Online Sales Training - Leveraging the Web

If you are in sales and you are over 35 years old the web is probably not a primary source of your prospecting efforts. My recommendation is that no matter what your age is you learn to leverage the web. The web can be an incredible lead source for generating new business. below is a list of ways you can generate leads online. Its just a sampling...

1) Social Networking- Sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIN and even Twitter provide the most effective platform to stay in touch with past acquaintances possible. Remember, everyone you know could be in a position to buy what you are selling with their company in 2,5 or even 10 years. Spend 10 minutes a day expanding your social network. Be careful though, many sales professionals use social networking as an excuse to not do any real work, then they wonder why they haven't hit their sales goals.
1) B- To add onto the Social networking theme with a few specific examples. I find it quite productive to visit forums and blogs online regarding topics that relate to your products and answer questions regularly. Don't be the person who tries to sell what you do in forum response, but if you have good information that is helpful, people will send you emails asking for advice and eventually turn into customers. The bottom line is that you need to find out what your customers do online and what their habbits are and then put yourself in a position to win.

2) Blog- I know, I know, this is where you think we're going to Plug ourselves. Not at all, but if you like to write, creating a blog and writing on a regular basis online can lead to long-term business. Find out how to submit your site to a directory, or Google and Yahoo so that it can be found online. It won't be overnight, but after a years worth of content development, all it takes is a few great articles before you can be ranked high in search engines and attracting more leads.

3) Build a site- if you are a small business owner having a website to provide credibility is huge. Over 70% of your customers are going to your website in the sales process to learn more about your company. In many cases the aesthetics of your website are more important than your building.

We will be digging deeper into the web in future articles. The bottom line is that you must understand how it can benefit you and how it can hurt you if you are going to thrive in todays market.