A  week ago, I posted, “I’ve Succumbed–I’m Talking About Sales 2.0.”  Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a webinar hosted by Tom Scontras of Glance Networks on this topic.

We had a great conversation!  In case you missed it, you can still listen to it at Glance. If you missed it, take some time to listen sometime this weekend.  It’s only about 45 minutes long.  I’d love to get your comments and feedback.

Your Help!

If you are a regular reader, you know I have no shortage of opinions about sales, business, and leadership.  However, I want to pause and ask for your input and ideas.  I’d really appreciate it if you would take a moment to comment suggesting topics that I should write about.

In the past year, I’ve written extensively about sales process, value propositions, sales management/leadership, metrics, and customer focus.  I have more that I want to add to those topics.  I also plan to write quite a bit more on coaching and developing sales professionals, channels, collaboration and partnering in sales, funnel and pipeline management, sales on-boarding, and sales strategy development.

What would you like me to be writing about?  Thanks for taking the time to give me your ideas.  I so appreciate your comments and support, either on the blog, through your emails, or at the other sites these articles appear.  Thanks for your continues support, encouragement, and ideas!

The other day I was having dinner with a close friend.  He’s the President of a division of a company.  Eventually, the conversation got around to social media (is it something about me?).  He said, “Dave, I just don’t get it, you keep talking about social media and how important it is, but I just don’t get it, I don’t have time for it, my customers aren’t using it.

As we continued our conversation, he started saying, “I don’t have time to blog, I don’t have time to read blogs—even yours—and I really like your stuff (my ego was bruised a little), I don’t get twitter, Facebook is for kids….,”  he went on, “I’m overwhelmed by information, I don’t need more….,” the litany went on.  I just let him vent.

He is not unusual, I hear this from many senior executives.  I think it’s a result of not understanding what social media is and how they participate.  I think some of what causes this confusion is a caused by some of us who are relatively active in social media.

One of the problems with social media is there is too much of it… and there is too much junk.  I can see how executives and others get frustrated when they dip their toes into the social media pool.  There is a bit of a learning curve to figure out what you should be doing. 

However social media cannot be ignored—primarily because customers aren’t ignoring social media—not just consumers, but B2B customers.

Let me go on with my conversation.  We spoke a little about information overload.  I asked him, “How do you learn what’s on your customers’ minds?”  He jumped all over that, “It’s important to me, I talk to our sales guys, our applications engineers; I try to talk to customers as frequently as possible.”

“That’s great, “ I replied, “How many customers do you talk to a week?”

“Maybe 2-3, if I’m lucky,”  he responded.

“What trade events do you attend and publications do you read?”  I asked.

“Well, I try to make 1-2 of the key shows, every once in a while I skim one of the trade rags, but I really don’t have much time for them,” he responded.

I started to see a problem—and a potential for demonstrating the value of social media.

This executive is like many others I meet.  Somehow, everyday problems and events overtake us.  As much as we want to, we don’t get to spend as much time with customers, learning about customers, immersing ourselves in the industry and our markets, as we should.  We are overwhelmed with information, much of which does not increase our knowledge and understanding.

Nothing can take the place of getting information directly from customers, either in meetings or in calls.  The sales organization and others involved with customers on a daily basis are important sources of information.  The reality, however, is this ultimately provides a very limited perspective.  Top executives need to cast a wider net.

In the “old days—remember way back to the turn of the century—2000,” I would consume as many trade magazines I could.  Since I was on planes a lot, I always carried a bag filled with them.  I’d skim them on the plane and leave them in the pocket of the seat in front of me for the reading pleasure of the next passenger.  In those “old days,”  I’d subscribe to these specialized clipping services—they’d aggregate news and stories, based on my criteria.  I’d attend conferences and trade shows, I’d do everything I could to be listening to the markets, industry, customers.

Every executive needs to “listen” as much as possible—understanding what’s happening with customers, their problems, where they are going, what’s happening.  Every executives needs to make time to listen.

However, this is where social media comes in, there are so many powerful tools that help you listen.  There are tools to that help fit your information consumption needs to your own personal style and time commitments.  There are great news consolidators like InsideView and Hoovers.  There are numerous blogs—covering every topic imaginable, some consolidating industry and market information, others by industry thought leaders.  There are all sorts of readers that enable you to consolidate much of this information, presenting  a custom, real time clipping service.  Even tools like Twitter, searching on certain topics, key words, give an interesting snapshot of the conversations happening among your customers and competitors.

