Congratulations to Richard Goddey. He won $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Selling^™ services by getting the most votes for his answer to April’s question about how you can use TweetDeck to sell more.

My apologies for taking not announcing April’s winner sooner. I took a 6 week hiatus from blogging to complete the manuscript for my upcoming book with Tibor Shanto – SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS.

Now the book has been completed and I have reached #1 of the top seven ways to sell more by using social media, next week I will begin counting down the top seven Sales 2.0 tools – from a Trigger Event Selling perspective.

In the fast few weeks I have fielded a number of questions about Trigger Event Marketing^™ – how to market using knowledge of Trigger Events.

Here are three resources that I recommend:

1. The Trigger Event Marketing™ page on Facebook that has some excellent examples and resources
2. Pulling the Trigger on Trigger Marketing: Best Buy and Discover Show How it’s Done – by Jeff Zabin
3. Keys to Trigger Based Email Marketing – by Michael Thompson

Speaking of marketing, I am giving way eight tickets to The Art of Marketing in Calgary on June 14th.  Complete the form found at http://www.shiftselling.com/events/art-of-marketing/ for your chance to win one of two pairs of tickets or one of the four individual tickets.

Next Tuesday I’ll start my list of the top Sales 2.0 tools and give away $1,500 to the person who gets the most votes for their answer to the question “How can you use the #7 Sales 2.0 sales tool to sell more?”

Until then   …   good luck have an eventful week!

Craig

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I had to take a hiatus from blogging in order to finish the manuscript to my upcoming book “SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS,” in time in for the publisher keep his May 15^th release date.

Now that it’s finished let’s get back to the Top Seven Ways to Sell More by Using Social Media. Remember, the person with the most popular answer to my question at the bottom of this blog post wins $3,000 in Trigger Event Selling services.

The #3 way to sell more by using social media is to harness word of mouth by using a content sharing tool like AddThis or ShareThis. The reason you want to use one of these tools is because your content is more likely to be shared when you give readers the convenience of sharing without having to leave your web site. The more convenient you make it for people to take action, right now, the more likely they are to, not get distracted by something else and, finish what they started doing.

I started out using ShareThis but readers had to click on the button in order to activate it and my experience with e-Commerce in the late 90′s told me that requiring people to take just that one extra mouse click reduced the likelihood of action – The statistic was that you lose people at the rate of 50% for every click you force them to make.

I moved to AddThis when the Trigger Event of noticing a competitor using something that did not require the initial mouse click caught my attention. I moved to AddThis right away and in my first week I had twice as many people use the AddThis functionality – via mouse over – than I had with ShareThis. About a week later I received an email from ShareThis validating my perceptions and my experience. The email said “After conducting extensive tests with select partners, the findings indicate that allowing the button to open on-hover increases sharing activity by 50% per page view compared to the current no-hover option”

Once I started using AddThis I went through the process of customizing the button so the most important sharing options (email, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Facebook) were shown on the left – in order of importance – putting the next most important ones (Favorites, WordPress, Delicious, Reddit, and PDF Online) on the right side, and customized the header. I selected the order based up on a report on how people share content and what Active Conversion (my marketing automation and sales optimization service provider) told me about which sites generated the most inbound traffic.

The interesting thing is that a few weeks after I switched to Add This, ShareThis came out with the same functionality. But at that point I had already switched and had made the investment of customizing the AddThis button and I was no longer motivated to spend time on the problem.

So this month’s question is what other sharing tools can be used, or how can they be used, to maximize social word of mouth?

Win $3,000 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use a word or mouth tool like AddThis or ShareThis to maximize the sharing of web site content. To win the $3,000 prize you must get the most votes for your answer. This month there is also a second prize of $1,500 to the person who gets the second most votes for their answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the button that appears at the end of each answer/comment.

Winners are announced the last Tuesday of the month – February 23^rd – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday February 22^nd.

Answers/comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Use the AddThis button below to Tweet , Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

Good luck & have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig

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One of the keys to selling is reaching decision makers when they are most likely to be influenced: Influenced on what is the best solution to their problem – not who is the best supplier.

Solutions are all the different ways of solving the same problem or obtaining the same outcome (think of these as your competition), suppliers are alternate providers who sell the same solution (think of them as competitors).

Using this framework banner ads, Google ad words, and search engine optimization would be considered my competition because they provide alternate solutions that deliver the same  outcome – increased sales. Other sales trainers would be considered my competitors because they are alternate providers that deliver the same solution – sales training.

If you want to learn more about the difference between these two, Rene Mouborgne and W. Chan Kim explain the difference in an article, on Blue Ocean Strategy.

