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Social Media Is Killing Traditional Sales

by JimRaffel on March 19, 2010

The traditional sales prospecting model is becoming increasingly ineffective over time.

Five times in less than two weeks I have been solicited by voice mail message or email. Wait, by the same person! This is downright annoying. Obviously I have the tools to filter this noise out of my communications stream and I have. It just underscores the importance of permission based marketing.

The person in question is clearly following the instructions of an employer (I’ve heard enough telemarketing scripts and read enough scripted emails over the years to be able to tell). Hard to believe that a technology placement firm does not understand the power and value of social media and community based marketing strategies.

What if instead she spent her time listening in the social media space for individuals and organizations starting new technology products. Then, do the research by visiting the organizations’ web-sites and using tools like LinkedIn to track down the right people. See if those people participate in Twitter or other communities where you can interact with them a bit.

Sure it takes a little longer, but bagging an elephant is not for the faint of heart. Until recently, while not a fan of these traditional sales techniques, I employed them from time to time during slow periods. No more, never again. Instead develop a set of social media skills using the tools of your choice to actively participate in the communities where your potential customers live.

You will learn to identify and understand “the pain” your target market is feeling, perhaps before they even realize it. Also, by your participation in the community, your prospective customers will know what kind of pain you specialize in fixing and making go away. Does your doctor call you and ask if you have a broken leg? Of course not. You know that when you have a broken leg, your doctor can fix it. Your customers should feel the same way about you.

What do you think – is the traditional sales model doomed? Do we need to find new and more effective methods to share our message and reach the customer? Are they really a customer anymore or a fellow community member as well?

Tagged as: business, internet marketing, jim raffel, marketing, marketing strategies, sales, sales prospecting, social media, strategy, telemarketing, telemarketing scripts, traditional

  • trishbertuzzi

    Actually I am on the other side of the coin on this one and say “Good for her!” If she reached out 5 times in 2 weeks it shows she knows that prospects don't respond until touches 3 through 7 typically. Now, maybe her messaging could be better but at least she isn't sitting around just “listening” and hoping an elephant will land in her lap.

    Social media is not killing traditional sales – it is just another tool in the box. Of course great salespeople figure out how to integrate it into their process but a a quota doesn't wait for revenue to raise it's hand. Inbound is best but you have to execute a “unified” strategy of maximizing inbound with intelligent outbound reach. The sales people who are making their numbers are those that have figured this out. Just MHO.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Trish – Thanks so much for stopping by and making me think this through some more.

    Had “she” taken 10 or 15 minutes to read the most recent posts on this blog or look at some of my Twitter history prior to calling me…..and personalized the message a bit – do you think I'd have written this post? I'm not opposed to her using a list of “suspects” to find me, but then do the homework before your initial contact.

    Make sure I know you care enough to have done the research. How about having followed me on Twitter and said “Hi – looks like your company is working on some exciting projects” or better yet “Just read your blog post and left a comment – great stuff sounds like you are growing.”

    To just call me from a telemarketing script. To send me an email that 20-30 others got the same day. Sorry not going to work with me. Placement of High Tech people is not like selling widgets. I need to trust you and trust your company before I am even going to give you the time of day.

    I have bagged several elephants this year. None of them “fell in my lap” each and everyone was pursued with a strategy to build trust. It's not a ploy, it's a real, authentic and sustainable desire to know these people and know what their needs are. Having a one hour sit down with Chris Brogan was bagging an elephant. Closing my single biggest deal ever, was bagging an elephant. Because I pursued them with the above strategy I now know these people (and call them friends or friendlies as Chris says) not customers or conquests.

    Again, thanks for making me think this out a little more and get it down in writing. I'll keep saying this till the day I die “writing is the doing part of thinking.”

  • trishbertuzzi

    Thanks for the response. 2 things. First, and this is probably my error, is that what I got out of your post was that you were annoyed by her persistence because she did not adhere to the rules of permission based marketing. The next 3 paragraphs then talk about using social media as part of the sales process. My takeaway from the post was not her poor messaging but rather her uninitiated contact.

    Second, if your read our blog or checked us out on twitter or google, you would see that we agree with you about social media. InsideView voted us one of the Top 20 Sales Industry Social Media Experts. We get it….

    The point I was trying to make, and apparently failed so my apologies, is that you have to execute a unified strategy that combines social media/inbound marketing with intelligent outbound reach. Not every prospect will give you persmission to speak to them but that doesn't mean you can't bring them value. Each strategy on their own is sometimes just not enough.

    Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify my point. I appreciate it. Cheers!

  • Vanessa

    I agree with you trishbertuzzi. You cannot rely on social media alone to grow your sales base. I think the suggestion that we all spend hours researching prospects on Twitter and blogs is complete nonsense. Jim, clearly you have a lot of experience but I ask you… how did you get started in the business before there was the magical power of social media? I'm guessing you cold called, cold called, cold called. We all know it's a numbers game and while social media can help boost those numbers, there is no replacement for good old fashioned phone time.

    I say way to go, fearless cold caller! We all have to start somewhere.

  • http://twitter.com/BizWerkerJulia JuliaStone22

    I saw your article when it came out last month and thought it was interesting although I disagreed and still do. The one thing that is consistent in sales is that people are afraid to reach out and talk with new clients. Perhaps it is because they get lost in the noise, perhaps they fear being ridiculed like this. Are scripts annoying? Maybe. Can genuine, persistent people work sales through using scripts in calls before they build a social network? Of course. Do we work on our scripts to make them less offensive? Every week.

    No matter what, I can guarantee you that the only way to build relationships when you are new is to get on the phone and try to talk with new people. Clearly you find that offensive.

    I believe it is necessary for a small, relatively unknown company to get their message out in a new market. What you seem to find annoying and offensive has brought in 6 qualified job orders in the past month and anyone in this industry would call this a huge success. We do not leave all of our sales efforts to a passive marketing effort (on-line or off) though, and never will.

    For 3 years, we grew organically by word of mouth. We did an excellent job, built up a solid brand and reputation, and did not have enough customers. We became nationally recognized for some of our work in researching candidates through social media. But it did not make our phones ring off the hook of more clients dying to opt-in to our services. Our new approach is bold and direct. Our business has grown by almost 50% since then, and I believe that speaks for itself. I expect it will increase to 100% by the end of the year.

    Posting a blog a day is admirable but how many new sales has it brought in? I suppose you would have enjoyed it if she had mentioned in her message that she saw you were meeting your wife at Gotham Bagels at 10:00 on Saturday on twitter and suggest she stop by? I think most people would actually find that a little creepy.

  • jerryalbright

    Interesting read. I've got a few questions.

    For the life of me – I can't figure out what you do. I went to your “about” section – and couldn't quite nail it down. That may or may not be relevant though. I was just hoping to put some sort of context in place here….

    Is Social Media killing sales? Hardly. What I do see it killing is careers – careers of mediocre sales talent who thought chasing the crowd onto these various platforms would be some sort of silver bullet.

    I've watched quite a few people struggle with thinking they needed to carve out some sort of turf on Twitter, etc. Turf that once duly earned turns out to be nothing but barren land. Not much seems to be changing my opinion on this as I've slowly been drifting away from it myself. I like blogs though.

    Can I ask – why would you not simply reply to this person? A quick “thanks – but not interested” would have done the trick I suspect.

    Respectfully,
    Jerry Albright

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Thanks for stopping by to read the post and add your perspective. Much appreciated.-Jim

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Congratulations on your sales growth success. In my earlier reply to trishbertuzzi I shared how social media (which I consider blogging is part of) assisted in recently closing the biggest deal in my company's history.

    As for Gotham Bagels tomorrow – if I throw it out there on Twitter it's an open invite. Always fun to turn virtual contacts into real world ones. I've met a lot of nice people that way in the last year, some of whom have become part of my business peer group.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Well, when you do figure out what I do let me know ;) Seriously, on the About page there is a link to professional credentials that will take you to my about page on ColorMetrix.com the company I co-founded and have been operating for 15+ years. I hope that provides some context and perspective.

    I've carved out some of that turf on Twitter and am actually using it to assist in my sales efforts. Different tools work for different folks as I mentioned in the post.

    Glad to hear you like blogs, come on back often. comments that turn into conversations are the best part of blogging.

  • http://twitter.com/AJBombers AJ Bombers

    Jim, I love how you hooked us all in with the title. I think it's the “killing” that got this debate flowing. Of course the traditional sales model is doomed, how could it not be? That doom began back in the days of taking the phone off the hook during “supper time”.

    Within this debate, here's one of the parts of it that made the most sense to me, it's by JerryAlbright – “Is Social Media killing sales? Hardly. What I do see it killing is careers – careers of mediocre sales talent who thought chasing the crowd onto these various platforms would be some sort of silver bullet.”

