Networking and Direct Marketing may be thought of as completely different areas of business but when you marry them together, magic happens.

There’s a craving for authentic human interactions in business dealings. I know this because I see relationships develop and grow whenever I’m at an in-person networking event or business meeting. People are glad to connect closely and nurture their relationships in a deep and enduring way. Of course, there are those who prefer the semi-anonymity of occupying a controlled camera view on a screen, the safety of mute, and the convenience of staying put.

Take Your Pulse!

Intentional business networking is a skill that no software or AI can replace or enhance in any meaningful way. It takes you and you alone to make networking an effective part of your marketing mix. Should you ever lose sight of this fact, it will likely stem from a lack of curiosity, a desire to “have it now,” and most regrettably, a fading interest in serving others face to face.

Principles, Not Reverse Psychology

Networking is all about listening to others and serving them while expecting nothing in return. And get this. You might go to a few networking events, say and do all the right things, and not get a single direct sale out of the effort. And if you conclude that it was a waste of your time, then you weren’t really listening to anybody there, especially the influencers.

Do I sound like a Pollyanna or a dreamer, or does this principle make sense?

We were created to serve one another, not exploit our gifts. The instinctual goodwill of others proves this over and over again. Think about all the helping hands throughout your life, and all the times you’ve come to the aid of others, especially when they really needed a hand.

The networking groups in which I participate welcome people in all sorts of roles. We actively look for opportunities to do business or refer business to people we get to know in our groups.

Your Networking Strategy

Clearly, it’s important to join the organizations where you’ll find clients, suppliers, and influencers in your industry. The more you participate in the events, the more influence you’ll have, and the better people will know you. Perhaps you will even join the leadership to help steer those organizations.

BNI, Chambers, Trade Associations, Professional Associations including local chapters, service organizations, private groups… the list of networking opportunities is long for just about every profession.

Go to events prepared to learn and put a stopper in your mouth except for asking good questions. Then listen with both ears and take an interest in others’ experiences. Relax and you’ll be asked about your business too. Make it all about your customers, not your company.

When you have a valuable message that’s relevant to clients of your industry, those people will want to hear it and likely will spread the word. If you sell professional services, networking provides your first and best opportunity to succeed. This is because when you start out in sales or start up a new business, you cannot get far without having relationships in the market. Robust networking is the fast track to building relationships.

Grow and Protect Your Organic Audience

Let your direct marketing have the power of an actual human relationship behind it. When people know that it’s really you who are writing and sending them content, then you have just distinguished yourself among all the spammy players out there.

The best potential marketing leads in your sales database are the people you’ve met personally through networking and direct selling efforts. You’ve opened a conversation with them, and you were given their contact info. Treat it like gold. When you reach out to them, put some relevance and meaning into the message and you could experience immediate results. And don’t we all want results?

The post Networking is Direct Marketing appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Don’t follow the leaders down!

This is how I’m seeing things play out in business news as the year 2018 ends. I hope I’m wrong, but this stuff is predictable and I’ve closely studied economic cycles for more than 30 years. Negative chatter is contagious and creates “headwinds” against continued good economic times. But you can set your sails to tack against headwind and make a lot of forward progress.

I’m sorry to say this, but there are no executives of large American corporations who strike me as inspiring moral and ethical leaders. I cannot think of a single one. But there are numerous small business, independent enterprise and nonprofit leaders to whom I aspire and whose example I would like to follow, some I know personally. They are people bent on serving instead of controlling. These are people who stick with principles no matter what, and I’m talking about moral, ethical and economic principles. They enjoy enduring success.

The small business community needs to coalesce around the idea that the prevailing thoughts and decisions made by the leaders of large corporations and government (silent partners) often go against a stronger economy and the good of our country and society.

Do they still teach real economics?

If you subsidize something, you will enlarge it or encourage more of it. If you tax something, you will diminish it. This is a macroeconomics principle – an immutable law of economics.

If you serve your customer with value, you improve his position and therefore build more demand for your products. If you create more work or complexity for your customer and charge him for it in the process, you will damage him and lose his business. He will tell others about the bad experience as well. This is simple microeconomics which follows the macroeconomics principle.

