Salespeople and the Significance of the Digital Footprint
Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce
There’s a question I’ve often asked CIOs and other executives: What is the worst thing you can hear from a salesperson then they’re pitching you an idea, product, or solution? Their universal answer, regardless of industry, is “Tell us what your priorities are and where we can help.”
In this hyperconnected, knowledge-sharing economy we now live in, chances are your prospect has already put a huge amount of effort into putting out there what they need to be successful. Take my friend Kim Stevenson, the CIO of Intel. She’s on Twitter everyday. She blogs. She has a video series. Imagine if a vendor walks in and asks her to repeat all of that from scratch.
Doing your homework
If I could one piece of advice to salespeople it would be to pay attention to, know, and understand the digital footprint of who you’re selling to. Your target customers and prospects, especially the social ones, can tell within seconds whether you’ve done your due diligence prior to that first engagement.
Going both ways
There isn’t a week that goes by that a family, friend, or colleague doesn’t say to me: “You’re one of the most boring people I know. How is it that you have 100,000 Twitter followers?” My answer to this and an important life lesson for me — aside from the fact that I need to find better friends — is that if you’re interested long enough, you become interesting to some.
Forgetting digital exhaust
All of us leave digital exhaust behind: blog comments, shared Snapchats or Vines, Facebook or LinkedIn comments. While a digital footprint is usually deliberate, there’s often little or no mindfulness around exhaust. One of the unintended consequences of being a connected person, and in this case, a connected sales professional, is that this exhaust follows you. Take care that it doesn’t haunt you down the line.
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