By Amy Fox

Sales representatives and business owners know what it’s like to go to networking meetings, make cold calls, and knock on doors to find new business leads. While these traditional methods can produce results, online social networking offers an additional strategy for nurturing sales and growing your business. In fact, these days, if you’re not using social networking tools, you’re missing out on a wealth of untapped opportunities that your competitors are taking advantage of. But you won’t get much out of social networking if you’re not using it strategically and integrating these tools into your day-to-day selling efforts. Here is some crucial advice about rethinking social networking and four key steps for using it to cultivate sales: be willing to try something new, digitize your contacts, earn conversations, and maximize your time spent on social networking.

Where are your sales @?

1) Try Something New: The first step is to change your thinking and your behavior. This means being willing and fully committed to trying new techniques that you likely haven’t used before. You’ll get the best results if you completely integrate your new social networking habits into your day-to-day business – it won’t do much good if you use it only once to fill out your profile. Invest at least one hour a week in finding new ways to meet and engage with people on a social networking site such as LinkedIn.

2) Digitize Your Contacts: A lot of people have a substantial collection of business cards and only work from that rolodex to nurture sales. But utilizing only these first-level connections limits you to a one-dimensional pool of contacts. Now is the time to connect your rolodex to your computer and digitize those contacts! Take advantage of the power of social networking by building a community online. Search for people you know in LinkedIn and/or Twitter, then request to connect to them. Once you’ve connected to all the people you know, leverage those first-level connections and let them work for you – see who they’re connected to and use those connections to get into an account and build relationships.

When finding others to connect to, try to balance quality and quantity – you can’t (and shouldn’t) connect to everyone in the world. To be successful, you need to feel comfortable communicating with second and third-level connections. If your first-level connections aren’t solid, your second and third-level contacts won’t be as powerful or prosperous.

3. Earn Conversations: Connecting to others online doesn’t mean much without the actual sales conversation – and you still have to earn this. But when you use social networking the right way, it’s easier to earn the right for a sales conversation because you can leverage your existing contacts. Ask first-level connections to make introductions with prospects and to provide you with information about them. Then use this advantage, as well as information from the prospect’s profile, to start building a relationship. You’ll end up having warmer, friendlier calls which will condense your sales cycle. This saves you time and increases your chances of success because you’re not starting at ground zero.

Keep in mind that your conversations will be much more productive if you’ve seen each other’s profiles first. Make sure your profile is complete and that your Web site links work – people are much more reluctant today to talk on the phone with you if your credibility doesn’t check out online.

4. Maximize Your Time: The time you spend on social networking for business development will vary depending on your role and responsibilities. Sales representatives, marketing professionals, recruiters, and business owners will likely spend more time prospecting, sharing and gathering information, monitoring their brand, and marketing their products and services online than other professionals. But no matter your role, devote time to social networking on a regular basis, and make it a focused effort.

A good strategy is to set specific goals or outcomes in order to keep focused. Make a decision to spend a minimum of 30 minutes to an hour every day or every week on online social networking activities. During this regularly scheduled time, concentrate on updating your profile(s), looking through the Companies tab in LinkedIn, finding connections to leverage, browsing group discussions for potential leads or to start a discussion, and exploring the Answers tab in LinkedIn to answer or ask appropriate questions in your field or target area. Whatever you do, make a committed, consistent effort to use this time productively. You’ll get as much out of it as you put in.

Selling isn’t easy, especially in a challenging economy. To be successful, sales professionals and business owners need to be able to use social networking tools effectively. Decide today to make a commitment to nurture this opportunity – just as you would with face-to-face and traditional prospecting methods. Cultivate the process through digital efforts by keeping your profile updated, using the search functions available to you, and monitoring and participating in groups. If you devote yourself to social networking wholeheartedly, you’ll quickly begin to see positive outcomes and increased results.

To learn how to maximize your sales with LinkedIn, check out the Social Networking for Business Development course at www.SellMoreStore.com.

About the Author: Amy Fox, 35, is a mother of three boys ages 1 to 4 and CEO of Accelerated Business Results. The native of Greenfield, MA, started Cincinnati-based ABR in 2001. She is also co-founder with Kendra Ramirez of SellMoreStore.com. Contact Amy at sales@acceleratedbr.com. Visit www.sellmorestore.com to learn more.