    Now that really sums up the issue doesn't it. The best cold callers, as annoying as they can be for the one receiving the call will succeed for quite some time, well at least until every single one of us who's willing to allow them to interrupt us isn't dead anyway. Point is, the best ones, the best “traditional salespeople” will thrive. The same holds true on the social media front of sales, the best ones, like you Jim, will thrive in the digital age, those who think that they can provide the same one-way style of communication that's always been employed will be left behind to exist and toil in the dreaded middle.

    So, is social media killing traditional sales? I'd say it wounded it. It's making its make mark for sure, those who hone it as a craft will sure be the early winners as part of the full transition to the coming digital age.

    I love to answer the phone at any of our businesses, hear them launch into that scripted drivel and flat out say “thank you so much for calling, but I will politely decline”, and hang up. Learn how to reach out to me in a way that might be effective to sell me please if you must employ “traditional sales”.

  • http://philgerbyshak.com Phil Gerbyshak

    Great post Jim! While social media isn't KILLING traditional sales, it is killing the highly impersonal, spamming and slamming, er smiling and dialing, traditional media way of interacting with potential candidates.

    Had this company taken the time to get to know you, and then used what they learned to personalize their approach to you, you likely would NOT have posted this article.

    Good thing you didn't post this company's name as “Is Spammy Sales Company X Dead?” as that would have gotten you even more Google juice.

    Keep writing the good fight!

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Thank you for your comments kind sir. Very thoughtful view from both sides of the coin a skill I am continuing to develop.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Thank you for your thoughts! Love, Jim Raffel!

  • Christa

    Did you respond to these voicemails or emails? Something tells me if you had, you wouldn't have been contacted more than once if you had said “No thanks, I'm not interested.” You're probably a super-busy guy, but it wouldn't kill you to take one minute to respond… you obviously had time to write a blog and complain about the repeated contact attempts.

    Social Media is important for a lot of businesses, but it's not for everyone (A great example can be found here: http://ow.ly/1AmgN), and maybe they find they gain more customers by keeping it personal and taking the time to pick up the phone. You have a point that research can help companies in filtering out prospects more effectively, but stalking Twitter feeds can only take you so far.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Thanks for stopping by. “Stalking” is an interesting word choice in your comment. A Twitter feed is public and I know that when I put it out there. Hard to stalk public statements. One day last week I put a tweet out there that I was visiting my father's grave. I thought it was nice when the next day a business associate called and mentioned he was going to call the previous day but thought in light of it being my later Father's Birthday the matter would wait a day. That's a productive way to utilize social media in your sales and communications activities.

  • Cheryl

    When I proof-read this post for Jim, one of the first things that came to mind is the unsolicited mail I receive almost once a week from Capitol One offering me another credit card. “I don't want your card, and stop sending me your offers.” Why do you think that so many people have signed up for the “no call lists” for tele-marketers? Because it is annoying and people are tired of being bothered for a service they don't want and/or don't need. The “cold calling” techniques of the old days have become ineffective as times have changed, perhaps not in all industries, but in many of them. Social Media has made it possible to meet people in ways that didn't exist even 10 years ago. People like to do business with people they like. By utilizing Social Media tools, there are possibilities to become more familiar with your potential customers and become something more than “just another obnoxious tele-marketer.”

  • http://www.broadbean.com Rayanne

    I have to jump in here. I have been in the position of your apparently “unwanted” caller and if you told her that you were not interested, that you didn't want to buy what she was selling, that your business was successful enough without adding whatever product/service she was offering, or a simple thanks but no thanks, I suppose she would have not made an additional four attempts to contact you.

    Given that you are very active in the use of social media, as evidenced by the “social media buttons” on this site, perhaps your caller thought you were more receptive than you really are.

    A lot of people don't view social media as the “be all, end all” tool for engagement, for business-to-business exchange. for following through on leads… Most people still do deals via the phone, actually most people prefer to be sold or to sell a product/service either voice-to-voice or face-to-face.

    Maybe you could save yourself (time and money) from ever having to deal with other such annoying messages and emails. Disconnect your phone. Seems to not be a tool in your arsenal.

    I think it is interesting to point out though, that you still haven't answered the question asked by many who have left comments:
    Why didn't you just return the call or email back a “thanks, but not thanks.” ?

    Things that make you go, “hmmmm…”

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Ryanne – Thanks for stopping by. I suspect some of the “cold callers” I seem to have offended may have sent you. So be it – still makes for interesting conversation. Conversations with those I agree with 100% of the time are boring right?

    If you spent time in some of the 5 years of posts you would know I have no aversion to the phone and face-to-face contact. It's how I sell actually. I just don't make cold calls from lists.

