Quick Sales Tip: PostWire.com for Sales Prospecting

I am always looking for new ways of improving the way that I prospect, especially when it comes to qualifying opportunities. I came across PostWire earlier this year and have to say I really like it. The way we sell has certainly evolved and contrary to many “sales experts” cold calling is not dead, it's actually just gotten easier. In the past we just had the yellow pages /other directories and a telephone. Then the Internet changed the way we live our lives – both personally and business wise. There are great ways to passively engage and qualify prospects without having to always be in direct communication with them via phone or email.

PostWire is a web service that allows me to send content like videos, files, web links, sales/marketing collateral etc to prospects, and has a comment wall to allow for collaboration.  

Here is how I use it:

• After I get in contact with and qualify a prospect, I tell them that I will be sending them a “PostWire page”, which “contains all sorts of content like videos, case studies, blog posts, etc”.

• Postwire allows me to share the page with as many email addresses I want. As part of the sharing process, I am able to attach a customized message to the recipients.

Sharing this PostWire page is valuable for a few reasons. Of course, it allows me to share great content with my prospects that will be helpful with further educating them as opposed to sending multiple emails back and forth. Sharing these pages allows me to create actions. The sharing of the page can be a quick and easy “next step”, and action on my part. Postwire has a killer feature that sends me an email when someone has viewed the page. This not only gives me some indication that they are remotely interested but it becomes quite interesting when they access the page multiple times. You can also set the privacy settings to allow anyone with the URL to be able to access the page. The caveat is that PostWire will not able to identify who is visiting the page yet will still send you an email that “someone” has visited your page. My colleague and Chief Marketing Office at PunchTab Angela Sanfilippo, describes PostWire as "Pinterest meets marketing collateral". 

As you can see there are plenty of useful ways that PostWire can help salespeople more effectively communicate with and share collateral with prospects. According to the PostWire team they will be adding great CRM integration features in the coming months. Things like Salesforce.com integration for example.

Here is more information regarding PostWire:

• https://twitter.com/postwire
• http://www.crunchbase.com/product/postwire

Great Sales People...

Great sales people are not only hard workers, yet are students of their craft. They are always prepared and understand the process of selling. They focus on understanding why people/teams/companies buy things; and as silly as it sounds, a lot of the time it's about simply ASKING and then listening. Over time you will be amazed what you learn.

One of the biggest challenges is overcoming the psychological hurdles associated with developing the mental toughness and discipline that leads to becoming laser focused in sales. Some of the greatest athletes in history were the most disciplined people in their sport. Most people struggle grasping the idea that "NOT EVERYONE IS GOING TO BUY". In fact, MOST WON’T. -- and that's perfectly ok. Some will buy now, others tomorrow, and some will never buy from you even if you give your product away for free! You CANNOT let the "NO"s bring you down. Every no, brings you closer to a yes. In its most basic form, its simply the law of averages. These are laws that all sales people must internalize before they can really be effective.

Now in regards to the notion that: "Some will buy now, others tomorrow, and some will never buy from you even if you give your product away for free!" --

There are a few key concepts to think about:

BE PREPARED:
How do I prepare myself so that no matter what "objection" the prospect gives me, I am going to provide a valid response?

Now this is an interesting concept. Unprepared sales people often sound like liars and frankly are full of crap. And the reason is that they were not prepared, gave a senseless answer, resulting in the prospect to smell their lies a mile away. The result is often the sales person loses credibility and trust. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that you will always lose the deal; yet you now will have to dig yourself out of the pile of skepticism.

Be Organized: Every great sales person has their own system of staying organized. (shameless plug coming) In fact, one of the premises behind Feedgen was to build a tool that was easy to use, so that sales people actually used it properly and were able to stay organized and disciplined. So although we hope everyone uses Feedgen, find a system that works for you and USE IT. It will mean the difference between figuring out who is going to buy NOW, TOMORROW, or NEVER. Moreover, finding the people that will buy tomorrow consists of making sure that you are organized in a way that will keep you top of mind and in contact with them until they are ready. Again it's simple in concept, yet requires mental toughness and discipline to execute.

Start preparing today. The sooner you begin to internalize these rules the sooner you will begin to yield great results.