Be solution oriented!

Why not put these immutable economic laws to work for our own businesses and multiply our numbers by example?

Any strong network of small business and enterprise leaders can work together in the markets and within their own companies to more effectively beat back negative economic forces, including politics and negative chatter aligned against them.

Put your best networking, service, sales and marketing game on, starting now!

Growth in 2019, 2020 and beyond is not only possible but probable if business leaders will get in the trenches with their people and demonstrate how much they care about the future. Leaders in great small businesses always do some heavy lifting with their teams to shore up conditions in the company and better serve customers. The also stay committed to their brand identities and work to build their reputations.

Business Growth Tactics for the New Year

In 2019, a strong leader will:

• Work closely with their salespeople and give them real leads instead of simply demanding more calls.
• Spend considerable time on production floors and job sites performing needed tasks and adding production value as well as developing employee relationships.
• Spend a lot of time with customers, learning what they really need, carefully considering how they or someone in their network can meet those needs.
• Be a committed brand manager, constantly nurturing the brand in the market by continually directing and helping to manage strong marketing campaigns.

If a bad recession in the overall economy does happen, your market share and brand awareness will determine how well you ride it out or even grow right through it.

Top-of-mind brand awareness is priceless. Those who have it usually earn it, and they remain in the market like flashing beacons as their competitors fade from the promotional stage.

I’m going to increase my marketing budget now and step on the gas even more during 2019. I also pledge to follow the sales, production and customer service advice listed above.

Are you with me?

The post Business Growth in 2019: Who’s with me? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

My recent experience with a few service related businesses is that making a massive shift away from traditional kinds of sales work over to inbound marketing and marketing automation does not always pay off. Too sudden of a change and too much change is not only time consuming, but also detrimental to sales. There is just too much anecdotal, yet reliable evidence of this issue for me to ignore it.

Double the Irony

Very ironically, I just got off the phone with a persistent, cold calling sales rep for a… marketing automation company!

After her 5th or 6th call, I made an appointment with her to learn a few things about how their product could be useful to my clients and my business. I never received one email solicitation and never saw nor clicked a single ad for this company. Yet, their sales rep found my website and cold called me on the phone – several times.

Now here’s a marketing automation company using cold calling as its number one prospecting tactic! The other half of the double irony is that she called me as I was composing the first paragraph of this article! It was Mariah’s spoken words, not a strategic bombardment of digital messages, that was my call to action.

In the beginning I was slightly annoyed by Mariah’s call interruptions but she never gave up asking for another chance to try at a better time. With that I kept the door open. By the end of today’s unexpected phone call, Mariah and I connected as human beings and we chatted briefly about a couple of unrelated things. Her company is now top of mind in an important service sector for my business. Nothing but the telephone made it happen. Of course I will thoroughly examine their website – which better be damn good!

Thanks Mariah, for your persistence and the extra article fodder! 🙂

By the way, just before posting this on my blog, I got a cold call from an email marketing company directly competing with Constant Contact. I didn’t have time for the call and asked him to put my email on their mailing list. “We don’t have one…” was the reply. I am telling you the truth!

Trying and Failing

One of my clients, after about 3 years of building an inbound marketing program with fully integrated website, landing pages, social media channels, email, auto-response feedback, etc., is shifting back to traditional selling. They are having fine results working with a sales trainer on targeted sales calls. Unfortunately, the significant investment in their robust inbound marketing program proved to show little or no return.

If you examine your current customer list, perhaps you’ll find as I did that the majority of your business originated from word-of-mouth, a previous sales call or business networking – all live human interactions. In my case I discovered that about 70% of sales came from those traditional selling approaches and 30% came from this newsletter combined with social media marketing.

Of course every business will get different results from inbound marketing programs and some are better able to harness it than others.

In general, if your business is service intensive, you need to talk with prospects – a lot. You need to have a 2-way conversation from the very beginning and that often means actually calling them up. Too much focus on the program can take valuable time away from the people whom you need to be talking with today.

