Building a Network and a Personal Brand ⎪Predictable Revenue

ARE WE HUMAN, OR ARE WE SELLER?

Jon Ferrara has always been passionate about relationships – he did pioneer the CRM (customer relationship management software), after all. He believes that connection is what we feed on, what we get energy from as human beings. A moment of connection, to Jon, is one where you’re truly present with another person and sharing what he calls the “five Fs of life”: family, friends, food, fun, and fellowship. These are the moments that people remember you by. Many years from now, when people tell stories about you, they won’t be about the company you build or the product you created, but about the commonalities they shared with you and how you made them feel. Plus, Jon adds, connections are fun!

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT NETWORKS

A network isn’t the number of followers you have or how many likes you get. Your network contains the people you’ve truly taken the time to connect with and stay connected with.

It’s also not difficult to build a meaningful network. While the initial forging of connections may take some effort, maintaining them is a breeze. Think of the effort it takes a car to reach 60 mph, or for a rocket to get into orbit. Most of it is spent initiating movement and getting to speed. After that, it doesn’t take much to keep them going.

Technology (alone) is not the future of sales. The more digital the landscape gets, the more human we need to be. While every seller is using tools like Salesloft, Outreach, and other automated sequencing systems to bombard prospects with generic messages, only one thing will help you break through the clutter and differentiate yourself: going back to basics. Many years ago, Jon used to teach his salespeople, when they went into a prospect’s office, to look at their walls to gather clues about who they are and what they’re passionate about. The salesperson would then use the clues to determine what they might have in common with the prospect and get them to open up about their business issues which, as a professional, the salesperson could solve. This is the strategy we need to employ in the digital world.

UNCOVERING THE PERSONAL

There is a digital equivalent to the office wall: social media. People put their knick-knacks, their books, their degrees on these digital platforms, you just have to dig.

1. Set up an identity in all the places where your prospects, customers, and their influencers have conversations about becoming better, smarter, faster, in and around the area of your product or service. This could be Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest.

2. Don’t talk about how great you are or how great your services are. Share content to inspire and educate people, and help them to become better, smarter, faster in this area. People don’t buy great products – they buy better versions of themselves.

3. If you create great content, people will start to follow you and engage with your posts. They’ll also start talking about you.

4. Listen and engage when people talk about you. If this person is within ICP, an influencer of your prospects, or just someone you think would be a valuable connection, engage back.

5. Make these initial, soft connections firmer by bringing them onto different platforms, from social media onto email, or from digital onto the phone.

6. Finally, make the connection face-to-face to cement it.

THE OLD CRMS WON’T CUT IT

Once you start to build up a list of meaningful connections, you need a system that keeps track of them for you, like a “golden Rolodex” of real opportunities. CRMs don’t do this. They’re built for management reporting and lead flow organization rather than for the salesperson. Contact management tools like Office 365 and G-Suite don’t do this either. And neither of these types of tools work alongside you everywhere you work within your browser. A personal CRM link Nimble combines traditional CRM capabilities with contact management, and personal and professional sales intelligence. So from a business perspective, it makes sense to get a personal CRM for your reps.

But from a personal perspective, salespeople should consider getting a personal CRM for themselves. Most salespeople work for a single company for one to three years before moving on. And, usually, they leave all their contacts behind. A personal CRM allows you to keep them with you throughout your career, from company to company.

BECOMING AN INFLUENCER

Jon doesn’t actually write any of his own content. Coming from a more mathematical background, writing isn’t within his wheelhouse. Instead, he curates content for his intended audience. He starts by following other people who are inspirational in and around the area of his products and services. For Nimble, for example, this would be experts in social sales and marketing. He then reshares the articles that resonate with him, tags the thought leader who created them, and includes relevant hashtags. He shares specific content across the identities where it’s appropriate (ie business content on Linkedin and personal content on Facebook) but he does suggest a little cross-pollination to make your online presence more multidimensional. Soon, people who want to become better, smarter, and faster in these areas are reading and sharing Jon’s curated content, their followers are reading and sharing, and, so are the influencers whose content he shares. Once you become a trusted advisor to your prospects’ influencers, you’ve got it made.

Content Curation Formula:

In the morning, while you’re having your coffee, read others’ content for 30 minutes, and identify approximately 8 pieces you find relevant
Drip share this content throughout the day manually or using a content sharing tool
Set some time aside in the afternoon to look at the signals and see who bit
Respond appropriately
If they’re an important connection, attach a task to their contact in your personal CRM to follow up and make the connection firmer
Repeat

CONCLUSION

Times are changing. While it certainly worked for a short period, prospects and clients are getting sick of the over-automated, highly digitized outreach of the moment. What is actually working best of all right now is getting back to the human. But not your dad’s door-to-door sales “human.” To tackle the sales landscape of today you need a network and a personal brand, and you need a great system and the right tools to help you build and maintain it.

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