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Author: David Fisher

David J.P. Fisher (also known as D. Fish) is a speaker, coach, and author of 7 books, including the best-selling Hyper-Connected Selling and Networking in the 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks and What to Do About It.

David’s goal is to help salespeople (and everyone else who has to influence others) understand the new landscape of Hyper-Connected Selling, where social media, networking, and old-school sales and communication skills are the key to providing value and staying relevant.

• As a keynote speaker, David addresses the rapidly changing sales environment and the ways that salespeople of all stripes can harness the power of digital communication and inter-personal relationships to become Sales Sherpas™. Whether an internal team or a group of outside professionals, he walks through the path to success in a Hyper-Connected World.
• He also delivers workshops that focus on the practical skills necessary for success in today’s sales environment: LinkedIn social selling, personal branding, networking, 21st century prospecting, and closing skills.
• David is also available for 1:1 and group coaching for top salespeople, entrepreneurs, and business owners. He specializes in helping professionals create clarity in their communication, intention in their execution, and engagement in their goals.

Building on 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and sales professional, David combines nuanced strategy and real-world tactics to help professionals become more effective, efficient, and engaged.  He lives in Evanston, IL – next to a huge cemetery which helps him appreciate the value of every day.|David J.P. Fisher (also known as D. Fish) is a speaker, coach, and author of 7 books, including the best-selling Hyper-Connected Selling and Networking in the 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks and What to Do About It.

David’s goal is to help salespeople (and everyone else who has to influence others) understand the new landscape of Hyper-Connected Selling, where social media, networking, and old-school sales and communication skills are the key to providing value and staying relevant.

• As a keynote speaker, David addresses the rapidly changing sales environment and the ways that salespeople of all stripes can harness the power of digital communication and inter-personal relationships to become Sales Sherpas™. Whether an internal team or a group of outside professionals, he walks through the path to success in a Hyper-Connected World.
• He also delivers workshops that focus on the practical skills necessary for success in today’s sales environment: LinkedIn social selling, personal branding, networking, 21st century prospecting, and closing skills.
• David is also available for 1:1 and group coaching for top salespeople, entrepreneurs, and business owners. He specializes in helping professionals create clarity in their communication, intention in their execution, and engagement in their goals.

Building on 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and sales professional, David combines nuanced strategy and real-world tactics to help professionals become more effective, efficient, and engaged.  He lives in Evanston, IL – next to a huge cemetery which helps him appreciate the value of every day.|David J.P. Fisher (also known as D. Fish) is a speaker, coach, and author of 7 books, including the best-selling Hyper-Connected Selling and Networking in the 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks and What to Do About It.

David’s goal is to help salespeople (and everyone else who has to influence others) understand the new landscape of Hyper-Connected Selling, where social media, networking, and old-school sales and communication skills are the key to providing value and staying relevant.

• As a keynote speaker, David addresses the rapidly changing sales environment and the ways that salespeople of all stripes can harness the power of digital communication and inter-personal relationships to become Sales Sherpas™. Whether an internal team or a group of outside professionals, he walks through the path to success in a Hyper-Connected World.
• He also delivers workshops that focus on the practical skills necessary for success in today’s sales environment: LinkedIn social selling, personal branding, networking, 21st century prospecting, and closing skills.
• David is also available for 1:1 and group coaching for top salespeople, entrepreneurs, and business owners. He specializes in helping professionals create clarity in their communication, intention in their execution, and engagement in their goals.

Building on 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and sales professional, David combines nuanced strategy and real-world tactics to help professionals become more effective, efficient, and engaged.  He lives in Evanston, IL – next to a huge cemetery which helps him appreciate the value of every day.

Categories
Personal Development Sales

How to Sell in an “On-Demand” World

When I was growing up in a big family during the 80s and 90s, we would gather around the TV once or twice a week to watch whatever sitcoms were popular.  It might have been Roseanne, Full House, Family Ties, Grace Under Fire, or the like.

We grabbed our snacks and whatever seat was available.  It was a family ritual, because that day and time was the only opportunity to watch the show!

Now, because of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu and online platforms like Youtube, we can watch shows whenever we want.  Our TV has become “on-demand” and we expect to be entertained whenever we want to be.

Buying is Now “On-Demand”

The internet has fundamentally changed more than just how people watch television.  It has changed how we access and use information in general.  This has had a big impact on the buying process, and it’s why the sales process also has to evolve.

