The Pedestal Group

Putting our clients where they belong

Getting To Know You

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I love taking sales calls from people. It is just fun. The other day I got a call from a woman who was very nice. She called, launched into her 4.5 minute spiel on who she is, what she does, why she as calling, what research she had done on my company, etc. etc. Finally taking a breath, she asked about me. I told her a little about me and then asked her how she’s handling getting new clients in this tight economy. She explained and we talked about some other possibilities. I then explained why I was at the trade show where she got my name (networking for clients of course) and why her services sounded interesting but would be something I could refer to others – not really something I could use. I then asked her more questions about her business, what’s she’s doing with social media, and what her sales plan looks like. By the end of the call, I had a new prospect and she had a potential referral source but probably not as her sweet-spot customer isn’t someone I run into very often.

The morale of this story? At the end of a sales call, do you know more about them or do they know more about you? Which do you think brings in more business?

Under the Heading, Less is More…

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I love Chris Brogan He’s interesting to read, has great ideas when it comes to social media and other marketing things, and he often makes me think. Yesterday, he posted as a title “I deleted my facebook fan page” and then the post said “because it’s not about me.” That’s it. Now, he’s an established blogger who has a HUGE following so at some level he can get away with it, but still. That blog post generated a large amount of discussion and the comments were both positive and negative. From a blogging perspective, it was an interesting strategy. (Today he explained his thought process – that was fun too.)

But from a marketing strategy, it was just genius. So now, he had 98 people who publicly posted comments on that blog. How many of them discussed their responses with someone else? How many people do you need talking about you on a particular day to generate more business? So I started thinking. What kind of question could you pose that would generate that kind of discussion? If you emailed one simple question to your prospective clients and asked them to respond, what could you pose that would generate discussion? And then, when you had the feedback, you would have another reason to contact them to share what everyone thought.

What can you ask where less is more?

Personal Branding Is All About YOU!

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Recently, Small Business Trends did a survey of their readership asking what we think is important in personal branding. Many of the answers were things we have all heard but a few were worth calling out. Loaay Ahmed of Knight’s Capital suggested, “A brand vision is to know where you want to be. A brand mission is to know what needs to be done to get you there.” Do you know where you want to be? It is hard to develop a plan if you don’t know where you need to end up! Rob Ackerman said “Think of you and your image in the third person.” It is an interesting way to look at yourself and your marketing information. Who are you, really? Barkri of Clink and Inc. said, “It’s like going to the hardware store thinking that you want a drill, when in fact […] Continue reading