Tired of working for others and thinking of going ahead with your business idea?

The number of self employed people is increasing, Life long employment is more or less gone

Create your own job, be your own boss with a DIT – CPD Diploma in Enterprise Development

@DocklandsInnov  , Bolton Trust foster a culture  of increased collaboration, networking and linked approach enterprise development

We offer a progression pathway for companies as they start, develop and scale

Whether you’re starting a design, food, technology, service or craft enterprise we can provide help and advice information, supports and ideas to fuel your business.

Information to get your business up and running or keeping it healthy, including strategy, digital marketing, sales, finance and more

Keep in touch with the trends and ideas that can fuel your enterprise and provide opportunities

Develop your business further with the support of mentoring, training and opportunities

Help your business grow by connecting with marketplaces and facilities

We provide a range of supports to optimize and develop your business plans

http://www.springboardcourses.ie/details/3761

Instructor : Cairin O’Connor

Address

Docklands Innovation Park
128-130 east Wall Road
Dublin 3

Phone

01 2401300

Email

info@docklandsinnovation.ie

Trust is key to selling in a digital age

Digital selling retains many of the elements of face-to-face sales

Treasure your customers

Relate to their needs

Understand their needs and different buyer personas

Satisfy their needs with helpful solutions

Try to help them solve the problems they face

Don’t use the machine gun approach to selling, you’ll kill the customer!

Remember all customers are people not numbers on a spreadsheet. Customers need to to treated as intelligent human beings who have feelings.

Too many salespeople are so keen to reach sales targets that they just see customers as numbers and revenue making units. To succeed sales people need to have a more tailored approach based on careful listening to the customers needs.

Instead of being a pest on the phone become a helper and problem solver for individual customer needs. Social media can help once it’s not seen as spam.

How much time should you spend on social media?

This depends on where your customers are and what you’re selling.

Participation on Twitter, and especially Facebook, is high, companies may find that other networks (and their ad products) are a better strategic fit. Pinterest, for example, has become essential to women’s lifestyle publishers, accounting for as much as 10% of their monthly referral traffic. WordPress, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn may also be worth exploring, depending on your target customer demographic and other needs.

As a consultant trainer LinkedIn is a valuable way to help build more business contacts.

Offline networking and activities can be very important for high value goods and services.

How can Cold Calls be turned into Hot Leads?

Sales people  often make lots of calls  to secure sales visits.  Cold calling(when no one knows you) can be demoralising  for both the sales person and the potential customer. Start ups  have to be particularly careful as potential customers don’t know anything about them.

To build trust start with engaging  potential customers. Know who their potential customers are, where they are and why they will buy from you?. Creatively use of a range of  resources  like going to exhibitions, Linkedin, social media, blogging, engaging in conversations with potential customers. and tweeting.

Then the cold calls can be converted  to hot calls which leads to sales.

Over 4000 friends on Facebook and no one to go out with on a Friday night!

Facebook, Google + and Linkedin are great networking tools allowing you to connect with old friends, colleagues, friends abroad, relatives, schoolmates etc. We still need to be out there talking and communicating with real people and building real relationships in our personal and business lives.

Social networks can be lonely sad places if not having interesting conversations with real people. People like real people and most of our interpersonal communication is through body language, a handshake, tone and intonation of voice, sometimes even a hug

How Linkedin can help sales people, be mad, be bold, be unique

You can do the following but always think of how to be unique and stand out from your competitors:

Your Profile, not only on LinkedIn, but also shows up in search engines like Google, contributions in Answers and Discussions. Try to be different.

Finding the right people at prospects or at current customers. Think about who you went to college with and worked with.Find their Profile via Advanced Search or by browsing through the network of your network.. Find information about prospects as preparation for your meeting. Read the Profiles of your contact persons before your meeting.. Maintain relationships with prospects or customers.

Sending personal messages, sharing ideas in Discussions and answer questions in Answers.Often appropriate humour works.

Receive Recommendations which are visible for everyone and in particular for prospects and customers.How can LinkedIn help? Receiving Recommendations and showing them in your Profile. Discover relationships between:Customers, prospects and other contacts Prospects and colleagues so you don’t contact the same prospects.

Searching and browsing in the network of you own contacts. Introductions or referrals to prospects.How

Through the “Get introduced to” option or via an email outside LinkedIn after finding the relationship between them on LinkedIn. Visibility, reputation and online branding of yourself and of the organization you work for.

Your Profile, not only on LinkedIn, but also in search engines like Google, contributions in Answers and Discussions. Word of mouth advertising, the best form of advertising.

Recommendations you have received and people who talk about you in Discussions, mention you as an expert in Answers or talk about you outside LinkedIn. Receive notifications when someone changes jobs. In this way you can ask to be introduced to the person who replaces them. You might also become the supplier of the new organization of your contact. Via Network Updates on your LinkedIn Home Page.Hear about trends in the market place from customers, prospects and other sales people.

Membership of Groups of which your customers and prospects are also member of and Groups where you can exchange ideas with other sales people.

Make sure that customers and prospects regard you as an expert (and as a consequence keep faith in you and are happy to refer you) Building trust is a major factor in sales. Contributions in Discussions and Answers.

Find the right organizations to become member of, both online and offline. Via Group Search and via the Profiles of people in your own LinkedIn network.