Sales Strategy Influenced By Centres Of Influence?

Experts abound who say we no longer need face to face selling techniques.

Really?

I say that before even contemplating building a social media and a web presence get your sales skills up to scratch.

Then, just as in face to face selling, you can build some key online centres of influence, who become a vital part of your online sales strategy.

You can use social media as a sales prospecting tool to speak directly with business, friends, and family, giving them a story to share.

That will not feed your kids but it will provide great first impressions and priceless feedback for your sales strategy and helps you to build some very powerful centres of influence.

Social media has its own influencers and many focus on those but my experience still proves to me day in and day out that real life people in real life businesses are the best forms of influence that you can have and your sales strategy should include ways to constantly building more. Sam Fiorella, in his recent post describes these influencers in much further depth when he poses the question What is Influence? 

Influence Marketing vs. Sales Strategy – Huffington Post

What is influence? That’s a question best left to social-scientists, psychologist and philosophers to answer. For the practice of sales & marketing, there is really only one definition, which is best stated as a question: did they buy it?

• Did the person who received a product sample from Frito Lay’s marketing team buy a bag that week?
• Did the housewife buy the book that Oprah featured on her book club list?
• Did the T-Mobile customer switch cellular providers when his co-worker suggested that Verizon was a better network?
• Did the web developer switch CMS platforms when Robert Scoble praised a competitive product?
• Did parishioners buy Chick-fil-A sandwiches when religious leaders called for support of the brand in response to boycott calls from gay-rights activists?

So, when people are talking about you on the internet, make it part of your sales strategy to answer them promptly using your sales skills exactly as if you were face to face with them. Remember that every connection and friend you have on the internet is a real person not just a number. Budget your Business Sales Strategies and marketing efforts carefully. You can use the abundance of websites on the Internet for a fraction of the cost of traditional mainstream media and reach a far greater target audience quicker than traditional newspaper or magazines can give you & often with more influence.

Let your satisfied clients do the talking for you with positive feedback about their experiences with you. Offer a ‘friend-bring-a-friend’ coupon and just keep spreading the word. To see how powerful the web is, Google the ‘lip syncing kid’ on YouTube.

It is a fascinating story with millions of hits to a kid, who had been bullied at school, locked in his bedroom lip-syncing to his favourite tunes. The music artist, ‘50 Cent’ heard about him and launched a song with the kid. This was his sole sales strategy. Look at the number of hits this video has had on it 48 million and counting!!!!!

I think that is a sensational sales strategy, don’t you?

Without a doubt, the most common thing many companies do is to give away email newsletters. They are easy to produce, relevant to the reader, and easy to pass along. Plus, you can use an email-delivery company that lets you track who forwards your newsletters – those are active talkers. Use something different, interesting, and memorable so that it helps increase the viral factor and people pass it along willingly.

Create an online bulletin board or forum where past, present and prospective customers can talk to you and to each other.

For your online Marketing and Sales Strategy success keep them on your website as long as you can because just like in a real live sales environment, once they leave they are not likely to come back.

As the car salespeople say when a prospective buyer tells them they will return later……. “There ain’t no pity in be back city”.

Phil Polson

Sales Strategist