently by Social Media. I always reach out (OUCH, couldn’t avoid one of those awful neologisms from the land of my birth) to any customer or prospect that has changed companies. Without fail, I usually secure a meeting.
• Finding the Referral – researching a company or contact for that shared experience or mutual contact that might be a helpful introduction. I use LinkedIn InMail to great effect here. Note that InMail needs to be used sparingly, professionally and must be customised and unique.

New technologies and techniques in B2B social media marketing  can increase positive familiarity for both buyer and seller. We still owe it to ourselves and the business to develop upon that familiarity with a proactive engagement (call me old-fashioned, but I believe a phone call still to be the best method or even better a face to face appointment).

We are going to call you. We are going to ask if we can come out and see you. That won’t change for the foreseeable future. We have to, but we will do it the right way.  Try to think of it as a shared experience with a desirable outcome for both parties. We promise unconditionally to make best use of technology, and have the prerequisite knowledge to improve the worth of the call to you. It will be a smart call, not a cold call. All we ask in return is that you consider taking the call  due to improved probability of benefit for you.

Speak to you soon.