Make a Fortune Selling to Women. Connie Podesta

this feedback, I can accomplish two major goals:

      1. I can continue to connect with my audience (my customer) long AFTER the event is over. First, let’s make one point clear. I rarely ever SELL myself or my product directly. Facebook should not be an in-your-face sales vehicle. People will stop “liking” you or following you ASAP. Social media is instead about becoming a RESOURCE that people can turn to for great information. I SHARE—ideas about business, balance, change, leadership, increasing productivity, health, wealth, success, happiness, and growing their own business, all on social media. Thousands of my customers can learn, share their own opinions and ideas, and then continue to connect with me and one another. This is far better than any outdated email list you might still be using.

      2. I can learn how to improve my presentation (product) and continue to make it better and better. My product and service becomes customer-focused and customer-driven, which is the ONLY way to go. I use the feedback they give me to change things up, offer new products and services, add new topics they request, read books they suggest that help me learn new perspectives, and expand on the ideas they respond to en masse.

      And I don’t stop there. (And neither should you!) I also give my customers choices as to how they want me to communicate with them. Do they want me to call them? Email them? Text them? Follow me on social media?

      Research shows that while it may take days for someone to finally listen to their voice messages and hours to check on and respond to their emails, reading and responding to texts or posts are almost instantaneous. How are YOU choosing to stay in touch with your customers? The way that’s best for YOU or best for THEM? Don’t forget who is most important! THEM!

      So? Back to my book. I put my money where my mouth is and made this as social media-friendly as possible.

      As you make your way through the book, you will notice that I’ve pulled out tons of great “sound bites” that you can use on your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. But hey, the sky’s the limit. Feel free to share them via email, in a phone conversation, or even a handwritten note! (I still love snail mail once in a while, don’t you? I wonder if anyone even knows cursive anymore…)

      Oh, and for the Twitter maniacs in the crowd—no worries! I’ve already done the math and made sure that there are lots of ready-to-go Tweets under the 140-character limit with a rocking hashtag so you can ReTweet to your heart’s content.

      Are you scratching your head and saying, “A WHAT?” A hashtag is a means of identifying a keyword or topic in Twitter so you can connect with like-minded people and continue to discuss a subject that interests you. It’s formed by using the pound sign (#) followed by one or more words—and no spaces! Twitter messages have to be 140 characters or fewer, so you have to keep it short. See? You’ve learned a lot already!

      One great thing about Twitter? It’s short, sweet, and to the point! (Kind of a refreshing change of pace from some of the long copy we’ve seen so much of over the last few years!)

       Why did I change the format of thebook? To illustrate the importanceof social media and tech changes intoday’s world.

      GET THIS! At the time Facebook went public and announced their IPO, they had more than 900 MILLION users around the globe and boasted more than 526 million DAILY users. Twitter statistics at the same time tell us that members were sending more than 175 MILLION Tweets per DAY! Since then, we’ve added in growing technology platforms like Pinterest and Foursquare with a wide spectrum of business applications, followed by hundreds and thousands of new platforms that are being developed every month (forget every year—that’s TOO SLOW to meet the demand of our instant-communication-hungry society).

       Technology is moving at lightning speed.

      That’s why you have to start somewhere. Things are moving so fast that if you CHOOSE to stay behind now, you may never catch up. Much easier to just keep learning a little bit at a time, step by step.

      What’s the latest? Now sales professionals are adding QR codes to their business cards so that their valued clients, with the push of a button, can launch an app (application) on their smartphones to browse the latest offerings on the Web or—better yet—add their salesperson’s contact information directly into their phones. In fact, one of the world’s LEADERS in customer sales and service excellence, Nordstrom, was a front runner in adopting these new trends. So it’s safe to say that to be successful in sales, you’d better keep up with the leaders in your industry! Better yet... BE THE LEADER IN YOUR INDUSTRY!

      In fact, here’s my QR code! Try it out. Easy-breezy. It will take you straight to my website, where I continuously add fun quizzes, articles, blogs, and other amazing resources that you and folks just like you can dive right into and keep learning!

      Remember, great SALES is about staying connected and making it EASY for your customers to work with you, remember you, see you as a resource for the long-term, and RAVE about you to their friends and family.

      You can create your own as well. Do a Google search for QR code creators, and take your pick! Most applications are free, and you can download them to use in all of your marketing material!

      If you haven’t noticed QR codes before, start paying attention. You’ll find them pretty much EVERYWHERE these days! Not only on business cards but on car magnets, sign riders for real estate agents, brochures at the doctor’s office, magazine ads, movie posters, restaurant menus, even labels on some of your favorite products in your grocery and retail stores! It’s a fast and effective way to take people from PAPER to online resources—and it’s evolving amazingly fast. Smart sales pros are keeping up!

      And if you’re selling to WOMEN? Studies show that women are RARELY EVER more than five feet from their phone. Think about that one for a minute. Their cell phone is almost glued to their hand 24/7. So making it easy for them to connect via their phone is HUGE.

      Throughout the book you’ll note that communication is a key part of what will propel you to be successful as a sales professional, not just today but in the years to come. Conversely, those who are UNWILLING to keep up won’t stand a chance. I always tell people who are stuck in “the way things always were” that successful SALES requires an imagination going far beyond what the customer can imagine. Status quo? Move aside! Change? Bring it on! Technology? No problem! You’ve got this!

      These are exciting times to live in. But it’s all about your CHOICE of perspective. You can be FEARFUL of change and fight to keep things as they are. Be grumpy and complain about innovative new ideas. Dig your heels in, and fight to keep things status quo. And then watch as your sales drop, customers change over to your competitor, and you are left wondering what happened.

      Or how about this INSTEAD? Be absolutely FEARLESS in your quest to learn new skills. Technologies. Strategies. Ideas. Sales opportunities. We have more information in one Sunday’s New York Times than our grandparents had available in a lifetime. Wow! So, want to be at the top of your game in your industry? Grab every opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

      If there was ever a time to differentiate yourself as a major player and a force to be reckoned with, it is now.

      Are you ready to out-perform the competition? Out-think old ideas? Out-shine past performance? Out-maneuver anyone who says it can’t be done?

      Then you are ready to take SALES to a whole new level! Plus, you have a winning attitude worth its weight in gold.

      So? Ready to get down to the nitty-gritty of what women really want when it comes to SALES? Let’s do this!