Recently, I was at a local referral club and met a sales person who said to me, "What is this Social Networking you keep talking about?". He wanted to know if it could do anything for his business. He told me most of his leads came from referrals. He has a network of over 2,000 people that he carefully maintains with phone calls, emails, lunches, sales calls and sharing his connections to help the network thrive. He's spent 20 years nurturing his relationships and they've paid off quite well. He said that he knew everything about his customers from when their kids are graduating to what kind of scotch they liked - I liked him right away :)So I started explaining to him the different types of social networking and how it's not much unlike what he is doing now. After only 5 minutes into the conversation, he understood the power it had and how it could help him generate sales. He told me that he felt intimidated by the internet and didn't really understand how it could help him. But after realizing that it's exactly what he's been doing for the past 20 years, just in a different way, he felt comfortable that he could do it.
I explained how he can be even faster to respond to events and news, cross reference his connections and make sure to introduce people to others they need to know to make their lives easier and better. Also that he could listen to what's going on in the market and be the first to share it with his connections and to share the solution to a problem before they even know they have it.
I helped him create a Twitter account and am in the process of creating a Facebook page for his business. It made me happy to be able to convert a newbie to our side :)
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