Ten years after my first entrepreneurial failure, I had to force myself to learn sales, at which I seemed to have to work harder than everyone else. It was hard in a simple way. Like playing a musical instrument, it took a lot of practice. The sales cycle begins and ends with prospecting. The routine is seeing new people and following up on them. The difference between success and failure is the dogged tracking of everything and constant measuring of minutia. But, the thing that finally got my attention was easy to understand and embrace. To quote the psalmist Jimmy Buffett, “it was so simple like the jitterbug it plumb evaded me.”
Make it easy for the customer to buy.
Exceeding customer expectations, human connection, and relationship building are key components of making it easy. So, how about hardware gadgets and software applications? Does technology make it easier? My answer is a definite “maybe.” Let me make it easy for you to buy this essay on whether or not social media accomplishes my axiom. Remembering that hindsight is 20/20, let’s look at the innovation milestones that founded our present situation.
Consider an analogue Internet connecting people by a web of railroad tracks and postal routes that allows for two-way communication utilizing printed multi-page websites. Welcome to the dawn of the 20th Century.
President Abraham Lincoln signed a law called the Homestead Act of 1862 on May 20th of that year. Applicants who were over 21 and who had not born arms against the United States got a “homestead” or grant of 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River. They had to live on it for five years and improve [farm] it in return for a deed. Eleven states had left the Union at the time and there would be political and regional issues as a result, but aren’t there always when a government gives people anything? The point here is that the Act expanded western settlement which followed the growth of the railroads.
Article comments
1 - Helene
Great article. The writer challanges what has become a society of stale efforts to build real people connections!
2 - Bob Snyder
Tom, I enjoyed your article.Customer service Based on Trust Sells.A wise woman once told me to go where your Celebrated not just Tolerated.In memory of the Cheers Tv Show,(A Place Where Every One Knows Your Name).Multiple service, and products are multiple reasons to buy, But People sell People.
3 - Bob Snyder
Tom, I enjoyed your article.Customer service Based on Trust Sells.A wise woman once told me to go where your Celebrated not just Tolerated.In memory of the Cheers Tv Show,(A Place Where Every One Knows Your Name).Multiple service, and products are multiple reasons to buy, But People sell People.
4 - William Waite
Ah Tommy, you’ve done it again. As I’ve shared with you on previous occasions, I so enjoy how you frequently manage to weave a little pertinent history into whatever point you’re trying to make. Equally important, you can never go too wrong quoting the psalmist Jimmy Buffet.
Speaking of the Parrothead leader, here’s another snippet that is apropos for your discussion of social media:
“Relationships! We all got ‘em; we all want ‘em. What do we do with ‘em?”
Despite the maddening exhortation from enterprises large and small to “Like us on FaceBook”, the simple fact is that this does not a relationship make. As with our websites, blogs and even our snail-mail marketing pieces, content is king. If we fail to engage that customer or client with something that is meaningful to them, we are only deluding ourselves. That reality, coupled with recent revelations that Mr. Zuckerberg and his crew have routinely continued to track and store (and perhaps even market or further disseminate details of) the online travels of FaceBook patrons long after they’ve ceased to even have pages makes me extremely reticent to have anything to do with FaceBook.
Twitter on the other hand may ultimately have more value because it is inherently more interactive. As has been shown in recent months, it can be used to rally large numbers of people with common interests. Properly used, Twitter can effectively reach customers and clients and they in turn can respond quickly to not only the sender but also to everyone in their particular realm of the Twitosphere.
Therein lies a relationship, my friend. Best regards.