Source: BrianGardner.com

Having a corporate Twitter account is pretty much mandatory these days, but it’s also pretty much useless if no one is reading it. Having a good Twitter following is important, but making use of that following is even more important. If you have 10,000 followers, that’s great, you’re reaching 10,000 people every time you tweet. But, if you can get even a tiny fraction of those followers to retweet your content, the number of people you can reach grows exponentially. But, getting re-tweeted doesn’t happen out of thin air. Brian Gardner shares some excellent tips on how to get retweeted by your followers:

1. Add a Twitter Button to your Website or Blog

This is one of the simple and most effective ways to get more retweets. By installing the official Twitter tweet button on your website or blog, you make it easy for readers to retweet any of the content on your page.

There are plenty of unofficial tweet buttons available, but the official version from Twitter itself is likely your best bet.

2. Schedule your Tweets

There are a variety of apps that can help you schedule your tweets so you are sending them out during peak times of the day. By using a tweet scheduler, it will appear that you are sending out tweets live when you actually don’t need to manually be there to do so.

This will help ensure you are getting your content out there during the most active times of the day, even if you aren’t physically there to tweet live. By sending tweets out during peak hours, you are much more likely to have your tweets noticed and retweeted by others.

3. Retweet other People

A great way to get noticed and share valuable information with your followers is to start retweeting other people. Now, you don’t want to do this with the expectation of retweets of your content in return – but it does increase the chances that a person you retweet will return the favor.

The old saying “you get what you give” certainly applies here.

To read the remaining 5 tips, which are awesome, go to the source.

And, if you enjoyed this, please click the “tweet” button on the bottom of this post and share it with your friends. (See, I’m putting these tips to the test already)

Source: TrustedAdvisor.com

Think of the business development training programs you’ve attended—the sales books you’ve read—the internal discussions about selling.

What proportion of those efforts focused on:

The business process of selling: lead management, pipelines and sales funnels, account classifications, account planning, call planning, buyer/influencer categorization, account strategy development, forecasting, preparation of marketing and sales support materials?
vs.

The personal interactions of selling: the conduct of sales meetings, listening skills, question formulation, reading buyer signals, meeting design and facilitation, handling objections, talking price, presentation skills?
The firms I’ve worked with spend more time and effort on the former—much more. And their sales suffer as a result. Most need more emphasis on interpersonal interactions. This is evident in the numbers, and in buyer behavior.

To read the rest of the article, go to the source.

Source: Business2Community.com

If your company’s sales numbers are not where you want them to be, is it too late to turn the ship around?

For many businesses, their existence relies on having a strong sales plan in place, especially when economic times are challenging. If the numbers are not adding up it can lead to concerns over both employee and employer stability, not to mention uneasiness among customers.

In order to right the ship and get more out of your sales team, there are a number of steps you can take.

Among them are:

Make sure you have a strong dialogue in place. While you may think you and your sales team are on the same page, sometimes what is said and what is heard are two entirely different things. While daily meetings are not necessary, set aside a meeting with your sales team, both those that are doing well and those that may not be to review your team’s goals. Sometimes all it takes is a meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to goals. Communicating the message and making sure everyone gets it doesn’t have to be that difficult.

To read the rest of the article, go to the source.

How do you motivate your sales team?

Today is Friday the 13th, but it doesn’t have to be bad luck.

Instead, try making your own “luck.”

Be positive and optimistic. Get out there and take action! Call your favorite clients. Cold call some new ones. Don’t let a day claiming bad luck to lay its claim on you.

As a kid, being sick was easy. You complained in the morning, stayed home from school, and were likely excused from any assignments you missed.

Being sick as an adult is a lot more difficult. You’re lucky if you have paid time off, so you don’t lose money from getting sick. When you do come back, you have to make up all the work you missed, on top of your regular work. And there’s usually one person in your office who simultaneously brags about never getting sick and degrades your for staying home and not “working through the sickness.”

“People are concerned about calling in sick, but if you’re really feeling unwell and especially if you have a fever, you need to stay home,” says Catherine Cummins, MD, MSN, a health sciences assistant clinical professor at the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine. “A little bit of common sense goes a long way.”

How well can you carry out your work duties?
Are you contagious?
Will resting at home help your body to overcome the illness?
Are you taking medications that could impair your ability to think, work, operate machinery, or drive?

If you’re not going to be able to get your job done while sick at your desk. Stay home. If you’re going to infect half your office, causing THEM to call out sick, stay home. If you’re hopped up on cold meds, stay home.

But, if you’re just kind of unhappy and kind of tired, but you can get your job done without infecting anyone else, suck it up and go to work.

Relationships make a person fulfilled. We all crave to connect with one another. Who doesn’t want to be understood, have people acknowledge our efforts, our life, and our lineage? So those that have a job that actually pays to talk to people, build relationships, get involved in others goals and be a part of their life has the best job ever.

Coming from this relationship building place while calling prospects nets more information from whoever you talk to. People are memorable when you actually have a conversation even if they don’t buy your product. Too many times have I listen to salespeople trying to hurdle over the “gatekeeper” to the person they want. I’ve heard a sales person dismiss a “secretary” trying to help him get to the right person. That sales person couldn’t get off the phone fast enough because he didn’t hear what he wanted to hear. She was trying to connect; he was trying to “sell”. This discourse of not connecting leaves a feeling of frustration or uselessness.

Sales can be frustrating. Sometimes when verifying contacts I have to stop and center. I have to go back to that “morning” moment where I’m fresh and excited to go to work. Sales have a lot of rejection to it but only if you look at it that way. I’m eager to connect with people and in turn I don’t just verify name and company. I connect, have a quick chat and at the end of the phone call I hang up with a smile. That’s why I think salespeople have the best job on earth!

This post was written by Stephanie McKibben, Office Manager at ProspectDB