What about the issue, “my customers” are not there—using social media?  I think this is really wrong!  In this specific case, I had an unfair advantage with this client.  I had spoken to his marketing, product management, sales, and support people.  They said all their customers were all over the web.  They cited all sorts of discussion groups, news sites, activity at their own web site, and other things.  Their customers are technical people who leverage the web for gathering information on issues, solutions, suppliers….  While my experience base may be limited, I have not found an industry in which similar things are happening.  It may not be the CXO blogging, writing, or being interviewed, but in every sector I look, people are leveraging the web as a primary source of information and to screen potential suppliers.

Listening to customers is critical for every business professional—first we have to make the time to listen and immerse ourselves in our customers.  Social media provides a tremendous tool to leverage your listening—but it’s just a starting point. 

My advice to this executive and all others in the same situation is social media is critical in leveraging your listening productivity.  There is a bit of ramp up time in discovering the credible sources and sorting through the junk, but once you’ve done that, it gives tremendous insight.  Start with listening, over time you will also see more that social media can do.

This morning, I was out for my morning run around the lake.  Up ahead, I saw a guy approaching, wearing headphones, smiling, head bouncing with the music.  Looked like he was having a great run.  Everyone he passed, he shouted, “Hi!”

As he approached me, he shouted, “Hi!”  I responded, “Great day isn’t it?”  He didn’t respond, and continued on.  I was struck by his lack of response and thought about it during the rest of my run.  I realized, that he wasn’t interested in engaging me in a conversation, after all, he was wearing headphones, preferring to listen to music.  All he wanted to do was shout out and greet people.

The interaction reminded me a lot of what seems to be happening in social media.  Everyone talks about the value of social media in establishing communities and having conversations.  The reality seems to be more like this guy, there is a lot of shouting, but little intent to listen.

I’m as much at fault as everyone, but it seems that we get consumed with VOLUME—both in quantity of content we put out and how much it is heard.  But we aren’t as good at engaging in the conversation. 

My friend, Paul Castain, posted a brilliant post on this topic the other day:  Content Is King—Are You Freaking Kidding Me?  Ironically, it generated a great conversation.

We seem so consumed with generating content and getting seen, we forget to comment and engage people.  If the point of social media is to establish community and to stimulate discussion, then we need to balance quantity and volume with engagement.  Our content needs to inspire interaction.

As creators of social media content, we have to take time to participate in the conversation, to comment and respond.

Twitter makes it even worse, there are these tools that automatically Tweet certain blogs.  The person doing the Tweeting doesn’t even read my stuff any more, their tools just automatically Tweet everything that I publish.  It’s always interesting, within about 30 minutes of publishing an article, the same 10-15 people tweet it, in exactly the same format.

I’m flattered they think enough of my stuff that they blindly tweet it, but they have lost all credibility for me in Twitter.  I follow people that offer great insight, I know when I read whatever they are talking about, I will get value from it.  When I tweet, pointing someone to an article, it’s because I think my audience will get value from the article.  Now, when people are by-passing this, automatically tweeting everything that comes from me and others, I tend to think of it as the Twitter equivalent of SPAM  (TWAM??).

Will the rush for content, will the rush to creating a lot of visibility, will the tools that allow us to mindlessly publish but not engage just erode the power of social media?  How will great stuff stand out in from the mass of junk?  How will our voices be heard as the VOLUME keeps getting turned up?  Will social media become a giant sinkhole of people shouting “Hello,”  but having no intent of listening? What happens when we lose the conversation?

Social media is changing the way our customers buy and the way in which we engage our customers.  Before customers even see us for the first time, they have a great deal of information—not necessarily knowledge—about our company, our products, and our competition.  I am often asked, “How should sales professionals be engaging in social media?”

The short answer is, I’m not sure—but every sales person must be gaining familiarity and leveraging social media.  Social media and social selling is changing everything we do, the pace varies by industry, but every sales person must get familiar with how the world of engaging customers is changing.

The most powerful way sales people can be using social media is to listen—listen to the market, listen to customers, listen to competition, even listen to their own company.  Tools like Twitter, Blogs, even company sites on Facebook and LinkedIn can give the sales people tremendous insight about what’s going on in their customers’ industries, in their customers’ companies, and in the industry.  They provide great insight into what people are saying about our own companies and competition.  Leveraging social media is critical for all sales people in being informed and competitive.

