In my last post, The #2 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media, I shared three ways to sell more by using LinkedIn. Jos Willard added a fourth way and received the most votes for his answer to my question “How else can you use LinkedIn to create or harness relationships to sell more?” For his efforts Jos won $2,000 worth of Trigger Event coaching, training, or advice.

For a while now I have been sharing, with my customers, ways to generate leads by using Trigger Events in their marketing efforts – aka Trigger Event Marketing™. Doing so allows them to harness the Selective Perception that is created when people experience the Trigger Events that turn them into highly motivated buyers.

Here is an excellent example of Trigger Event Marketing™, that I recently noticed on the home page for TD Canada Trust. It is based on the knowledge that getting pregnant triggers couples to want a house, which leads to needing a mortgage. The event of getting pregnant typically triggers a number other purchases besides houses and mortgages – Cars, life insurance, and finally getting around to doing a will.

If you want to do the same thing for your own business all you have to do is conduct a Won Sales Analysis™ the next few times you win a new customer. Doing so will allow you to identify the Trigger Events that motivate buyers to want what you sell. Once you know what the best Trigger Events are for your product or service, all you need to do is apply what you learn to your marketing efforts. When you do, your marketing will jump off the page because it’s resonates with the reader and you are highly likely to generate leads that result in core, loyal, customers, who will represent 80% of your profit and only 20% of your headaches.

If you want to learn more about Trigger Event Marketing I have a Facebook page that shares the resources and examples I come across. I invite you to become a fan of the page and post any examples you come across. I also invite you to call me (+1.403.874.2998) or Skype me (Craig.Elias) if you want to spend 15-20 minutes brainstorming ideas on how to make Trigger Event Marketing work for you.

Next Tuesday I’ll post the #1 way to sell more by using social media. Take a look at numbers 2 through 7 and see if you can guess what it is.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

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The #2 way to sell more by using social media is to harness the power of people and relationships to get things done and the single most powerful relationship building and relationship harnessing social media resource is LinkedIn.

Now a lot of readers will say it should be #1 and for the longest time I would have agreed with you. I do agree it is the social media tool with the biggest number of different ways it can be used to sell more but in the last year I have found a social media tool that provides users with the most powerful information to sell more.

There are so many different ways to use LinkedIn to sell more that Amazon lists over 200 books on how to use LinkedIn.

Here are my three favourite ways to use LinkedIn to sell more:

1. Company Search: A search on a company lets you know who to target and the best way to get to them. The #2 most powerful Trigger Event is when there has been a change in decision makers at a prospect. These people who recently experienced the Trigger Event of being hired or promoted are the ones most likely to have interest in your products or services. When you do a company search you can see who recently got hired and who recently got promoted. A company search also lets you see who in your network works there now and who use to work there. Those in your network who use to work there can give you some valuable insight or context for your sales pitch and those  in your network who work there now are the ones likely to make the most valuable introductions.
2. Contact Information: Someone who was a customer in their last job is likely to become a customer in their new job. Being connected via LinkedIn give you access to their latest contact information and with this contact information you can reach out to congratulate them on their new position and see if and when they will have a need for your products or services in their new position.
3. Profile Organizer: Keep track of all your interactions with your connections – I have a personal plus account which allows me to use LinkedIn’s new profile organizer. This allows me to organize contacts and even keep notes on my activities with each person. The best part is you don’t have to be connected with someone to add them to a folder or make notes. It’s like a mini Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Sometimes it’s not worth the time and effort to add every prospect’s contact and company information into your CRM tool until there is enough activity or interested in becoming your customer. Now there is a quick way to keep track of the early interactions without having to take the time and effort required to enter all that company and contact information into a CRM tool first.

So this month’s question is how else can you use Linkedin to create or harness relationships to sell more.Win $2,000 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use LinkedIn to sell more. To win the $2,000 prize you must get the most votes for your answer. This month there is also a second prize of $1,000 worth of Trigger Event Selling services 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 – March 30^rh – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday March 29^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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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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Congratulations to the winner of $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services – Laura Waggoner. Laura won when her answer to the question related to The #5 Mistake Sales People Make received the most votes.

Stay tuned next week as I make available $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services to the person with the most votes for their answer a question that is related to The #4 Mistake Sales People make.

Till then, here is another free Trigger Event resource that I have found – the new “Save This Search” feature on LinkedIn. When you do a search and want to be informed when the results change you simply save the search and you’ll be notified via email (weekly or monthly) when the results change. For example: Let’s say you’re trying to get into Hewlett Packard and you want to target VPs, Senior VPs, and Executive VPs who recently got promoted or transferred.

Do a people search on LinkedIn for those currently employed by Hewlett Packard and have the “Vice President” in their title and you’ll get over 1,000 results. Now if you save that search next week you’ll receive an email that contains a list of the Hewlett Packard employees with “Vice President” in their title that recently updated their profile to reflect their new position. This past week there were six people who meet that criteria that changed their profile. Now you have a list of people to call who recently experience a Trigger Event and are more likely to be interested in your product or service.

Call me (+1.403.874.2998 or 866.744.7904) if you want help making LinkedIn’s new “Save This Search” feature work for you or have other free Trigger Event resources you want me to share with the over 3.500 readers of this blog.

Have an EVENTFUL New Years Eve!

Craig

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