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.

Dave Kurlan wrote an outstanding post:  Bench Strength – The Key To Replacing Salespeople.  He mentioned that managers must always be recruiting.  It’s such a simple concept, but I am constantly amazed at how few managers–at all levels do this.

Here’s how the cycle goes.  We have a bad performer in place, we worry about firing the person, because it leaves an open territory….too often we think coverage is more important than quality.  Maybe the manager might start looking casually for someone, but the normal day to day events slow the process down, consequently nothing is done for too long.

Or it may go like this:  One day, our star performer walks in and resigns.  We panic–she’s going to leave a huge gap in our organization.  We immediately look to back-fill the position.  In our haste to fill the position, we may reduce our standards recruiting the wrong person.  The death spiral accelerates…..

Recruiting high quality people–even in this candidate rich job market takes time.  In my world, B2B, finding top notch sales people takes at least 90 days, often longer.  Add to that the onboarding time and you have a cycle of as much as 18 months before a person gets fully productive.  Great managers significantly reduce that time by always having candidates to back fill jobs in their back pockets (and by having great on boarding programs—but I’ll write about that later.)

Organizations like GE and IBM have long been famous for the succession planning.  For every role–at least in the executive and senior management levels, they have identified candidates that can potentially fill the each job.  In every managerial or executive role I have held, I maintained a list of people that could back fill me (as well as succession plans for all the managers reporting to me).  With each of those people, I had a development plan in place—I wanted to prepare them to be able to step into the new role when and if the time came.  That development plan included not only coaching, but developmental experiences (e.g. special projects), training and other activities.  Every manager must have a succession plan in place–not only for managers, but for everyone in the organization—”who will I bring in if I need to replace a sales person?”

Managers must always be recruiting–even if they don’t have the headcount or a “req.”  By recruiting, I don’t mean a formal posting of a job or engaging a head hunter.  The manager should always be networking, looking for great talent.  At conferences, in meetings, maybe through tools like LinkedIn.  A manager should always have at least half a dozen people they would like to hire, if the occasion presents itself.  This doesn’t mean offering them a job, it just means getting to know them well, understanding what their strengths and weaknesses are, exploring their own aspirations, exploring how well they might fit into your organization.  When the time comes (it is never if), you will be able to pick up the phone and call one of these people.  Some may be happy in their current roles and not willing to move, but several may be interested in a new opportunity.  You get a great replacement, months sooner than you normally would.

Great managers have succession plans in place for every role in their organization.  Great managers are always recruiting.  If you lost one of your key people today, can you pick up the phone and call half a dozen potential replacements tomorrow?  If you can’t, you need to start recruiting.

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?

I got this piece of LinkedIn Spam: 

Hello ,

 I’d like to connect to you to on my professional network on LinkedIn. I am a LinkedIn LION with over 4,500+ connections currently. I would be happy to connect so that we can mutually expand our network of potential contacts. Unfortunately LinkedIn has restricted the number of invitations I am able to send, so I am pushed to expand this way.   My profile is at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/Mr. X   If you are unable to open the above link just go to people search and put Mr. X.  Please feel free to send an invitation, I will always accept.   Send an invitation to: Mr. X@gmail.com     If you are not an open networker, I do apologize for this inconvenience.               If we are already connected, then ignore this mail.        All the best,  Mr. X

Don’t these deeply personal invitations to connect just warm your heart?  Doesn’t it make you feel good about the power of social networking?  Don’t you feel that your connection with this individual really means something  (Particularly, if you are already connected and are receiving this email).

When will people realize, social networking is about relationships, not quantity?  Yes, many of the relationships will be distant relationships, but are we just accumulating mailing lists (I think a lot of these people are and just feeding their spam machines)?

I like LinkedIn, it’s a valuable tool.  The value of the tool declines, when idiots like this start intruding on my time.

• Networking is supposed to be mutually beneficial.
• Giving back is important.
• Bothering contacts excessively also can weaken networking efforts.

Read the article. Think about it. I encourage everyone to build networks that create value and quality for everyone involved.

I’ve been tracking, participating and experimenting in a number of social networking and other community building tools.

What are your views about building your “social” or “business” networks, Quantity versus Quality?