Sales people should leverage social media for their own personal development.  There are great resources  where sales people can learn more about business, professional selling, and things going on in their industries.  Sales people should find and subscribe to a few of their favorite blogs.  They should join some groups and participate in discussions on LinkedIn.    They should start commenting both in LinkedIn, on Twitter, and in some of their favorite blogs.

I’m always asked the question, should sales people be writing blogs?  My answer is, “It depends—but probably not.”  I know this sounds wrong, and I’ll probably change my position over time.  I believe companies need to have strong blog presence, positioning themselves and their solutions, engaging customers in new conversations.  The issue is, should sales people be doing that?  With a few exceptions, I don’t think it’s a great use of sales people’s time.  I also don’t believe most sales people are trained to be able to do this as effectively as others in the organization.  Finally, I think sales time is best spent in engaging customers in specific situations relevant to their business.

Finally, sales people need to be cautious.  Social media will absorb as much of your time as you let it.  You can become consumed with it, not spending time focusing on specific opportunities with customers.  Sales professionals don’t let the time the spend with social media become an excuse for failing to produce results.

What do you think?  How does social media impact sales professionals?  How should sales people be leveraging social media?

Mother’s Day seems appropriate for a very off topic post.  Blogging gives me great joy.  It’s therapeutic, I get to pontificate about all sorts of things.  When I’m on, I get to learn from my readers, whose comments often provide much more insight than my posts.

However recently, unbeknownst to me, I learned that my parents were great fans of my blog, reading it regularly.  I know they knew I blogged, but I had never told them the URL, or anything about how to find it.  Somehow, they navigated Google, found the blog, navigated the complexities of RSS feeds, discovered readers and now subscribe and regularly read the blog.

I first learned this when I got an email from my mom.  She commented on some post, wanting to express her opinion about the topic.  Somehow, she was a little embarrassed about commenting on the blog post itself, she said, “I didn’t think you would want my comment to be seen by everyone.  I also didn’t think it was appropriate for me to end my comment with ‘I’m so proud of my little boy!’”

Mom still won’t comment directly on the blog, but she sends me regular emails with her view on many of the topics I write about.  While I value everyone’s comments, hers I treasure.  Frankly, I kind of like her emailing comments, it’s my private conversation.  It is so rewarding to me to know they read and like the blog.

I’m amazed with my parents.  They struggle with computers and technology, but they are constantly learning.  They are part of the Facebook generation, friends with all the grandkids, and many other people.  They read every imaginable news feed, many blogs and keep current with things.  My mom even texts on her mobile phone.

However, sometimes we have amusing moments—there are some generational gaps.  A few posts ago, I lamented about the problems with my router.  A few days ago, I got home and found a package from my Dad.  It was his neatly boxed, Craftsman Router—the woodworking kind, with his collection of sharpened bits.  He put a note in the box—“Saw you were struggling with your router.  Borrow mine for as long as you need it!”  We had a great laugh—“Dad, it’s not that kind of router.”

We deal with generations everyday—Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y.  Too often, we focus on the differences.  Some generations proudly saying they are the best, others saying the others just don’t get it.  We have so much to learn from each other.  We need to be open, listen, learn, experiment.

My parents experiment, they are learning and adopting the tools of the younger generations.  They are active in social media, leveraging the web.  I am so proud of them and what they teach me.

The one thing they are struggling with is, they think Twittering is for the birds.  Frankly, I don’t know if that is an informed opinion or whether we have another one of those generational light moments.

This post is to let you know about a couple of interesting things coming up.

My friend, Jim Keenan, has started an interesting event, Sales Smack.  It is an open discussion of issues important to sales professionals.  Jim has honored me by asking me to participate in the discussions.

The goal is to have a discussion every 2 weeks, at 7:00 PM Eastern.  Each session, we will have a variety of participants and will be tackling a different topic.  Tomorrow, January 12, the inaugural session will discuss, “Is Sales Responsible For A Company’s Growth.”  As you might expect, I preparing my usual provocative and contrarian position.

There is a great group of people joining us to start the conversation, including:  Skip Anderson, Tibor Shanto, Jerry Kennedy, Paul Dunay, and Jim Keenan.  With a group like this, you can be sure the conversation will be interesting—but we hope that you join and add to the discussion.

The link for the call is:  http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/72927.

I was also honored by my colleague and friend, Anthony Iannarino to be included in his list of Top 10 Sales Blogs.  Again, it seems strange to be included with such distinguished company.  Anthony’s blog should also be on the list (I guess modesty kept him from listing his blog.)  Read his other suggestions: http://www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-sales-blogs/

Twitter is an important element of our social media and overall marketing strategy.  I try to find outstanding content to point my followers to and am proud of the reputation I’ve established as a person that provides “tweets” of value.

Recently, I’ve noticed people copying my tweets and sending them out as their own.  At first, I thought they had eliminated the RT @davidabrock because then they would be over 140 characters.  When I am RT’ing, I sometimes find that a challenge and have to eliminate some people–but never the original provider.  I always feel bad about it, but I try to leave “credit” to the originator of the tweet.

But the issue I am speaking of is different.  I’ve noticed several individuals (who describe themselves as people tweeting about leadership, etc.) taking my tweets—word for word—and tweeting them as their own.  I’ve tested these to see if they could have done a RT, and in every case they could have.  So they are choosing to copy my tweets (which I view as my content) and send it as their own.  Unfortunately, their sloppiness in doing this does them in.  All my original content tweets are done through Hootsuite, so when you click on the link, you see my name in the bar that Hootsuite inserts over the content.  This is how I know it was my tweet, not a like minded thinker.

I’m struggling with some feelings.  While it is only 140 characters, and certainly not earthshaking, somehow I feel violated.  Somehow I feel the same way I’ve felt when someone has copied my content (an articles, pages or paragraphs from my website, etc.) and republished that as their own.  In these cases, it is clearly a case of copyright infringement, I don;t think this is so with tweets, but I still feel violated.

Should I feel that way, or am I being silly and letting my ego get tied up with this whole thing?  What is ethical behavior on things like Twitter?  Is it any different than blogs, websites, or other content?  Should we be as careful in respecting people’s tweets as we are in respecting their content at the website?

I know this is not unique (if only  because the people violating my tweets are doing so with others–search and the ID bars on most content give you wonderful clues and traceability).  What do you think?

If this is fair behavior, what does it mean to companies that hope to use Twitter as a powerful marketing, customer service, and customer awareness tool?  Can they establish trusted connections?

Well, I got that off my chest, it would be great to hear different views.  Maybe I have to change my way of thinking about things.  Maybe I am being too naive in my use of these tools.

Welcome to our new home! Starting with this post, all future posts will be here. Please update your readers, feeds, or bookmarks to keep this site in your favorites!

We moved to our own platform, so that we could improve your reader experience and to expand the types of things we offer you on this blog site. (Thanks to Jill Konrath for her sage advice on moving to our own location).

Let me give you a tour of our new home (This is the proverbial $0.25 tour—I’d be glad to give a PayPal link if you like).

The home page is where all my new blog posts appear. So that you don’t have to scroll forever, only the last 3 posts appear on this home page. At the bottom of each post is an icon for you to comment. This is very important to me, this is where the real conversation starts. Please comment liberally. Also, you have all the buttons so that you can share the articles on your favorite social networking sites.

At the top of each article, you can ReTweet the article. I welcome you sharing these articles with your followers and friends, please retweet liberally!

We have something new, Tabs! Across the top you will see some tabs. The four to the right (starting with Building Business) are short cuts to the blog archive, based on key words and tags. For example, if you want to see all the posts on Value Propositions, click on the Building Business Tab and on the Value Proposition drop down.

The About and Services Tabs give you information about my company, Partners In EXCELLENCE, about me, and some unique services. There are also links to the company website which will provide more information than you could ever wish for on our services, case studies, testimonials, white papers, reading lists and other things. Making our company website more user friendly is the next task.

Over on the right, you can do a bunch of other things. Yes, there is the obligatory smiling picture of yours truly—at least it’s pretty current, not the one of me at 12 tears old! I’ve maintained the theme of this blog site as: Making A Difference. One of the values we hold very dear in our company is that we want to make a difference with every organization and individual we work with. That’s also my goal with this blog, I want to make a difference in the professional and personal lives of the reader, just as you make a difference in mine.

Below that, you can subscribe to our newsletter. I publish that about every 4-5 weeks with news about things I am doing or that our company is doing. You can also get to my LinkedIn Profile or follow me on Twitter.

