This blog post contains 3 items:

• Form fill follow-up strategies – The three best questions to ask
• 2011 webinar schedule – One every month of 2011
• Trigger Buzz #6 – Tuesday January 4th  @ 6:00PM Pacific

I received so much positive feedback from the webinars I did in the last half of 2010 that I am putting together a series of webinars for every month in 2011 (except July and August). The first webinar is scheduled for January 25th @ 9:00AM PST | 12:00PM EST. All other webinars will be scheduled for the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 9:00AM Pacific | 12:00PM Eastern.

Each webinar will feature a second presenter and a technology solution you can use to implement the insights shared by myself and the second speaker.

You can see the current schedule for January to June at http://TriggerEventWebinars.com

So far I have speakers and technologies for the January to June webinars. Please contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998) , Skype (Craig.Elias) email (Craig.Elias@ShiftSelling.com) or this contact form if you have a speaker or a serice you would like to see included in the September – December webinars.

TriggerBuzz #6

Tuesday January 4th – from 9:00PM-9:30PM Eastern (6:00PM-6:30PM Pacific) is the sixth edition of TriggerBuzz.

Get your prospecting questions answered by following @TriggerBuzz on Twitter. To submit your questions, once I follow you back, you need to send a direct message to @TriggerBuzz.

Details and instructions can be found at ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz

Have an eventful New Years Eve!

Craig

This is my last post in a series on the Top Seven Ways to Sell More by Using Social Media. Remember, the person with the most popular answer to my question at the bottom of this blog post wins $1,500 in Trigger Event Selling services

The #1 way to sell more by using social media is to learn of opportunities just after a decision maker has experienced a Trigger Event, that makes them realize what they have is not longer sufficient, but before they notice, or worse yet call, your competition – This powerful selling window is called the Window of Dissatisfaction.

My experience is that the single most powerful Trigger Event is a change in a decision maker at an organization.

You know this scenario. You have an account you want to get into, but the competition is entrenched in the account and no matter how often or how hard you try, you can’t get in. Then, one day, the decision maker at the account changes. Suddenly, resistance disappears and, before you know it, you have yourself a new customer.

The opposite is also quite common. You have a relationship with a decision maker, and that relationship allows you to enjoy the benefits of having the “inside track” on a lot of new projects. Then, one day your reliable contact leaves and you lose the business to someone else!

Just like MIT’s Lead Response Study shows the odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The ideal moment to cold call a decision maker is as soon as possible after the Trigger Event has happened and the best solution I have found to learn of these events as soon as possible is TweetDeck.

Now for all you Twitter fanatics out there, yeah I get that Twitter is the power behind TweetDeck but who has the time to sit around on Twitter waiting for a decent Tweet – like this one about a new CFO being hired – to show up.

My preference is to set up a column inside TweetDeck with a search for lets’ say VP of Sales and then every now and again include a filter that allows me to make the search results relevant to my sales targets. In this case finding more customers in Boston.

So this month’s question is how else can you use TweetDeck or something similar to harness a change in decision makers to sell more. Win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use TweetDeck or a similar service to sell more. To win the $1,500 prize you must get the most votes for your answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the button that appears at the end of each answer/comment.

Winners are announced the last Tuesday of the month – April 27^rh – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday April 26^th.

Answers/comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Use the button below to Tweet , Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

Good luck & have an eventful week!

Craig

This post has two items:

1. The continuation of our countdown of The Top Seven Ways to Sell More by Using Social Media, with a $2,000 prize.
2. A link to the article that resulted in Harvey Schachter writing about Trigger Event Selling in this Monday’s Globe and Mail.

#5 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media

A wise female entrepreneur I know once commented on sales people, who were always in a hurry to get down to business, by saying “Hold my hand and take me to a dance before you take me to the altar”.

She is not alone in her thinking. A large majority of decision makers choose who to buy from based upon an analysis of risk vs. credibility and the depth of your relationship with a decision maker is often the deciding factor on how much credibility you have.

The challenge most sales people have is how to start the relationship building process when decision makers are too busy to take, or return, their sales calls? Jerry Vass’ ‘Flanking Strategy’ – start by adding value, in a non-selling way, and build a relationship from there – is one way to make this happen.

The #5 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media is to use it to start the relationship building process.

From a Trigger Event Selling perspective the best way, I have found, to do this is to use…

AND

One of the reasons I joined Twitter was to start the relationship building process with decision makers who are looking for insights on how to enhance their organizations selling efforts.

The idea is to add value and build a relationship before a Trigger Event happens and they have a need for services like mine.

I typically Tweet, once or twice a week, about ideas, resources, or success stories on how to turn prospects into customers by harnessing Trigger Events.

I decided to combine Twitter with Social Oomph after I read the Lead Follow Up Research by MIT. The research shows the importance of following up with those who complete a web form, within five minutes!

The intent is to enhance the relationship building process, that begins when someone follows you on Twitter, do it in a value adding/non-selling manner AND do it as soon as you can after they following you.

It turns out that Social Oomph makes it incredibly simple to do that. One of the great features of Social Oomph is that you can automatically send a direct message to every new follower. The free version checks your new followers every eight hours and the professional version checks every eight hours. One small word of warning. If you use Social ‘ vetting process – or anyone else’s. E.g. TrueTwit – the auto responder does not go out until you approve the follower. I had Social Oomph’s vetting turned on this morning which explains why I have 43 autorepsonder messages waiting to go out.

If you follow me on Twitter I have Social Oomph configured to automatically send you a direct message, that includes a link to access my best ideas on how to replicate your biggest sales wins.

This content is ONLY AVAILABLE TO MY TWITTER FOLLOWERS. I suggest you follow me so you can see the practice in action AND get access to a no-charge resource that can have a significant impact on your selling efforts.

Win $2,000 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, how to use Twitter, Social Oomph, or ANY other Twitter Application to sell more. To win the $2,000 prize you must get the most votes for your answer. This month there is also a second prize of $1,000 to the person who gets the second most votes for their answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the  button that appears at the end of each answer/comment.

Winners are announced the last Tuesday of the month – November 24th – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday November 23^rd.

Answers/comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Tweet , Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

The Article That Harvey Schachter Liked

In the May of 2008 I submitted an article to Rain Today in the hopes it would be published on their site. In July of 2009 – over a year later – the Trigger Event of a change in people (the editor) resulted in a phone call and a request for permission to use my article the week of October 26th – this past week.

The article caught Harvey’s attention and last week he called to verify some information so he could write about the article in the Globe and Mail’s Monday Morning Manager. An online version of Harvey’s writing is available here.

The original article titled Shorten Sales Cycles by Harnessing Trigger Events is about a hypothetical sales person (Jed) who learns to vastly improve his prospecting activity by looking for and taking advantage of Trigger Events.

In my last post The #7 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media I showed how you can sell more by using Facebook.

In that post I offered $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Selling services to the person who provided either the most popular example of ,or idea on, how to sell more by using Facebook.

Jos Willard is this month’s winner by sharing with us a second way sell more by using Facebook and getting the most votes for his idea.

Those are two ways to sell more by using Facebook. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for other ways to sell more by using Facebook and keep you updated on what I find.

Stay tuned as next week I announce the #6 Way to Sell More by Using Social Media.

In the mean time be sure to download the latest MIT Lead Follow-up Study, by James Oldroyd, that reveals:

• What is the best day to prospect
• What is the best time of day to prospect
• How quickly you should follow up on web based leads

Have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig