Jill Konrath

You know how you go on LinkedIn to check out your prospect’s profile? Well, guess what? They’re checking you out too.

If all they see is a bare-bones resume listing your previous work experience, they’re not going to be one bit impressed.

Nor will they get excited about meeting you if you describe yourself as a high energy, tenacious sales hunter. That’ll scare ‘em off good.

Instead, you want them to say, “This person sounds really sharp. She gets my challenges. It’d be worth meeting with her."

One of the best ways to make that happen is to craft a customer-focused summary that makes you come alive. Let me give you a couple examples.

What do you do with people who promise, promise, promise that they'll order for you, but just keep asking for more samples and additional time? That's the question that Helene posed for me the other day. Here's what I told her:

Just because you're a salesperson, doesn't mean you're a doormat. If you feel like you're being used, you probably are. You need to deal straight on with your prospect and say something like this ...

If you're new to social selling, you're probably wondering if it's worth doing. After all, it takes time to build your online brand, search for info about prospects, connect with new people and especially, share your insights.

Let me give you an example of how different social selling is from our traditional approach. Thomas von Ahn of Viral Solutions recently shared with me that 58% of his company's revenue comes directly from LinkedIn initial contacts.

Good scammers have figured out what it takes to get an unsuspecting person to click on their links and enter their sordid world of illegal or immoral activity. But people like you and me -- we're smarter than most patsies. We can smell them a mile away!

Hah! That's what I thought too -- until I stumbled across a couple really creative ones.

Have you heard the term "social selling" yet? If not, brace yourself. It's the way of the future. 

So what is it? Basically, it starts with social media -- which is simply user-created content. Your LinkedIn profile is a great example. So are your status updates and the group conversations you have. It also includes other user-created content like Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Facebook.   

So, you still think that cold calling is a good idea? Look, I'm from the great state of Minnesota, and as you can see from looking around me, I've done a lot of cold calling in my life.

But I'm not here today to just talk about tromping around in the snow. I'm here today to talk about cold email messages that you might be sending to your prospects, as well as cold phone messages that you may be leaving.

The truth of it is, your prospects know if you're making a cold call on them. It's the same message that you leave for everybody and it screams, "Same message! Nothing special!"

Are you frustrated with your sales prospecting results? Are your phone & email messages delivering minimal results? If so, I have a solution for you -- and it's very simple. Stop writing messages that are filled with delete-inducing words.

I recently got an email from LinkedIn. The subject line read: "See Mike O'Neil's new job, plus 652 other changes in your network." Curious, I opened it.

At the top I read, "Jill, 653 people you know changed jobs in 2012. Click to view their new titles."  And there, smiling out at me, where a whole slew of familiar faces. When I clicked on a photo, it took me right to that person's profile. 

Here's the deal. People in new positions create sales opportunities. It's a major trigger event*.

Jay is the owner of a massage therapy company. He's trying to figure out how to sell his services to the corporate market.

Like many of you, he doesn't have a strong business case to capture a company's attention. That's why he recently asked me:

"I'm have trouble figuring out my value position for selling to bigger companies. When a company's challenges are rising cost from suppliers or trying to go "green," it just doesn't cut it to tell them, "Hey I can reduce your stress during those stressful times." Any advice you can give is appreciated."

Here is my response: