Does promoting your business on this site and others really result in sales?

I am new to the social networking arena, and have been putting a lot of time and energy in getting my companies name out there. I was trained in the old school of cold calling, and it has worked wonders for me thus far. Now, I hear about this new technique, and I have decided to give it a try. I have joined this group, facebook, twitter, linked in...bought face book ad space, updated our website to include social bookmarking along with making the site much more functional for online ordering. So with all this will I increase my sales?? What are your thoughts?

Jennifer Foley
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Foley Business Forms & Print Solutions
www.foleybf.com

Tags: networking, printing, products, promotional, social

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Permalink Reply by Linda Marie on December 9, 2008 at 1:40am: I have spent my life in sales in one form or another. I have a story I always tell people just starting out about when I was in Salt Lake City Utah. I was 23 and stupid and working for an architectural marketing firm. I had 2 appointments 4 blocks apart. I decided in my 5 inch heals I would walk. The blocks are 1/4 mile long in Salt Lake and that day in my winter white suit I was walking out of my first appointment and it was pouring not just rain ICE and rain. By the time I got to my second appointment and was a mile from my car I was soaked and my feet were bleeding. I walked in and asked to use the phone and called a cab to get back to my car. I spent an entire day and my $200 designer suit and very expensive shoes were trash now and the cab ride cost me about $20 and I lost the client I blew off.

Today I can be in contact with hundreds of people and work one on one with the ones who are interested on their time and not mine and save my designer clothes for having fun.

Blessings and Light

Linda Marie; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Frank Freitas on December 10, 2008 at 10:51am: Thank you for all your help so far. My internet business is very slow and I appreciate any help about affliate marketing websites that you can give. I know everyone here is very knowledgeable. I am really looking for infor pertaining to just affiliate websites for free. I am a college student and I don't have a huge budget at all. I would appreciate every little tip I can get. Please keep it short because I take every comment very seriously. Thank you very much.

sincerely,

Frank Freitas; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Dave Capra on December 10, 2008 at 2:18pm: I've made it so when people search my name on the net they are able to find my personal phone number.
You can't be a spammer if you are someone who is willing to put their personal phone number on the web can you?

I have a friend of 10 years who I have not met in person. We talk on the phone all the time. We share ideas and support one another.

I have young people just starting out call me just to talk without any intention of buying anything from me. They are seeking the opinion and support of an experienced mature adult.

Friendship and support goes a long way. Sales may not come today or even tomorrow but they will come.

http://www.beamericasbest.blogspot.com/ (P.S. my phone number is listed there, feel free to call); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paradise on December 12, 2008 at 1:54am: I also agree with everyone's thoughts. Building relationships is key. Finding like minded people and mentors to learn from is important as well. Everything else you desire will eventually fall into place.

Shellye Williams
Founder/Executive Director
National Business Women Enterprise Network; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by dieter behrentin on December 12, 2008 at 5:15am: it can help but should be seen as a additional tool to promote your business, nothing more & nothing less; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Greg Digneo on December 12, 2008 at 1:00pm: Hi Jennifer,

This is my first day at sta.rtup.biz and I was wondering the same question. Clearly with the responses that you've been given, the resounding choice is to build relationships. Thanks for posting this discussion.

Greg; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aadil on December 12, 2008 at 3:14pm: Hi Jennifer,

Firtsly Im proud of you and your positive outlook towards life.
Yes. it would help u surely to increase ur sales/income/wealth.....

Im lookin for direct client to outsource there co. or if they can get compnaies campaigns to be outsourcd in call center industry. if you think you can be the one then e can havea very large biz in BPO industry.

we can discuss more in this aspect if u choose too.

My email id is below.

Best Regards,
Aadil
aadil_tayabee@yahoo.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aadil on December 12, 2008 at 3:17pm: Hi Frank,

Proud of you tat at this age ur looking to move forward in life and make it big in life.
For sure u will make it sucessfully. email mail directly and will reply u on it.
Best regards,

Aadil
aadil_tayabee@yahoo.com; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kali Kunkle on December 12, 2008 at 9:57pm

Hi Jennifer,

Now THAT is the question of the week, isn't it? ;-)

The advice already offered here seems very sound, in my opinion. (As I am seeing consistently on this site.)