The post People sell better than programs appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

You may not realize it but you are a brand manager. If you’ve experienced any kind of success in business and professional life it’s because you’ve managed your brands by  communicating with people in a way that supports what your business stands for and why it’s valuable to your customers. Your company brand, product brand and personal brand all work congruently in the market. People know you and your company the way you want them to know you. Your Brand is first in the Fortuitous Foursome.

Your LinkedIn profile is up to date and your online connections are growing. You regularly post comments, share links and participate in LinkedIn Group discussions. People in your network regularly see those posts and gain more awareness of your brand. As you develop more business relationships, you include more of those folks as Facebook Friends. You directly message someone in Facebook after you’ve had trouble reaching them by phone or email. The response is friendly and instantaneous. You start to notice that people are favoriting and retweeting your Twitter posts and you start getting business inquiries from around the country and the world. Your blog posts are increasing search visibility for your website and more quality traffic generates conversions and new business. Free Online Marketing is the third player in the Fortuitous Foursome.

The post The Fortuitous Foursome of Professional Success appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

On March 20, you can learn to save a ton of money for your business! Learn what free marketing is all about.

• Learn how to build a brand…
• Market a company…
• Increase sales…
• All using free tools and methods!

Come to the hands-on single day course: Social Media & Free Online Marketing at Manchester Community College on March 20th!

Register here with CRN # 20774 and Course # NCTD055.

If you have questions about how to register, reply to this email or call me at 603-345-7223.

The post Spend a day, then don’t spend another dime. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Business development is a hybrid profession that has evolved over the last couple of decades. The very term “business development” seems to me a response to a marketplace that became weary of so many salespeople parading through front doors, entering back doors and prying open every chink in the walls of companies with money to spend. “People love to buy but hate to be sold.” So measures have been put in place to make it hard for salespeople to simply call business people and sell their stuff.

Marketing and sales have become more interdependent and the trend is that these two functions are becoming intertwined. Sales is still where most of the glory is when it comes to impressing the boss. Sales rules business and always will because businesses live on cash flow and new business is lifeblood to organizations. But sales work has changed to business development (think relationships) and effective business development must utilize marketing principles and tactics to open doors to new business opportunities. Again, “people hate to be sold but they love to buy.” A salesperson must get his message out to prospects who are truly in the market to buy.

Every salesperson’s computer can now be a broadcasting and receiving station, i.e., a media outlet. And guess what? Airtime is free. Paying for a boost with advertising is always an option but one can reach thousands in a target audience by spending only time, learning and using the free tools: Social Media, email and networking. Many thriving businesses have been launched with no marketing budget. 

If you already have a computer, Internet connection, cell phone and car (and who doesn’t these days?) Then you have the infrastructure to effectively grow a business. The only thing else you need is time and willingness to work hard (Oh darn, we had to go there!). It’s really wonderful to implement an effective marketing campaign which makes business development efforts much easier (think warm inbound leads), all with no need to spend media dollars. Those dollars can be invested instead toward product and service improvements which will make your customers the best sales force you could want.

Do you or people you know want to learn how to build a brand, market a company and increase sales using totally free tools and methods? Come to the hands-on single day course: Social Media & Free Online Marketing at Manchester Community College on March 20th! Register with CRN # 20774 and Course # NCTD055.

If you have questions about how to register, simply reply to this email or call me at 603-345-7223

The post Free Marketing Tools – Big ROI appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

There are too many technology walls and filters against traditional sales calls for them to be effective today. Not only that, the buyer mindset has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Cold calls were once respected, even appreciated by many buyers at a time when salespeople offered new product information and comparison shopping opportunities.

There was once, on a certain level, a sense of obligation to respond to the persistent salesperson’s calls. Do you see that sense of obligation working for your selling efforts now? As a salesperson, do you feel it out there anymore?

Voicemail and automated call answering were first, the speed and reliability of the Internet were second, and the cultural shift toward “build a relationship and earn my trust before I will even talk with you” (resulting from the peer-to-peer socialization of business and commerce) is the final nail in the coffin of cold call selling.

Sidewalk canvassing doesn’t even work anymore because many business entrances are locked for security. I remember how awkward it felt ringing a buzzer without an appointment and struggling to offer a valid reason to be let in the door. Welcoming front desks and receptionists have been vanishing as fast as payphones.

