For Sales Reps Who Still Don’t Use Twitter!

Author: Ryan Lallier - CEO, RepTivity @RLallier

I am still shocked when sales people tell me they don’t use Twitter. It honestly drives me crazy. I have heard every single excuse out there. Here are some of my favorites –

No one cares what I have to say – That is the wrong attitude to have. You are the product expert and the consultant. If you focus on promoting your customer base with links back to their sites, tweet about industry experts, and provide relevant information, over time people will care about what you’re saying.

I don’t get it – You are not alone. In fact many people don’t get Twitter at first! I certainly didn’t. Follow this, follow that, tweet, retweet and DM? There is nothing wrong with asking a marketing rep from your company to give you a breakdown of what Twitter is and its value in the business world. I’d be happy to tell you how I’m using Twitter to promote my personal brand and the brand of RepTivity (my company). When used effectively, Twitter is a powerful business development tool. For a formal description of Twitter, go to http://tweeternet.com/

No one is going to ‘Follow ‘me – You are right. Well sort of. No one is going to follow a person who has no clue what they are talking about, that’s for sure. But if you market yourself as an industry expert and commit to delivering value to your prospects and customers, they will listen. Oops, I mean Follow!  A great place to start is by tweeting your favorite articles and industry news. This tactic does three important things: drives traffic back to your website, promotes your personal brand and highlights the hot topics in your industry.

In summary, your prospects use Twitter so why aren’t you? Cold calling and emailing are still critical pieces for prospecting and building your brand but, Twitter is a great way to augment that process and reduce your stress level.

Dashboards, Spreadsheets and Whiteboards – Do these “tools” motivate your sales reps?

Author: Ryan Lallier - CEO, RepTivity @RLallier

I have been in sales for over 12 years now and every organization I have worked for tracked our sales metrics on either excel spreadsheets, dashboards or whiteboards. The excel spreadsheet would arrive around 5PM with sales metrics from yesterday. By the time the excel spreadsheet was populated, the sales rep who was #1 yesterday on the leaderboard rankings is now #3 today. How motivating is that? How about the dreaded dashboards in Salesforce.com? Pie charts, bar graphs, zigzag lines, a speedometer and a list of call leaders is supposed to make me want to strive to be the best? Seriously? How about the ugly dry erase whiteboard on the wall? Talk about old school. Congratulations John, you just closed a deal, now go up and erase your old sales number and update it with your new one! While you’re up there, can you update the year to date numbers and oh can you update the monthly sales number too? Good times, right?  

Why do sales organizations continue to use these methods of metric tracking? I encourage you to comment like crazy and let me know your opinion. But, in my opinion the reason sales organizations rely on these methods is because they are not intended for sales reps. Pie charts, spreadsheets and whiteboards are management tools.  Managers rely on this data format, not sales reps.  They can be negative and often times display how far the organization is from their actual goals. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to know where your company stands revenue vs. goal wise but, don’t forget about the engine which drives the sales machine – your sales reps. Sales reps live in a world of make phone calls, send emails, do web demos and sell more. Do them a favor and put away the dashboards, spreadsheets and whiteboards.

Can you suggest alternative methods for tracking sales metrics while keeping your team engaged and motivated?

Workstreaming: Two definitions from Anne Zelenka -

From Anne Zelenka - Workstreaming: The New Face of Time. Date 3/3/2007 via Gigaom.
The benefits of workstreaming include satisfying your boss (or client) that you’re making regular progress towards shared goals, notifying team members of your status in case it affects their work, and even giving yourself a sense of accomplishment and progress. Because it’s oriented to what you’re producing and doing and not just about how much time you’re spending on it, workstreaming isn’t so burdensome and misguided as face time requirements. 
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From Anne Zelenka - Workstreaming: One Secret of Web Work Success. Date 1/12/2008 via Gigaom. How can you do workstreaming? Message boards can work well for corporate teams: post a message when a project milestone is reached, a document is available for review, a sale has been closed, a bug fixed. 
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Please post your definitions of Workstreaming in our comments section.


Thanks - RepTivity