The buying process used to be full of information asymmetry: The sellers has a lot more information than the buyers.  And therefore the buyers didn’t have easy access to the insights they needed to make the best decisions.

They were at the mercy of salespeople.  That’s why “interruption sales” techniques worked.  The buyer had to act when they had a salesperson giving them more or better information.  If you were a buyer, there was a legitimate chance that the person cold calling you might actually have a solution that you didn’t know about.

Since buyers can now get all of the information they need with a simple Google search, the playing field as been leveled.  They can now move through their buying journey at their own pace and when they want.  The buying process has become “on-demand” as well.

In fact, transactional sales where the traditional sales techniques worked is rapidly being overtaken by automation and AI.  Why should a buyer be at the whims of a salesperson when they can go to a robust web platform, get their questions answered, and place an order?

Buyers Buy When They’re Ready

Salespeople don’t have the control like they did in the past.  They don’t have the same ability to push and pull prospects like they did in the past.  The modern salesperson has to recognize this shift in the dynamic between buyer and seller.  It’s no longer effective to simply urge the buyer to operate on the seller’s schedule.

That doesn’t mean that the salesperson isn’t valuable.  In fact, they’re more important than ever.

But their role has shifted.  Now, it’s critical that they provide guidance for their prospects and customers as they go through their own buying journey.  Research shows that buyers are doing a lot more research before they ever engage with a salesperson.

In this world, salespeople don’t find success by pushing and bothering their prospect.  Instead, success comes when they position themselves as a guide: as a Sales Sherpa™ to lead them through the unknowns and obstacles in the buying journey.  They want to be seen as someone who can help give context and meaning to all of the information out there.  Buyers don’t necessarily know how to make sense of all of the blog articles, white papers, and review videos available “on-demand” to make the best buying decision.

3 Ways to Leverage the On-Demand Sales Landscape

To stay relevant in the on-demand economy, modern salespeople need to become the go-to resources for their prospects and customers.  Here are three ways you can find success in this environment:

1. Position Yourself as an Expert

If you are just a brochure-deliverer and order-taker, you aren’t adding to your prospects’ buying journey.  You want to position yourself as an expert in your field that can answer their questions.  Consistently add to your knowledge base and personal network so you have access to the connections your buyers need.  And offer that information freely and openly so that you are seen as a knowledgeable advisor.

2. Invest in Relationships for the Long-Term

When you first approach a prospect, they might not need what you are offering.  That doesn’t mean that they will never need your products and services.  The goal is to ensure that you are the person they contact when they are ready to make a purchasing decision.  Don’t dismiss a potential contact just because there isn’t an immediate and obvious need.  Cultivate the relationship over time so that you’ve built up trust with them when they’re ready to buy.

3. Stay Top-of-Mind

It’s important that you remain top-of-mind with your network so that you are a natural choice when people are looking for what you offer.  The goal is to create a consistent presence that keeps you on their radar. Use digital platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook to share content from your field.  Use offline relationship building opportunities like conferences and networking events to re-connect with people on an interpersonal level.  You don’t have to be their best friend, but you want to regularly remind them that you are there and available to help.

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

The Right Way to Mix Professional and Personal When You Network

Humans like putting things in categories.  Whether it is movies, music, or restaurants, it’s comfortable for us to mentally parse things into different groups. It’s one of the traits that allows us to manage a world of staggering complexity.

We also like to do it with our relationships.  We put people into relationship buckets: he’s my work colleague, she’s my friend, he’s just an acquaintance, etc.  But it’s not always as clear cut as we would like it to be.  What about a long-term client who has become a friend or a friend who you hired to work for you?

This has only been exacerbated by the advent of social networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Sure, we like to think that we can keep friends on one and business contacts on the other, but the lines get very blurry very quickly.

Doing Business with Friends

Really, social media hasn’t caused this blurring, it was always there.  It’s just made it much more obvious.

Many of us have created huge, integrated networks online.  Think of your collection of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.  It would be hard to divide these into different categories of personal, business contact, family, work friend, random person I met at a party, etc.

These integrated networks allow for a lot of cross-pollination, and that can be powerful.  In his seminal paper on network dynamics, The Strength of Weak Ties, sociologist Mark Grannovetter found that most value came from the weak connections that people had.  The impact of a relationship didn’t derive from its strength. Rather, it came from the access to new information it created.

In other words, it didn’t matter that you were best friends with everyone, what did matter is that you had a lot of connections with ties to disparate worlds.  These bridges become the conduits for new opportunities.