    As for not answering the question. I think that is best addressed in a blog post and that's where I plan to answer it sometime soon.

  • http://www.broadbean.com Rayanne

    It's Rayanne, not Ryanne. Not offended, just want to be clear.

    And no one sent me to write. I can be forthright and admit that I was sent to read, however – not by the parties you suspect. I was compelled to write – it is what I do.

    I agree that agreeing is boring and we learn more by rational, open discussion. I find it more interesting and a bit suspicious that you have chosen to answer a comment with a post… Do you cue suspenseful music, too? Nice way to drive readership and SEO.. perhaps you should just tag it “sexy” and “fresh,” too…

    Quick question, I hope you'll answer here and not in an additional post, Did you ask Phil Gerbyshak to comment here?

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    1. Sorry for messing up your name.

    2. Of course I want traffic here. Just as you do by embedding the link to your company in your comment identity.

    3. I mentioned the post and the comments that occurred on Friday afternoon when I saw Phil Friday evening at a Foursquare event hosted by @AJBombers. What he did after that was his call.

  • http://LisaJohnsonFitness.com/ Lisa Johnson

    as a biz owner and recipient of endless phone solicits I'd be so much happier for social media interactions over someone reading off a script. I used to be a dial and smile cold-caller and I know what a harrowing experience it can be and how truly small the percentages are of making a sale.

    Inbound Marketing seems to be a much better way to go. Find ways to build traffic to your site to collect the type of customers you'd like to have.

    Thanks so much for putting up a post to spark this conversation.

    Lisa

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Lisa, Thanks for reading and sharing.

    Quick question is it “dial and smile” or would “smile and dial” make more sense? hmmm, probably why I'd have never made it in that industry.

    The truth is I have a great deal of respect for the people willing to face that kind of rejection I just don't want to be interrupted by them. -Jm

  • wendymaynard

    I don't think the traditional sales model is doomed. I think there will still be room for a lot of one-way messaging. But, I do think there has to be big shifts in the way most companies are marketing and selling. If they don't start incorporating social media quickly, they will not stay in alignment with their customers.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Wendy, Isn't something doomed if it is going through a change so dramatic we may not recognize it when the change is complete? I spend a great deal of my time “selling” much of it in the traditional ways like follow-up phone calls and emails. Those calls and emails are to people I already know hare interested in my products and services. They started with inbound messages of some form or another. Sometimes, the prospect was identified through my activities in social media. Thanks for stopping by always great to have a comment from a 1st timer :) – Jim

  • Tommyismyname

    While social media isn't really “killing” traditional sales, it certainly should!

    Especially with the new socialization of Facebook, searches on twitter, SEO searches, and plenty of inbound lead tactics that are out there, there is no excuse to not to have your prospective clients call you.

    @Vanessa there is nothing “magic” about social media, it is grueling work, and with plenty of experience on both sides as a marketer and a cold caller, I can tell you that there is nothing magical about it, it only appears that way if you're doing it right.

    Now with that being said, is it unreasonable to follow up with someone if they have entered their information on your site to have what could be considered a “cold call-ish” type demo? No absolutely not. Should you follow up with them multiple times… probably. But did you just buy their name from a list that came from a list that came from a list that came from a list?

    No

    They gave you their info directly and you should be able to call them up.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Tommy, all good points. In the case discussed in the original post I never provided them my information. I was cold called from a list. Thanks for stopping by.

  • http://twitter.com/gardenofwords Katie Elzer-Peters

    I think there's probably room for both at this point, but I respond better to social media, personally.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    Hi Katie – I agree room for both but I also would much prefer to be on the receiving end of a social media conversation. Thanks for stopping by. – Jim

  • http://www.miracletutorials.com RudolfB

    Indeed, doing some homework doesn't take much time, yet it seldom happens that sales people actually do that. For instance, I get loads of mails from folkswho request link exchanges because of our “mutual” interest. They sell carpets, I have a site about video and podcasting. :-)

    As for social bookmarking, it depends on the subject. With Miracleturials.com I seldom get any feedback through facebook. I do not ignore it, but my heart isn't in it, so to speak. I go through the motions of posting news on twitter and facebook, just in case. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but I have the feeling that social bookmarking is like shouting to a wall. I get better results from forums, actually.

  • http://JimRaffel.com/ Jim Raffel

    on facebook we agree my heart isn't there either but I do get conversion to views here by posting the link. Twitter is awesome for me getting traffic here. You make a good point I need to find the right forums and spend some time there. Who knows I might even learn something – god forbid!

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