The thing I am wrestling with personally is the ROI on time/effort spent on social and business networking, versus the return I might realize through other channels (meaning: by spending my time on other efforts, perhaps more directly related to marketing or sales).

Being relatively new to social/business networking, I don't have answers yet, but I believe I am asking the right questions and exploring options. We (my husband Mike and I) only have so many hours in the day, and Mike still has a very demanding and time-consuming "day-gig."

Those with more experience here will have better feedback about this, but my early impression is that this site may offer more potential mileage for B2B than B2C(?). At the same time, I stand to gain and learn from interacting with other successful small business owners, so the real gain from my participation here may not be monetary, and frankly, that may turn out to be both true, and acceptable. For example, I found an article on another blog where someone was quoting this site's CEO, and the advice in that article was stunningly solid and valuable. That's how I ended up here in the first place.

I’m not sure I've truly answered your question, Jennifer, or that I'll have an answer for some time to come. But the importance of this site might not be what we sell, but what we learn from each other that fuels us to sell more elsewhere.

For me, while I am experimenting elsewhere with social networking, the jury is even further out for facebook, Stumbled, Digg, and others (and I can't quite bring myself to Twitter (verb) yet. ;-) So far, our greatest traffic has resulted from Google and facebook ads and our greatest sales activity has come from our in-person networking. (We have made some wonderful and valuable contacts on LinkedIn as well.)

By the way –an interesting sidebar - today we participated in a WebEx presentation with a new company called NextBee.com. They offer Web 2.0 widget functionality that allows users to rate items (like on Amazon) and virally recommend your site or specific products or purchases to others in their social/business networks. This seems like a phenomenal way to capitalize on the power of social networking to actually sell products. The owners of this company have already built and sold one dot-com and we'd predict (where is that crystal ball again?) that NextBee will be very successful. If you'd like an introduction to their sales rep or owner (we're connected to him on LinkedIn), just let me know.

I'll close with one last thought. My husband is a Jim Collins' "Good to Great" fan. I forget what he calls it exactly, but Collins mentions a flywheel concept in his book. The general concept is this... you press on, doing the right activity repeatedly, moving forward at a steady pace. As you do that, it's like pushing a gigantic flywheel. At first it takes a lot of effort, turns slowly, crawling forward - and it really tires you out. As you trudge on, pushing forward, the mythical "flywheel" continues to turn, building momentum. Eventually, it takes almost no effort to push forward, and this massive flywheel has incredible momentum and you are going along for the ride. I have a sense that we may be starting to push the flywheel now. Whether I'm right or not, will remain to be seen... but I'm pushing away for all I'm worth for now! ;-)

Hope these thoughts might help in some way, Jennifer. Thanks for a really thoughtful question and best of luck with your "flywheel!”

Kali
_______________________
Kali Kunkle
DreamWorthy Gifts LLC
Kali@DreamWorthyGifts.com
www.DreamWorthyGifts.com

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Permalink Reply by Kali Kunkle on December 12, 2008 at 10:02pm: Dave,

I will probably spend the rest of the night trying to convince people that this isn't a paid endorsement :-), but I checked out your blog and you offer some great advice there. Thanks for that.

Kali
_______________________
Kali Kunkle
DreamWorthy Gifts LLC
Kali@DreamWorthyGifts.com
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Permalink Reply by Pittsburgh SEO Marketing on December 14, 2008 at 4:25pm: Not only do I love meeting talented and interesting people, I find social networking to be one of the most cost effective and results driven methods of obtaining exposure, rankings for websites, fostering relations and over all business.

Sincerely,
Lea Charlton
Pittsburgh SEO
Internet Success ROCKS; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Oscar on December 16, 2008 at 6:14pm

I think you have made some very good moves. All of the things you have done will be effective in getting more people/visitors to your business. Also, since you have made your website more functional for online ordering, you will see some positive results. It may take a bit of time for everything to start working, but it will start.

Oscar
Crystal Images USA
Crystal Gifts, Crystal Wedding Gifts, Crystal Keepsakes, Crystal Awards

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