Sales and Growth Strategies
Random Thoughts
Just a bunch of crap that I have floating in my head.
About Getting a Massive Twitter Following
Mar 8th
One of my Twitter accounts has over 33,000 followers. How did I do it?
I get asked all the time – in fact I’ve been invited to speak at forums and presentations now – to discuss how I got so many followers. The following video discusses this topic but asks some deeper questions about getting a huge Twitter following.
FYI – I also recommend visiting this post: Twitter Best Practices for Social Media Marketers by Steve Latham
Chatroulette – Strange and Compelling
Feb 10th
Prepare to have a total stranger, randomly picked around the world, viewing you on your computer camera. Ready in 3, 2, 1…
The first time I tried Chatroulette, the latest craze for young(er) people, I felt like a total idiot. It was early morning and I was working through my blogs when I read ‘What to make of chatroulette?‘. I hadn’t showered, my hair (what’s left) was a mess and I was in my ‘home gear’. I was not presentable. And therein is the beauty of it. The people that saw me merely don’t know me. They thought I was another crazy person like them.
Either way, Chatroulette will test you. It will challenge your comfort zone. And yes, you will see people being people. Try it out.
Finding More Sales Opportunities Using Twitter
Feb 4th
One of the biggest problems that most CEO’s and business owners I work with is the lack of new opportunities in their sales team’s pipeline.
Most sales experts say that you need three times more opportunities in your pipeline now than before 2009 to make up for the stagnant growth of this economy. Well, being an ‘Engineer of Sales and Marketing Systems’, I’ve been able to create a system that leverages Twitter to a) create my own personal advertising channel with over 32,000 followers, and b) find new sales opportunities on a daily bases. This article discusses the latter. (New to Twitter? The fastest way to learn is to sign up and start ‘tweeting’!)
One of the systems I implement for clients is a sales hiring process that increases the odds of hiring a producer from an industry standard 20% to over 90% – what I’ve come to call the Sales Star Recruiting process. I developed a recorded webcast called How to Hire Sales Stars Every Time that is loaded with useful information that can help the small and medium business who has had the experience of running a non-productive sales team and to view it the person needs to register – i.e. a new opportunity.
A popular (and free) program to watch Twitter streams is TweetDeck. One of the features I like is the ability to view streams based on a search phrase. For instance, for the aforementioned service I provide for recruiting salespeople, I watch for tweets that mention key phrases that I target such as “hiring sales”, “hire sales”, etc. Every few minutes a new tweet appears with those words in it, and very frequently it’s a small business owner or HR person mentioning that they are hiring for sales. I simply do a reply to them mentioning that they may find my free webcast useful and include the link to the registration page, and more often than not, they go and and register and watch it.
<img style=”float: right; margin-left: 20px;” src=”http://scott.smeester.com/wp-content/uploads/fail-big.jpg” alt=”If you’re gonna fail, fail big!” />
First Person or Third Person?
Feb 3rd
When referring to yourself in writing, what are the rules regarding third person or first person?
I visited Chris Brogan’s site to see how one of the most successful blogger, social media guru, expert marketer, etc. writes and organizes his website. One thing I noticed is that most of his site is written in a third person, like the About page. It’s HIS site, yet he is referring to himself in the third person. Perhaps he had somebody write it for him, but I doubt it. My site is written in first person because not long ago I was in a conversation with my friend – whom I very much respect as a consultant – and he told me how he thinks that we should write about ourselves in the first person. He says it’s more personal and I agree.
What do you think?
Is there a certain level of professionalism maintained by referring to yourself in the third person? I’d really like to hear your comments.
Identify What You REALLY Sell
Jan 30th
Do you sell web development? … I don’t want it.
Do you sell financial planning? … No thank you.
Do you sell construction services? … So what?
What I really want is warm and open minded prospects for my sales team and I’m thinking an online marketing initiative – done right – could provide those kind of leads.
What I really want is peace of mind that my hard earned money is safe and is growing at an overall fair market rate.
What I really want is the assurance that my contractor will show up on time, communicate well and leave me with something that is not constructed, but crafted.
Most leaders of companies I’ve met don’t really know what their company is selling because they are mis-defining what their customers REALLY want, and so the offering becomes a commodity and it’s not helping the cause. Web developers are a commodity. Financial planners are a commodity. Contractors are a commodity. But if they would simply properly define what their company sells, it would attract sales easily.
PS: if you REALLY know what I want, I’d love to know you.
PSS: my wife Audrey Smeester helps the busy professional say thanks with unique and tasteful gifts that are painless to send. Visit her site!
Replace Thyself
Jan 22nd
A motto I heard from a friend of mine in business is “replace thyself”. When I say this to somebody who has a job, they seem appalled. “Why would you do that?” “Yeah, if you want to find yourself without a job!” However, even somebody with a job would do well to always find ways of creating better systems to handle the work they do. Watch more about this topic on the video below.