Bottom line: Effective prospecting is totally different now and traditional, old-school prospecting methods will mostly fail. We’ve hit that tipping point much to the chagrin of many experienced sales pros who are reluctant to embrace technological and cultural business changes.

So what’s a salesperson to do these days? Here’s what: Transition your energy from making enough calls to make the numbers work, to building enough relationships so your calls are welcomed by enough prospects and they will call you when they need your product or service.

The good news is this works really well. The bad news is the work is just as hard, maybe harder. As B2B is the new retail, networking is the new cold calling. As networking is the new cold calling, content marketing and consultative selling are the new follow up and close methods.

Your B2B prospect has choices at his fingertips and doesn’t necessarily want to be educated on what’s good for him and his business. The business owner and decision maker of today still buys from whom she trusts and especially whom she both trusts and likes. At least that hasn’t changed!

Effective salespeople of today are constantly doing these things:

• attending events where prospects are numerous
• offering valuable information and advice to prospects
• providing leads and referrals to prospects
• building relationships on several social media channels
• writing, producing and sharing blog articles, newsletters & videos
• having coffees and lunches with customers and referral partners
• taking calls from interested prospects
• responding to requests for meetings by prospective clients
• closing new business on first meetings

Sound good? Notice how the bullet list starts with a few tough hurdles and ends with enjoyable, winning activities.

When a salesperson practices most or all of the above on a daily daily basis, he or she becomes like a bright, attractive storefront to the target audience. Buyers of big ticket purchases will be excited to “walk in” to this shiny, merchandise-rich store and get just what they’re looking for. Herein we see the metaphor of the title.

So don’t “go out and sell something!” Instead, go out, makes some friends and be a trusted adviser. Then stay in front of those new friends where they hang out physically and online.

The post B2B Sales is the New Retail appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

This post is updated from one year ago and it is more relevant today than ever.

I will need several business services and products to continue growing my business and many of them I don’t need now, or can’t afford yet. That’s why I want you to keep in touch so I won’t forget you.

One of the most common mantras you will hear in business is “Timing is everything.”  I agree. Trying to persuade a prospective customer that he needs your product before he needs your product will annoy him. Just as bothersome is attempting to “educate” your prospect about his “pain” when he doesn’t feel any. If, however, there is a pain point in his business and your product or service will solve it, then by all means take some time to discuss your solution. If you get a “think it over” response, you probably won’t make a sale… until maybe year or two from now. I’m sure you plan on still being around then.

A careful sense of timing – to each individual customer – is critical when planning a direct marketing message or making a sales call.

You may say, “yeah, but how can you possibly live inside every potential customer’s world and know when the time is right?” In traditional business development, a good CRM (customer relationship management) program like Salesforce or ACT works well. So, that’s one way to use good timing but there’s a better way:  It’s all the time!

Junk goes in the trash but the good stuff is opened.

First, identify your target audience by vertical industry lists or by networking and prospecting so you know they have a need for your service or product. Develop your database of names, addresses, phone numbers and EMAIL ADDRESSES. Furthermore, connect with as many as possible on LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow them on Twitter. Then get to work being a sought-after specialist to each one of your prospects.

Why are Google and Apple the most successful companies in the world right now? Because they are genius at what they do and how they communicate it. They remainrelevant and communicate value all the time. There are much smaller examples including local restaurants, law firms, IT companies, you name it.

You need to get busy demonstrating your genius to all of the prospects in your database.  Be a collector and generator of valuable content – expertise and ideas that make people say “Hmm… or WOW!  Yes, it’s hard but you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it too, maybe better!

This isn’t about about you but rather the people in your target audience. My closest concrete example of how this works is what you’re reading right now. Every week different people tell me the same thing: “I get so much junk email and delete it but I always save and read your newsletter.” The Chuck Sink Link generates more quality leads – soon to be clients – than any other sales or marketing activity I’ve ever practiced in 25 years. To all of you: Many thanks!

The examples of how this works are sprinkled throughout your life.

