First Contact

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:35:27 +0000

How often have you found yourself wasting valuable time educating a person about your firm’s product, only to find out it’s just the wrong fit? Happens all the time. How many times have you found yourself in an endless game of telephone or email tag. You simply need a better way to deal with first contact situations.

CallPress’s innovative use of social media techniques eliminates telephone tag and quickly gets two business professionals who don’t know eachother to focus on the deal/sale. Here is how:

Sales Executive

Prospect

On his CallPress Blog defines:
- when each week to accept inbound calls (eg; M-F 4PM-6PM)
- days in advance a prospect can auto schedule a call (eg; 1 day)
- length of typical first contact call (eg; 15 minutes)
- Social markers he/she is comfortable expressing (eg; work history…)
Each evening the exec checks the call schedule for tomorrow afternoon and cancels or reschedules calls, through using CallPress, as appropriate.
Exec receives automatic reminders for the call as defined.
Exec calls the prospect

Goes to the Sales Executive’s blog
Reviews Exec’s social markers, company offerings
Decides to auto schedule a first contact call.
Prospect must register with CallPress to do this and provides:
- His social markers: (name, email address…)
Prospect can leave a video, audio, or text message describing the nature of his inquiry. Or can upload a file (eg; RFP) for the Sales Exec’s review.
Prospect receives automatic email notification reminding him of the call the day before and 15 minutes prior to the call.
Prospect makes sure he is available at the time of the call

When the call happens both sides know a bit about eachothers background and employer and the reason for the call. Prior to the call the sales exec can email any additional information to be reviewed to the prospect. The sales exec has the option of only releasing his private information (eg; email address, cell phone) when he is comfortable with the prospect.

Tired of Telephone Tag

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:55:53 +0000

Working Executive Blogs

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:16:44 +0000

Most CEOs I know are too busy managing their business to devote the consistent weekly time required to maintain a quality Blog. And, their internal staff, most likely does not have the expertise to help.

My advice is simple. Outsource. Find a writer (reporter/analyst) that has covered your industry to write the content. Hire a web person knowledgeable in creating and promoting blogs. And realize that as a CEO you’ll need to spend a couple hours a week on your blog, but it will be the most visible and most productive 2 hours you spend each week. In this era of instant information executives need to focus on using social media to manage their public persona and leverage the status they have achieved into promoting their personal and company reputation.