Beyond LinkedIn is Where the Customers Are – by Guest Writer, Dave Kurlan

Sales Development Expert Dave Kurlan is the CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc. He is the author of Baseline Selling and writes the popular Blog, Understanding the Sales Force.

Recently we began using several online business social networks other than LinkedIn to target and generate leads. The results have been nothing less than astonishing.

We receive a fair number of leads from executives who are interested in using our sales assessments (Objective Management Group) at their company, but I don’t believe we generate enough leads to potential resellers (those sales development experts that comprise our channel of resellers).

The Google Problem

We can perform a Google search for sales trainers and narrow it down to 291,000 results. We can perform a search on business coaches and there are 499,000 results. There are 235,000 results for sales gurus, 3.4 million for sales experts and 169 million for business experts. Since we aren’t looking in a particular city, adding that to the search doesn’t help. We can advertise in a national publication but knowing that only 2,400 of these firms exist makes that a colossal waste of money.

The Gazelles Solution

And that’s where the social networks other than LinkedIn.com come in handy. One of the features is that they allow you to target more effectively.

As an example, I’ll explain how the Gazelles member network works. Head over to Gazells.com and click “My Gazelles” over on the right side of the page. You’ll be asked to complete a profile where you answer specific questions about you and your business.

Unlike other networks, this network, using push pins on a bull’s-eye, maps you to business people who share your strengths, and have similar challenges, interests and personalities. In this way, you are actually encouraged to start dialogs with other members who are like you. The network also has powerful searching capabilities so that you can search for people using keywords and send mail to them using the network’s internal message center.

You won’t get irrelevant results or multiple results for the same target. Instead, you’ll get a simple list of the matching records. If I search for business coaches I get only those who are business coaches. Simple. Once I have identified them, my messages are more likely to receive a response since I am a member too.

Gazelles.com is by far my favorite network because of the additional, personalized features. I am also in contact with the top executives at many of the fastest growing (gazelles) companies, a profile of our end-user.

By the way, we also used my SelfGrowth.com expert network, my Work.com network of experts and my Inc5000 network. While each of the networks allows you to accomplish the same basic thing (identifying and contacting the people you’re looking to connect with), they all have a different membership demographic so you may find other networks whose members align more closely with your target customers.

Step #1 – Join In

First, join as many networks as you can where you can expect at least some of the members to fit the demographic of your target customer or, even better, as Bob Bloom says in Inside Advantage, “Your Who” – your ideal core customer.

Step #2 – Don’t Spam Them.

There is nothing worse than receiving an email that went out to everyone and doesn’t apply to me. Write a personal note to only those who fit the profile. Keep it short, not more than a paragraph, tell them what or who you have in common, why you are writing and what you want them to respond to. For example:

Hi Michael,

I see through the blahblah network that you know suzycue and you’re an amateur dentist. I’ve known suzycue for eight years and amateur dentists make up a big percentage of my customers. Most of them find that our amateur dentist faux certification kit can fool even the most sophisticated patients. I was hoping we could chat for just a few minutes to see if there is a fit. Let me know if you have any interest.

Regards,

Dave – CEO – MakeYouLookGood.com

Step #3 – Can’t Beat that Response Rate!

This is time consuming and it’s time saving – all at the same time! If it were traditional advertising, it would take weeks to get a miniscule response, very little return for such a long wait. This, on the other hand, could take an entire weekend to complete, but will likely generate a 25% response.

That’s lots of time over a relatively short timeline for a very significant return. You be the judge!