Good Morning,

I recently signed up on facebook…yes I am a bit behind. In my defence I was born in the 70’s and facebook usually caters to the “younger demographic”…or so I thought. I was surprised to me how many business associates, and friends had already joined. Immediately I have been connected to a friend who I lost touch with 7 years ago, who now runs an Internet company . I good friend from high school I have not seen since 1987 recently reached out to me who is a recording artist in NYC and 2 girls I used to play soccer with who are now in Ottawa – where I am – working for the government. All highly successful,dynamic people…..life givers!

So far, I have made plans to get together with 3 of them face to face.

I am also on linked-in and have developed a fairly large network of people who I have recommended and have recommended me. I have done nothing with linked in yet….

All this on line social networking is interesting and fun,but are they just a distraction or can they lead to real business connections and sales? I am going to try. A couple of my facebook friends are people that I can help by connecting them to other I know. Remember its give first. This week I endeavour to reach out to all my new, old friends and see if there is some way I can help them growth their business. The more people I can help, the better.

I figure that since sales is all about connection, and tools like facebook and linked in are focused on connecting people why not give them a try! They can be just another tool kin your prospecting tool belt. Use social networking sites to reconnect with past clients, friends and colleagues and then pick up the phone, call them, get together, rebuild a true connection.

You already know that you should be expanding your network everyday if you want to be successful. I say, use every tool possible to do that. What have you got to lose for trying?

Dedicated to increasing your sales
~ Colleen

It takes love to be successful in sales.

Love what you sell, Love who you sell it for and love who you sell it too! Speaking of which, how often do you show your customers the love?

Do you show them appreciation for your success? After all, if they weren

I am constantly amazed by the poor service I regularly receive by various vendors

Fully engaged employees are 67% more productive and moderately engaged employees are 40% more productive than non engaged employees according to McKinsey.

Engagement can be defined as the opposite of alienation. So, if your sales team needs to be more productive, ask yourself first, how engaged are they? And what are we doing as a company to make sure they are engaged?

You can tell when a sales rep is engaged because they go the extra mile, they exert discretionary effort showing real passion for what they do. A fully engaged sales rep hurts when they lose a deal and celebrates when they win. They are competitive because they care. They fight for what’s best for the company, the client and themselves because they believe in what they do. They are fully aligned with the products and the company.

Engaged sales reps create emotional connectivity with their clients. I know this sounds fluffy…and if you know me, you also know I hate fluff. So consider this fact…..emotionally connected customers spend 46% more than customers who are merely satisfied, accord to a 2004 Gallop study.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all build emotional connectivity with all of our current clients this year and have them raise our revenues by 46%?

Over the next few days I thought we could explore what it takes to build emotional connectivity between clients and sales people. send your comments and I will add my own. At the end, we should have a great database of ideas for everyone to use.

~ Dedicated to increasing your sales

Colleen