And many of these weak connections are in areas that aren’t traditionally business-related.  They could be friendships from your neighborhood, a civic or volunteer organization, or the religious group you belong to.  There will be a lot of overlap between your professional and personal worlds, both offline and online, and if you are savvy you can find opportunities in both.

Develop Awareness Online and Outside of the Office

So don’t shy away from having a business conversation with a friend, or feel you can’t talk about music or film with a business colleague.  Just ensure that the conversation is appropriate for the context.

My brother-in-law runs a successful real-estate firm, and I’ve done work with him and his team.  But that doesn’t mean that I walk into his office and start talking about the craziness of Thanksgiving dinner with the family.  Our relationship stays the same, but the topics of conversation vary based on where we are and what we’re doing.

By connecting your professional and personal spheres, it’s critical to ensure that your actions and behaviors work in a variety of contexts.  This is why you hear the warnings to be careful of what you post on social media sites.  You never know who is going to see a photo you post, and more importantly, you don’t know how they are going to interpret it.

When a potential employer, client, or partner can access a record of your behaviors with the click of a button, you need to ensure that your behavior won’t be held against you.  It’s the 21st century extension of the old saying that you shouldn’t talk about politics or religion in polite company.  Whether you are online, at the office, or a backyard BBQ, personal/professional networks require you to be aware of how your actions and words are perceived by a wide cross-section of people.

Be the Best You

Be aware that you have to consistently act your best.  When you are straddling different worlds, you want to be the “you” that fits into any context.  But creating that mindfulness, that awareness of the impact your words and actions will have, is the foundation of a wide and varied network.  And that breadth is the key to leveraging it to move the needle on your career.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

The Simple Mistake That is Killing Your Online Presence

We’ve all experienced the online narcissist.  The person who is constantly sharing what they are working on, where they are going, who they are going there with, and what they are eating when they get there.  And we think, “I’m so glad that I’m not like them!”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are.

It’s not always as extreme, but when I look at how professionals use digital platforms for business purposes, I find they do the exact same thing.  Salespeople brag about how good they are at hitting quota and the features of what they sell.  Executives have lists of their companies’ accomplishments and their rise through the ranks.  Everyone is talking about themselves.

Your Online Presence is Too Self-Centered

And while that’s understandable, it’s important to remember that the readers of your online profiles aren’t looking for your story.  Even though they are at your LinkedIn profile, or your website bio, or your Facebook page, they aren’t actually interested in you.

Your online visitors want to see if you can help them with a problem that they have.

They might be a vendor looking for a supplier, an employer looking for an employee, a business owner looking for a service-provider, or a host of other scenarios.  But they are looking to see if you can fit the bill of what they are looking for.  They are asking, “Can this person help me solve my challenges.”

If you spend your time online talking about how great you are, it’s very hard for them to find the answer to that question.  Would you spend your time bragging to a person if you were talking to them face-to-face?  Instead, it’s critical that you spend time talking about how you solve those problems for the people you serve.

Nobody is reading your LinkedIn profile because they couldn’t find your autobiography on Amazon.  Too often, we share what we share because it’s what we want to say.  We share what we think is important and what’s exciting to us.  That’s the wrong approach.

Your visitors need to hear about what’s important to them.

How to Approach Your Online Profiles

So switch your approach and instead of looking at your online assets as an opportunity to talk about what’s important to you, connect your experience, skillsets, and capabilities to the ways you serve your audience.  Stop thinking about what you want to say and put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What do they need to hear from you?

It can difficult to change this perspective because we are used to seeing the world from our point of view.  There’s a simple process that can help you get out of your own head:

  1. List out your professional goals.

What are you trying to accomplish right now?  Do you want a new job, a promotion, new clients?  The clearer you are about where you are trying to get, the easier it is to map out a course.

  1. Connect those goals to the audience you need to influence.

You will have many audiences online, and if you try to speak to them all, your message will be muddy.  Who are the most important people that you need to address?

  1. Imagine (or Ask) what that audience cares about and needs to hear.

If you had someone from your target audience right in front of you, what would you want to tell them?  What information do they need to engage with you?

  1. Decide where and how to share that message

The digital world can be a big place and you can’t be everywhere.  Does your audience spend their online focus on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc?  Figure that out and spend time in the same places.

  1. Share your message

Put in the effort to clearly share the message on the different platforms you’ve chosen.  Your audience can’t know anything until you share with them.  Construct your profiles, feeds, and pages to share the message that they need to hear from you.