In the past there was just one way to generate business

1.

Interruption and broadcast - Advertising, cold calling (tele-marketing) and email marketing is all based on interruption and broadcast.

You call me up, you interrupt me then pitch your products and services.

You email me, you interrupt me then pitch your products and services.

This is all predicated on waste, you have all heard the term "it's a number game" you call as many people as you can, you email as many people as you can.  The more you call and the more you email the better response you get.

You know this, you get this.

But do you know about the other way of generating business?

2. 

What if I could take you to place where your prospects hang out?

How about tomorrow, I pick you up in my car and I take you to a place where all your prospects hang out?

There is no time limit on how long you spend there, you can have conversations with your prospects all day.

When you arrived at this place with all your prospects how would you approach that?

Grab a coffee and go up to the first one and start a conversation? Yes?

"Have you travelled far?" "How did you get here?" you would find areas of commonality, yes?

As sales people, we all know why.  Because people know us, like us and trust us.

The other great thing about having a room full of our prospects is that ..... it's a room full of our prospects. 

Knocking on doors, calling people up is such a waste of time and effort.  With a room of prospects, if they are not buying now, you give them a business card and move on.  But you know, all of them could buy.  This is paradise. 

OR would you walk in the door of this room with all your prospects and go "I'm Tim Hughes and roll up, roll up and buy some social selling and the first 5 people in a line will get a discount".

Like dur Tim!  Of course I wouldn't say that, somebody would call security.

Exactly! 

Did you know that this place I can drive you to, where all your clients hand out is LinkedIn?

If you walk into the room where all your clients are and shout "but my stuff", why do you think it's OK to walk onto social media and do just that? A social network is about being social, not spamming people.

So whose doing this?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling?  Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

Advertising, cold calling and email marketing isn't fit for purpose in 2021, the world and the buyer has moved on. It's time to switch your budget to social selling.