How to Prevent B2B Sales Calls Using Twitter
By Jeffrey L. Cohen
Mon, Dec 7, 2009
Many B2B organizations are starting to use Twitter to listen to their customers, engage with customers and even prospect for new customers, but how does it work from the customer side. As a department head, you have to frequently field phone calls from sales people. You are probably receiving more cold calls then ever, as businesses are trying to grow new business in a time when their customers are spending less. These calls reduce your productivity and take you away from running your department. Here’s a great way to reduce the length and number of these calls.
Require all vendors to contact you first on Twitter and engage with you before you’ll take a phone call.
The first thing that will happen is that you will get fewer phone calls. Most sales organizations are not prepared for Twitter. A sales manager can’t have his reps tweeting all day. And with so many marketing departments still learning how to use Twitter, do you think there are many sales reps that would say they would be happy to contact you on Twitter? And those that do get you on the phone, you can just be firm and tell them your department policy. All vendor relationships must start on Twitter.
The salespeople that do understand Twitter and use it for prospecting will be happy about your policy. It is much easier, and much quicker to contact you via Twitter. The interaction is shorter, it takes less time away from other phone calls, and it is easier to provide links with valuable information that you can read on your own time. A sales rep would rather point you to a case study of their services, not recite it to you over the phone.
Twitter has become another channel for communication, and one that provides much more background information at the click of a link. By requiring contact on Twitter, you can find out more than ever about the rep, their company and their products or services before replying back. Depending on the size of company, you may even be able to find out about interactions with other customers and prospects. If they seem to be spamming others with their messages, you don’t need to respond. But if they are talking about industry issues, providing value to others and humanizing themselves in the processing of Twitter communication, it is probably worth responding. A sales rep that understands Twitter is a good contact. After several conversations on Twitter, you might consider taking their phone call and hearing their sales pitch. But even if you, someone who understands Twitter will accept that. You can refuse them quicker and easier on Twitter.
With so many customers setting the rules for interaction in the sales cycle, is your sales organization prepared for customers who insist on Twitter connection as the first step? The days of this, or something similar, may not be far off.
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Tags: sales cycle, Twitter
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Interesting post, Jeff. A bit gimmicky, perhaps, but I love the general idea of customers taking more control over interactions with sales people, and sellers needing to be ready and comfortable interacting with social media. There is no doubt that B2B buyers are in control of the selling relationship already; simply tune out all irrelevant pitches and then seek out their own sources for insight and information when they’re ready to start looking. This why Marketing is increasingly important in B2B vs. the old way of Sales thinking it could go it alone. Sales needs not only to get more comfortable with social media, but also with the Marketing folks that build thought leadership and general credibility for the company that paves the way for sellers to engage. That might be an even bigger challenge for Sales than Twitter!
Rob: Thanks for the comments. I agree that it was a bit gimmicky, but you still got the point. Social media tools are changing the sales relationship and this post is meant to make people on both sides think about the impact. The inspiration for this post was a recent meeting with the VP of Sales from an organization whose marketing department has a strong social media presence and they are developing an approach for the sales force. It may take some time before sales people, including management, are comfortable using social tools in a sales environment.
It might be a bit hard to implement this policy.
However, I do think their might be some interesting ideas around prioritizing those “sales calls” (via Twitter) assuming that innovative process and philosophy are a good fit with your culture.
I do agree with you though–there are huge opportunities for those sales folks that understand how to spot and engage opportunities revealed in the social media channels.
Jeff:
Were you thinking that Twitter conversation would begin in the “public” domain, but move into the “Direct Message” domain subsequently? One can see the advantages of using Twitter’s succinctness to save everyone time, but it is harder to envision the content of sales conversations taking place in Twitter’s public domain. Nonetheless, your post is thought-provoking.
Bill and Bruce:
Thanks for your comments. The point of the post was to get sales people thinking how they can leverage new tools to make their jobs more efficient and more enjoyable. What if there were a better way to contact prospects that didn’t feel like a chore. Think about an opt-in environment where people are open to sales pitches for certain products or services. Or what about an open forum for RFPs? This changes the sales process to the benefit of both the sales rep and the customer.
Jeff,
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for sales learning to engage prospects and customers with social media. And teaching them how to do it in a natural (appealing) way. It takes quite a bit of reprogramming though.
However, it has been enormously effective for my clients. I really enjoyed the post.
-Bill
Bill:
Thanks again. I agree that there are training requirements, time management issues that come with using new tools. Great to hear that your clients have successfully implemented it.