Build Relationships with Prospects

Learning Objectives 

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe when to reach out to prospects.
• Describe how to reach out to prospects.
• Explain how to deal with negative social experiences.

The Right Time to Say Hi

As the saying goes, timing is everything. This is especially true when it comes to implementing an effective social selling strategy. In fact, the most important thing to search for in social media is any sort of social trigger moment. This can include when a potential prospect:

• Gets a new job
• Receives an award
• Launches a new product
• Receives positive mentions for themselves or their company in the news

Social trigger moments give you that metaphorical foot in the door. You have a natural reason to reach out. It’s much less awkward than just emailing out of nowhere, and it makes a good first impression.

How to Reach Out

While email is great for most selling, there are a number of options for social selling. After all, if you met your prospects on social media, why wouldn’t you use social media to contact them?

Here are some tips to get the most out of your first direct contact.

• Subject
  • Make it about them—including their company, brands, industry, role, or competition.
  • Make your social trigger clear.
  • If you have a common interest or connection, call it out.
  • Examples:
    • Congratulations on your award
    • Your LinkedIn post on forecasting
    • Your new role as CTO
• Opening
  • State your reason for reaching out and link it to the subject. Remember that this is your place to start building rapport.
  • When introducing yourself and your solutions, avoid talking about yourself. Stick to talking about them.
  • Avoid name-dropping. If you are sure that your mutual connection is in their inner-circle, ask that person for an introduction instead.
  • Show some personality. A bit of humor or a personal touch goes a long way.
  • Example:
    • Bikram, really enjoyed your article on driving forecasting accuracy in a world of new buyer behavior. It’s a topic I’m also passionate about, hence my comments underneath your post.
• Call to Action
  • Focus on getting their opinion or sharing your expertise, not asking for time in their calendar or getting a referral.
  • Offer solutions, not pitches. Remember that your goal is to create connections.
  • Keep it brief. If your whole message—including the opening—is under four sentences, they’re more likely to read it.
  • Don’t include links. Nobody likes surprise homework.
  • Examples:
    • I have some connections who blog on this topic and have been recognized for their work in this area. Would it be useful if I connected you?
    • How long did it take to develop your pipeline prediction model? Has it impacted your reps’ prospecting strategy?

Put Out Fires

Social networks can be intimidating places. We all remember horror stories about posts that riled up the public, created problems for companies, or were just completely false. Fortunately, you can deal with a bad post with a bit of planning and lots of patience.

Be Prepared

The best way to fight internet drama is to keep it from happening. Drama comes when it comes, but if you follow these steps, you can avoid starting trouble and keep the damage to a minimum when it can’t be avoided.

• Know what’s going on. Track the responses to your posts and set up Google Alerts to check for any mentions. It will let you know when trouble is coming and keep you from saying things at the wrong time.
• Know when not to post. There are some days where you will want to pull back the social selling. Posting about banking during a stock market crash or on a memorial day can turn your followers against you.
• Don’t fight fire with fire. Keep your cool even if people get angry and nasty. Staying calm and rational can keep a spark from spreading into a full disaster.
• Document the whole conversation. If things are starting to seem difficult, keep screenshots of every step of the discussion. At the very least, it will let you know what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.

Handling Problems

Some issues can’t be avoided. One wrong call can make things worse, so here’s a handy list of better alternatives.

In the end, there are two goals when handling issues in social media: Fix the problem and provide updates. Just knowing that you’re working to fix the problem usually lowers the tension. Remember that your prospects followed you because you’re a thought leader, so be a leader. Staying cool and dealing with concerns just proves that they were right to trust you.