The days of smile and dial are dead and unproductive – not to mention annoying and not much fun for the poor sales person. Instead, why not talk to your friends with re-tweets, tweets, direct messages, blog comments and more?

Somehow I have found myself in the world of sales- many find that to be a dirty word.  It does not have to be – it can be a fun exchange of ideas with your peers.  The tools of social media makes it much more fun and interesting.  Here is one of example of how I leverage Twitter on a daily basis and more specifically Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck is a wonderful Twitter client that allows you to store searches and groups of individuals.  I use this in several key ways:

• Saved Keyword Searches: I keep saved searches for key prospecting terms in my industry.  In my case, this is ’social media events’ or ’sponsorships’ or ’social media consulting’.  Whenever these key terms are mentioned in the Twittersphere, I see it and can respond appropriately.
• Prospect Groups: I store a group of prospects as an open column on Tweetdeck to easily monitor their twitter updates.  This is a great way to keep tabs on the people that are at the top end of your sales funnel.
• Customer Groups: I also keep a separate group of all of my current customers open so that I know what is happening to them at any given moment.  I can engage with them in conversations as well as help to promote their efforts.  This helps me to build lasting relationships.

Why is this better than a call and especially a cold call?  Let me give you just a few reasons:

• I am human! You can see my picture, profile background, prior conversations,  and a link to my blog for more information.  That is a lot better than caller ID on a phone.
• Trust: When I reach out to someone it is easy to see all the topics I discuss on twitter and the people I follow and follow me back.  This builds a certain degree of trust and transparency that cannot be duplicated.
• I have to behave: If my own personal edicate is bad, I can be unfollowed or blocked by the people I am trying hard to build relationships with.  The control is in their hands – I can’t just fill up their inbox or voicemail until they relent, they can litterally just remove me from their Twitter lives.  This is what makes Twitter a cool, almost self policing sales tool.  If people start behaving like ###holes and used car salespeople – Unfollow & block!

This is part two in my ongoing Sales2.0 series.  There is more to come, including an eBook.

Please share your thoughts.  How have you used Twitter in sales situations?

/colin