How Big Have You Failed?
Dec 29th
Perhaps it’s also true of the rest of the world, but the celebration of failure is taboo in this country. However, failure is a part of success and a good indication – to me – of what kind of ‘kahunas’ you have for business.
Not long ago, I met a guy who built, and subsequently lost, a billion dollar company. When I heard about it I didn’t judge him or feel sorry for him like so many in our society would have done (mainstream media for instance). I was actually quite impressed. I mean… how many people have actually succeeded to that level and then fell all the way down? What are the odds? It’s almost like being hit by lightning – if it happens to you, you were CHOSEN!
In my mind’s eye, the ‘Success Club’ members are comprised of the first class passengers depicted in the movie Titanic. They are 2nd or 3rd generation wealth, born with the proverbial silver spoon, or they succeeded big on their first try, and to their demise, perhaps not really appreciating their accomplishments. They’re all stodgy old men dressed in tuxedos, holding their brandy snifters with cigars ablaze, scarves around their necks talking about their great accomplishments. "William, do you remember when we denied the Union?" "Why yes, Theo, that was spendid."
Then there is the ‘Holy Crap I Can’t Believe I Even Tried That’ club. Most of the members of this club ended up as financially successful as the aforementioned members, but they’re warm and humble people. The members of this club EARNED their success and they’re happy to help anybody else do the same. They went all the way and looked over the edge, perhaps even tumbled over a couple of times, and have the badges of honor that put them in a truly unique society.
So on your road to success, what kind of roadblocks have you run into? Have you played it safe? My recommendation: if you’re gonna fail on the way to success, get out there and FAIL BIG!!!
Be Committed
Dec 5th
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation…
… there is an elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”
Mountain Climber Charles Murray
I am a co-founder of a startup company which is finally (wiping forehead ) gaining momentum after 3+ years of very hard work. Many, many hours making phone calls, meetings, lunches, trips all over the country. Many internal hurdles and differing personalities have had to be overcome. A serious investment of time? Yes, and of life. Oh, and there is no pay. Sorry. And when you seriously doubt you can keep going? Well, because you made the commitment and you’re sticking to it, a whole new circumstance happens that keeps you in the game, and why give up now? And you get right back to putting big skin in the game. And the cycle continues… until someday… you make it… or you don’t.
If You Believe It, Is It True?
Aug 5th
A blog post from Feld Thoughts, The Illusion of Progress, got me thinking about the power of our belief. Brad is wondering if he is being naive about his positive outlook. "I can’t decide if it’s me and my innate optimism, if there’s an illusion of progress, or if there’s a massive disconnect between reality and what mainstream media reports." But does it matter? Don’t we all just want to believe that life could always be completely fulfilling if we just made up our mind to do so by our beliefs?
I have a plethora of "sticky tweets" that I like to send out into the Twitter stream just to get things heated up a little bit. One I like to use is "What would John McCain do?". Another is "Is anybody NOT in sales? Anybody?". And a fan favorite is "81% of all statistics are made up!" These always get somebody to reply with something.
Since the recession hit I have been periodically sending out this sticky tweet: "The recession is over!! If we all believed it, would we be in one?" It gets retweeted often and I also get a lot of replies. Most replies are in agreement but sometimes I’ll get the "just because somebody believes something doesn’t make it so!"
I argue that if you do believe, and I mean REALLY BELIEVE something is true, it is. Even Jesus said "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him." Was Jesus on to something? I think so – and perhaps this explains the testimonials about his miracles. Perhaps he had a God-like capacity to believe. And I bet he did.
What do you think? Do you believe?
A Better 30 Second Commercial
Jul 17th
I was on my way to another “networking event” and it had been awhile because I’ve always felt like I was being perceived no differently than the other guy – and at least I wanted to sound different. I called up my friend and business mentor, a very successful financial planner that works BRO (By Referral Only), and asked him off the cuff, “What do you do?”. He asked me “What would you say if I told you I was a ‘wealth advisor’?” I said, “I’d ask you what a ‘wealth advisor’ is?” He said “Exactly! And that is what you want.”
What my friend does that most of his peers do not is spend time with his clients up front to understand their underlying and guiding core values as well as goals. And not until he has these most important personal pieces of information, which usually takes four to six weeks of work, would he present a strategic plan that outlines the potential positives as well as risks – all in accordance to the core values originally discovered. He is not like most of his industry peers that launch into recommending a myriad of financial products during the first meeting.
In my friend’s introduction, if he were to merely introduce himself to new contacts as a ‘financial planner’, most people will automatically put him in a box. In other words, the paradigm and perception that new contacts would have of my friend would be of typical financial planners…. usually not the image that is wanted.
Avoid being boxed in. Separate yourself from the mediocre peers of your profession on the first impression. Give yourself a chance to enter into a deeper conversation. How? Be vague in your pitch with the intent of getting asked “what is that?”
