How Twitter Can Help You Close Sales

There’s no shortage of web pages telling you how Twitter can generate you thousands of sales leads while you sleep.

This isn’t one of them.

However, I do want to share an incident that opened my eyes to how Twitter can be used to help you close sales.

What we’re selling

We sell easy to use accounting software direct to small businesses. As it’s relatively low-cost and there’s no tie in, it’s not cost effective to undertake any direct selling. We do however sell another product direct to accountants. There’s a free 30 day trial so it’s a relatively long sales cycle.

Closing

I think timing is important to closing a sale. If you can interact with a potential customer at a point where they’re feeling good about your product then it’ll increase your chances of closing that sale. If you can get them when they’re not rushed off their feet, then even better.

My Twitter Setup

If you use Twitter and only access it via the Twitter website then you’re only seeing a fraction of what it can do for you.You should use a tool like Tweetdeck.
I have Tweetdeck set up to alert me whenever anyone in the Twitterverse mentions certain keywords, “KashFlow” being one of them.

How Twitter Helped

So when accountant and fellow twitterer Will Farnell posted:

Another 2 Positive client meetings mean Kashflow Online Bookkeeping seems the way to go, another proactive service offering to our clients

I knew about it in seconds.

I ignored the effect on my blood pressure from the lower-case F in “Kashflow” and took a quick look at our CRM. I could see he’s currently trialing the accountants software and my colleague Michelle is looking after him. So I let her know what he’d just said, she picks up the phone, he picks up his credit card and everyone is happy.

Thanks to Twitter, Michelle got to speak to Will at a time when he was feeling positive about our offering (as the tweet shows) and  when he wasn’t rushed off his feet (as he had time to post on Twitter).

I don’t doubt that Will would have bought our product of his  own volition eventually anyway (most accountants do after taking the free trial), but from my perspective, the sooner leads can be converted into sales, the better.

And also the sooner Will can make Twitter posts like this:

Six clients switching to KashFlow from “Big Name” software, a good couple of days work, clients astonished by the simplicity

You’ll notice the correct capitalisation of the F.

So whilst admittedly this was a bit of a fluke, it came about because I was monitoring Twitter for certain keywords. You can do the same or, if you want to be a real stalker, you can monitor specific people you are working with to see what they’re up to to calculate when to call them to progress the sale.

Where to now?

If you’re a small business owner, perhaps one of our thousands of existing customers, and want a web-savvy, dynamic accountant then check out Farnell Clarke. Mention this blog and Will might even cut you a deal on the KashFlow subscription price : ) 

If you’re an accountant wanting to know more about Twitter from your perspective, then read Mark Lee’s Twitter for accountants blog posts.

If you’re an accountant wanting to be able to provide a web-based accounting application to your clients whist having greater control and oversight of ther books, request a demo.

       

Tags: Marketing, Twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 11:14 am and is filed under Small Business, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.