Recent research by Don Bulmer and Vanessa DiMauro shows that more and more decision makers are utilizing social media peer groups to form and validate decisions. Social media peer groups are those you would find on social media sites like LinkedIn, eCademy, Facebook, or Ning.

So the #4 Way to sell more by using social media is to create or participate in groups to influence those decision makers who experienced a Trigger Event that put them into the Window of Dissatisfaction BUT have not started the process of searching for alternative solutions yet.

I have a group on Linkedin called SHiFT! that has almost 2,500 members and a Trigger Event Selling Group on Facebook that has 300 members. I started these groups to encourage people, who have similar interests and aspirations, to share ideas, resources, and success stories about using Trigger Events to turn prospects into customers. It turns out that in creating these groups I am influencing decision makers on an alternate solution to increase sales.

To extend my reach I now participate in other groups related to sales, marketing, entrepreneurship, and innovation, that my target market (CEOs and VPs of  sales of small and  mid-sized organizations) joins on LinkedIn, eCademy, Facebook, and Ning.

Participating in these groups allows me to share my expertise with decision makers and influence their thinking while they are still in the formative stages of making a decision about which solution (sales training, banner ads, Google ad words, search engine optimization) they could use to increase sales.

So this month’s question is how can you leverage groups on social media sites to sell more?

Win $3,000 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use a group on LinkedIn, Facebook, or ANY other business oriented social media group to sell more. To win the $3,000 prize you must get the most votes for your answer. This month there is also a second prize of $1,500 to the person who gets the second most votes for their answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the  button that appears at the end of each answer/comment.

Winners are announced the last Tuesday of the month – December 29^th – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday December 28^th.

Answers/comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Use the button below to Tweet , Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

Good luck & have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig

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In my last post The #7 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media I showed how you can sell more by using Facebook.

In that post I offered $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Selling services to the person who provided either the most popular example of ,or idea on, how to sell more by using Facebook.

Jos Willard is this month’s winner by sharing with us a second way sell more by using Facebook and getting the most votes for his idea.

Those are two ways to sell more by using Facebook. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for other ways to sell more by using Facebook and keep you updated on what I find.

Stay tuned as next week I announce the #6 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media.

In the mean time be sure to download the latest MIT Lead Follow-up Study, by James Oldroyd, that reveals:

• What is the best day to prospect
• What is the best time of day to prospect
  
• How quickly you should follow up on web based leads

Have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig

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The single most important factor to consider in using social media to sell more is to make sure your social media efforts are reaching your primary target market.

I say this because even the wrong activities focused on the right people are 10 times more effective than the right activities focused on the wrong people.

So who are the right people? From a Trigger Event Selling™ perspective you ALWAYS want to focus on those people who have money and authority.

Those without money and the authority to spend it typically need to experience all three forms or a Trigger Event:

1. Motivation Trigger Event: Now I want it
2. Financial Trigger Event: I can now afford it
3. Justification Trigger Event: I can now justify buying it

… which typically takes 3-12 months after the initial Motivation Trigger Event.

By focusing on those who have money and authority you only have wait for the Motivation Trigger Event – The event that makes them want to change.

So how can you be sure that your social media efforts are reaching your primary target market – those with money and authority?

Yes Facebook and here is how. You create a Facebook page for your business and then use social media to promote your Facebook page. Once you have enough ‘fans’ you can see the demographics of those your social media efforts are reaching.

In my case, my ongoing Won Sales Analysis (aka Trigger Event Analysis ) tells me the decision makers with money and authority who are most likely to buy my services are men and women who are plus, or minus, 7.5 years my own age (47).

They have the money and the authority to spend it on the services I provide and based upon similarities in age and psychographics (aspirations, values and interests) they buy from me instead of my younger or older counterparts.

When I created a Facebook page for Trigger Event Selling and used social media to promote it, it took less than 24 hours for me to get over 250 fans. I was then able to view the demographics of the ‘fans’ of my Trigger Event Selling page by looking at the insights feature of my page.

In doing so I was able to validate that I am reaching my primary target (men and women who are +/- 7.5 years my own age). The image above shows the demographics of the Trigger Event Selling page on Facebook. Granted Facebook does demographics in 10 year intervals but even with 10 year intervals I can still confirm that I am reaching primary target market.

Win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use Facebook to harness Trigger Events and turn prospects into customers. To win you must get the most votes for your answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the button that appears at the end of each answer/comment and voting ends on Monday September 28^th.

Answers/Comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Tweet, Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

Do you have a sales team that could benefit from Trigger Event Selling but you don’t have the budget at this time? Get members of your sales team to submit ideas and then get votes for their submissions.

Have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig

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