Below that is a great tool Type in some search terms and you can get to articles on topics you are most interested in. Below thiese tools is a list of the past few posts of the month. I always hate these long lists that you have to scroll through, so it is restricted to the most recent 4-5 posts of the month, even though I may have written more.

If you want to see what I have written in any month, the Blog Archive with the Select Month drop down will show you all the posts for the month you select. Below that, the Topics drop down enables you to look at articles by key subject or key word. It has the same categories as those in the top tabs.

Next down, you get to see my most recent Tweets. Those are important. I primarily keep the blog articles to represent my views and voice. However, there is so much great content that I find in other blogs. I tend to highlight those links in my Tweets. So watch those, those are the links to articles from people who are a whole lot smarter than me.

Finally, at the bottom of the page (yes, scroll all the way down), there are a few things. You’ll notie the link to older entries–that takes you back through my posts chronologically.

Last, but not least, I have this paranoia that people won’t know how to reach us. Our corporate office information (including the ever reliable snail mail) is there and you can shoote me a direct email. Those come directly to me.

Thanks for taking the tour, I hope you enjoy our new home as much as I enjoy it. I welcome any suggestions you have–you know what it’s like in a new house, you have to repaint, touch up, start looking at the new additions. Remember, Mi Casa Es Tu Casa, Ma Maison Est Tu Maison, Mein Haus Ist Dein Haus, 我的房子是你的房子, Mit Hus Er Dit Hus, 내 집이 네 집이, 야, Мой дом ваш дом, 私の家はあなたの家です,

Welcome to our new home, I hope you enjoy it!

Making A Difference

•  Blogging is a terrific stress reliever. Some months ago, I was being interviewed and was asked, “When do you blog?” I think the reporter was looking for what
  time of day. My response was, “When I get pissed off!” I blog at other times, as well, but sometimes when I see something that doesn’t make sense, getting it off
  my chest by writing an article is really helpful. Blogging is certainly cheaper than a shrink!
• Blogging enables me to use a wide audience as a sounding board for new ideas that I am considering. I get such wonderful feedback—both positive and negative—that really helps me clarify my thinking, so that I can continue to build my value to you and to our clients. I can think of no other way to get the quality of feedback, as quickly, than through the blog.
• Blogging has caused me to expand my horizons, in preparing new articles, I am really influenced by the great articles many of you write. They help me think about issues differently, even shifting my positions on a number of issues (God forbid I admit that my position may not have been an astute position.)
• Blogging/Social Media has enabled me to “meet” such interesting people. I have gotten to meet, exchange ideas, and build business with people I might never have reached in the past. It has helped to open a whole new world of relationships. Blogging builds and drives business, this shouldn’t be a surprised, but people get to know me before contacting us. It makes it easier for us to build a great business relationship.

Thanks to all of you for your contributions and support!

Join me in our new home, keep engaging in the discussion. Remember, adjust your feeds, readers, bookmarks to our new location:

Making A Difference

Again, here it is all “spelled out,” http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com

• Blogging is a terrific stress reliever. Some months ago, I was being interviewed
  and was asked, “When do you blog?” I think the reporter was looking for what
  time of day. My response was, “When I get pissed off!” I blog at other times, as
  well, but sometimes when I see something that doesn’t make sense, getting it off
  my chest by writing an article is really helpful. Blogging is certainly cheaper
  than a shrink!
• Blogging enables me to use a wide audience as a sounding
  board for new ideas that I am considering. I get such wonderful feedback—both
  positive and negative—that really helps me clarify my thinking, so that I can
  continue to build my value to you and to our clients. I can think of no other
  way to get the quality of feedback, as quickly, than through the blog.
• Blogging has caused me to expand my horizons, in preparing new articles, I
  am really influenced by the great articles many of you write. They help me think
  about issues differently, even shifting my positions on a number of issues (God
  forbid I admit that my position may not have been an astute position.)
• Blogging/Social Media has enabled me to “meet” such interesting people. I
  have gotten to meet, exchange ideas, and build business with people I might
  never have reached in the past. It has helped to open a whole new world of
  relationships.
• Blogging builds and drives business, this shouldn’t be a surprised, but people get to know me before contacting us. It makes it easier
  for us to build a great business relationship.

Thanks to all of you for your contributions and support!

Join me in our new home, keep engaging in the discussion. Remember, adjust your feeds, readers, bookmarks to our new location:

Making A Difference.

Again, here it is all “spelled out,” http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com