The Funnelholic

July 25 through July 29 is Social Business week on Focus.com. If you’ve read my blog, you know that I’m a fan of the Social CRM movement, but I am not an expert - so I’m leaving that to the pros. I am sticking to my expertise, hosting a couple of events about social and sales and marketing. I am hosting a webinar with the master of content/inbound/social media marketing, Mike Volpe, on Friday, July 29, at 1 pm PT. Before that, I am hosting a social selling roundtable at 11 am PT with Nigel Edelshain, Miles Austin and Koka Sexton. It’s fun trading ideas for using social for a lot of things. Sales is definitely a favorite of mine.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from folks is not having enough time for social endeavors. I usually tell people I wouldn’t recommend it if it’s a time-suck. So I’ve compiled a list of easy things that salespeople can do, none of which seems too scary or daunting - and it can all be done right away. Let me know what you would add to the following list.

1. Create a LinkedIn profile.
2. Fill it out completely, including a picture.
3. Upgrade your account.
4. Watch every day from your upgraded LinkedIn account to see who clicked on your profile.
5. Connect with as many of your business and personal contacts as you can.
6. Move beyond business cards - get in the habit of connecting with people immediately after you meet them.
7. Spend some time seeing if your prospects are connected to any of your contacts and ask for a referral.
8. Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry. Not just so you can see the conversations happening in your space, but so you can join the same “clubs” that your prospects are in.
9. Figure out where your prospects are on the Internet (with only a few cases, everyone is). Is it Twitter, LinkedIn, focus.com, etc.? It could even be a message board somewhere.
10. Watch them. Remember the title of this post is “easy.” Don’t worry about doing much; you can just watch. You will gain insight into your prospects that you’ve never had before.
11. Recognize their good works. If they write an insightful blog post or answer a question really well, send them a note.
12. Find the top influencers in your space (they will be on Twitter or Google if they are influencers) and follow them.
13. Create a social relationship with the influencers. This is akin to being friends with the cool kids at school.
14. Before a sales call, look up your prospect’s or customer’s recent social “works” - posts, tweets, Q&A. Mention it to them; they will love it.

There - was that hard? Let’s just start with that. There’s more…but you gotta start somewhere.

Social CRM is my new hobby. When I originally heard the term, I mocked it because I didn’t understand it. Sorry about that. Now I am listening, and I am starting to get it. Here is how I got here:

1. Ignorance: I ignored social CRM and when asked, I mocked it. Again, sorry.

2. Enlightenment: Salesforce.com bought Radian6, and I moderated a roundtable with some of the top social CRM experts in the business: Mike Fauscette, Brian Vellmure, Mitch Lieberman, Steve Woods and Esteban Kolsky. I realized that these are smart guys and I needed to figure out social CRM.

3. Education: I asked some people whom I should follow then started following them on Twitter. I started to read what I could (when I could). Brian Vellmure is now one of my boys, and is a resource for me on the topic.

Here are my observations on social CRM:

• I have stopped reading regular “social media” experts. What I like about the social CRM crowd is they don’t talk about “how to set up your Facebook” page. Instead they are focused on tying social back to the organization.
• Warning: It can be hard trying to distinguish the thought-leaders from the wannabes. From the looks of it, there are CRM analysts who added the word “social” to the front of their expertise. There are social wonks who have tacked “CRM” onto the back of their expertise. You have to be careful in determining who’s who.
• If you want to know the definition of social CRM, I found a good one here on Focus.com.
• The list at the end of this post might be wrong. I have thrown this out here to get reactions and am prepared to refine the list. Here is what I did: 1) Asked my respected friends whom to follow; 2) Added some of my favorite CRM guys (shout-out to Chris Bucholtz) even though I am not sure they all claim to be on the social CRM bandwagon. If they don’t now, they will soon enough.

How about this for a big, hairy goal that should prove to you I am beginning to understand the market: I hope Esteban Kolsky reads this and rips me. Then I know I have arrived. Seriously, if I am wrong, let me know, I am cool with that. But please don’t insult anyone.

So, here it is — the 70 (OK, 71 and now 72) people I follow on the topic of social CRM (in random order):

1. Greg Satell
2. Lauren Vargas
3. Frank Eliason
4. Rachel Happe
5. Tatyana Kanzaveli
6. Becky Carroll
7. Blake Landau
8. Ray Wang
9. John Rourke
10. Jeremiah Owyang
11. Michael Wu
12. Maria Ogneva
13. Jim Berkowitz
14. Graham Hill
15. Jacob Morgan
16. Jon Ferrara
17. Laurence Buchanan
18. Ed Sullivan
19. Brian Vellmure
20. Michael Fauscette
21. John Perez
22. Allen Bonde
23. Robin Carey
24. Blake Cahill
25. Amber Naslund
26. Adrian Ott
27. Barry Dalton
28. Arie Goldshlager
29. Leila Summa
30. Don Peppers
31. Gregory Yankelovich
32. Mike Boysen
33. Wouter Trumpie
34. Mark Tamis
35. Marshall Lager
36. Mark Reuter
37. Russ Hatfield, Jr.
38. Bill Odell
39. Merlyn Gordon
40. Nitin Badjatia
41. Mark Behrens
42. Bob Warfield
43. Wim Rampen
44. Bob Thompson
45. Janet Jozefak
46. Martin Schneider
47. Paul Greenberg
48. Jill Dyche
49. Anthony Nemelka
50. Clara Shih
51. Christopher Carfi
52. Jesus Hoyos
53. David Alston
54. Valeria Maltoni
55. Brent Leary
56. Mitch Lieberman
57. Sanjay Dholakia
58. Prem Kumar Aparanji
59. Josh Weinberger
60. Esteban Kolsky
61. Natalie Petouhoff
62. Andreas Gotthelf
63. Kathy Herrmann
64. Louis Columbus
65. Don Tapscott
66. Anthony Lye
67. Chris Bucholtz
68. Umberto Milletti
69. Jim Storer
70. Jeff Nolan (added 5/17  1.25pm)
71. Brian Vellmure

Interested observer:

71.  Michael Krigsman

I have resisted for the longest time becoming a news organization. I typically write what I feel. Guess what: I missed out. With the Focus.com platform, I can tackle topical issues particularly when I’m not sure I know the answer. (: For instance, I MUST not know enough because everyone tells me that Benioff could care less about marketing then he runs off and does THIS. I need to understand it. Here is what we have done, we reached out and got some of the most respected experts (All Focus Experts thank you) in the space to tell all of us what this all means.

I have 6 fundamental questions: Continue Reading »

What an amazing couple of weeks it’s been since I wrote my midlife crisis post, “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and asked the question, “What should I do with my industry-specific blog now that I want to create different content?” on the Internet love of my life, Focus.com. Besides blog comments from friends and strangers, my angst went global (I got email from Sweden - Daniel Wood, who is a great sales and motivation blogger).  I spoke to people at length. Just yesterday, I was talking on the phone about my midlife crisis with Gary S. Hart, who is a sales blogger as well. The consensus is to keep The Funnelholic brand. Whether you delivered the message via phone or Web, thanks to everyone who gave your input.

Here is what I decided: The Funnelholic stays, and I will write about whatever floats my boat.  The entire process became a real awakening for me about why I blog. It’s because I love it. If I lose some readers, I have to live with it. If I started writing about things I don’t care about, then The Funnelholic would fail anyway.

Continue Reading »