Think about the emails you opt-in to and the supplier companies you follow. What about the exceptional sales reps that stand out from the crowd and whom you like hearing from?

There are plenty of great marketers who know how to put value in front of their audience on a regular, appropriately frequent basis so they are top-of-mind at all times for their products & services. So, when the time is right for their prospect to buy, guess who gets the call?

The post I’m interested, but not right now. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

In keeping with the theme of real time and the tremendous value of the current moment, I offer you this idea. The reason I keep this newsletter going week after week, even when I scarcely have time to publish it is because it keeps my brand relevant. We all have built in forgetters.

By striving to share useful information with my audience, the vast majority of you opt to stay on the mailing list. You allow me to drop in once a week or so because there is some value for you in most of the articles. You all remember that my business is here in case you ever need it.

So here’s the value for today: Social media is not the be all, end all and I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to worry about it. Email marketing is still the best deal going.  You should indeed establish an active digital social presence but there is no need to obsess over whether you’re doing it as well as your competition. The value of social media is overrated unless you value what other people in your market have to say. It’s a much better tool for learning than for promoting, so relax if you’re anxious about your social media strategy. Build your email list instead.

Shift your focus to what works: personal relationship selling and networking. Email is a fine tool for keeping your relationships alive and staying relevant in your target market with regularity and consistency. It’s also the best way to market events and put butts in seats if that’s your goal. Social media can be an effective augmenter to extend the reach of email based campaigns.

Here’s a more extensive article about why Email is Crushing Twitter and Facebook for Revenue Generation, ironically from Social Mediopolis – The Capitol of Social Media!

Now that social media marketing has been around for a while, “the jury is still out” but is starting to come around to reality and the honeymoon is definitely over. Here’s a fascinating article summing up a survey of top North American marketers: The Declining Value of Social Marketing

Please subscribe to my free newsletter.

The post Social Media is overrated. Build your email list! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Think about your last five or ten new customers. Where did they come from and why did they come to you? I’m willing to bet they ordered from you or hired you because you established a relationship. If they came to you by referral, it was because you built a relationship with someone else first.

Selling is a tough profession these days. The world of sales has changed profoundly in the last 10 years. I’ve been through it and seen it from numerous angles and have some understanding of what works and what doesn’t in 2014.

I don’t make sales calls anymore and unlike pre-2010, I don’t get anxious during new business meetings. Rather, I stay in touch with prospects without any pretense of selling them something. They know it and I know it. Now I make sales all the time. My “closing ratio” is the best it’s been in my selling career. There is a natural process to it free of pressure on either side of the transaction.

I was having a discussion with a client about pre-internet and pre-voicemail proliferation. Prior to the mid-late 1990s, most companies had open door policies for salespeople because they were the carriers of new product information and industrial innovations. The advance of Internet search changed all that.

In the present day and age, without having a strong network and a good reputation, most salespeople haven’t much hope for success. People don’t give salespeople their time like they used to.

Up until about 2006-2008, before online social-business transparency started to influence people’s decisions, traditional cold calling and appointment setting still worked fairly well. Since then, the game has changed profoundly. The good news for traditionalists is that relationships still rule the business world. People will always prefer to do business with people they like.

I do a lot of self marketing with email, social media and earned media coverage. All of that builds my company and personal brand. My company is known for the reasons I want it to be known.

As a marketing consultant, there is nothing more gratifying than when I gain a new client through these marketing efforts. However, when I look honestly at the numbers, approximately 70% of my business comes from networking and the relationships I’ve nurtured over the last 4 years.

Without brand recognition and continuous marketing to strategically build that brand, networking alone probably wouldn’t be enough for my business or any business to succeed. I once heard a quip that has always stuck with me. When asked about what single thing really works in marketing, the successful entrepreneur answered: “No single thing works, that’s why we do everything!”

For a salesperson to succeed today, he or she needs 1) a good product/service, 2) consistent strategic branding and marketing efforts behind the product/service/brand, and 3) a consistently robust networking routine. The relationships built from the networking combined with the referrals generated from those relationships are where the majority of sales will come. One of my favorite sales gurus likes to say, “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.”

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The post Who will take your call in 2014? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.