Does your B2B company struggle with how to approach the often overwhelming world of social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)? On one hand, you know you should be doing it. (“Everyone is doing it.”) But on the other, you’re not sure your professional clients will get it and/or participate in it.

We’ve been promoting our presence on social media sites quite a bit. We understand that some of our clients or potential clients (i.e., CEOs of small-to-medium-sized companies) may not buy into it yet, and that’s OK. But we’re about looking forward, not back. If we only looked at what has worked in the past, social media wouldn’t make much sense.

Looking forward, it’s not difficult to see the impact social media will make and already is making-especially in the business world. To put it into perspective: what if someone told you 12 years ago that a company website didn’t make sense? Well, this is just the next step.

We’ve become an interactive society. People don’t just want to read about your product. They want to try it, see pictures, make suggestions on how it could be better, forward it to their friends, Tweet about it, and subscribe to your feeds to make sure they like what you’re selling. Saying that your customer isn’t part of what is becoming the societal norm is like saying children don’t like candy. Well, maybe a minority don’t, but if you’re selling candy, which ones are you targeting? (By the way, here’s a ridiculous list of C-level Twitter users.)

It’s not enough to simply dip your toe into the proverbial social media water. If you have taken the plunge, promote it to show you’re in touch with current modes of communication-especially if you’re a B2B company. We feature icons to our social media pages on the bottom of our homepage, along the sidebars inside the website and blog, and on our social media web page.

What networks is your company on? How do you promote it?

Times are tough, the economy is struggling, and your customers just aren’t buying.  So what do you do?

Let’s take a hard look at your sales and marketing processes to find the top ten ways you can close more sales:

1. Increase Your Customer’s Life-Time Value (LTV).
   How profitable your customers are over time defines your LTV and is a key component of your strategic growth.  Companies spend ten times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.  Your current customers already know you, which means they are more likely to purchase from you again, spend more money with you, and therefore are likely to be more profitable.  If you don’t know your LTV, then how do you know how much money to spend and on which customer segment?
2. Improve Your Demand Forecasting.
   Every customer buys on a cycle. So this means you should track cycle times and variance to increase the accuracy of your forecasting and the loyalty of your customers.  If you don’t know when your customers need to reorder, then you may just lose them when the time comes for them to reorder.
3. Increase Your Sales Cycle Efficiency.
   There is an old sales adage that time kills deals.  The speed at which each prospect converts into a customer and the number of prospects required for conversion determines your sales cycle efficiency.  So ask yourself – are you taking the right steps to measure and reduce lost sales?
4. Improve Your Follow-up.
   Only about two percent (2%) of sales occur on the first contact.  Eighty percent (80%) of your sales will require five to eight contacts or touches of some type before you close the sale.  In other words, if you are contacting the prospect less than five times or more than eight times, then you could have a problem with follow-up in your sales process.
5. Increase Your Company’s Awareness.
   To keep the sales pipeline full of good quality leads you must continuously increase the awareness of your company and the solutions that it provides. Public relations is more efficient at building awareness than advertising, yet many companies spend wildly on advertising and trade shows while neglecting to fund public relations efforts. Increase your name recognition, not your budget.  Use more cost effective public relations.
6. Improve Your Lead Quality.
   Do you have methods in place to measure the conversion potential of each lead?  Lead qualification activities should pre-qualify every lead to ensure you take the right follow-up actions for the marketing offer. Strong leads produce strong sales.
7. Develop Your Lead Generation Process.
   Lead generation is a process, not an event.  So you need to ensure that you have a regular stream of article publishing (blog) activities occurring.  In today’s web 2.0 connected world, you should be using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn to increase your exposure and connect to your community.
8. Reduce Your Sales Discounting.
   Discounts represent deficiencies in your sales & marketing processes, which means you should be careful how often you discount. Instead, look for the root cause of your sales or marketing deficiency and you will reduce the need to discount. Customers believe opportunity costs outweigh operating costs. If you show your customers your value (more marketing), they won’t focus so much on price.
9. Train Your Sales and Marketing Personnel.
   Provide your sales and marketing people with more regular formal training.  Arming them with better product knowledge, as well as presentation, negotiation and selling skills, will improve their effectiveness and boost both employee morale and your bottom line – a win-win for everybody.
10. Understand the Problem You are Solving.
    Know what problem you are solving (as the customer sees it) to create an accurate value proposition.  Don’t pretend to understand the customer… ask them.  Obtain the voice of the customer through interviews, focus groups, and real two-way communication.  Ask probing questions to ensure that you have an accurate definition of your product.  Remember, a product encompasses everything that customers experience, including all the people the customer comes in contact with to make up the experience itself.