This image of an old Radio Shack circular from 1991 is shared and talked about quite heavily online these days.
Take a look at some of the items for sale; it should make you chuckle. Take a look at this haul: answering machines for $50 with the old cassette tapes, computers for over $1500, camcorders, CD players, etc. It’s as if we’ve reached an electronic gadget twilight zone.
If you add up all the items in that picture, it’s well over $3,000.
So what’s the point of all of this?
Think about each one of those technologies. They can now all be found in these simple devices and all for less than $500.
Can you imagine us as a society carrying around all those products when we don’t have to? Would anyone really opt to buy and use 10 individual and separate products when you can just get everything in a smart phone? Of course not!
Prospecting Like It’s 1991
This is why the way we prospect today doesn’t make any sense. Our community is not going to get ahead and move forward if we cling to what worked 20+ years ago. We’ve advanced so much with the advent of the internet and social media technologies, but as a sales community we choose to avoid and ignore the advancements in our industry.
Think about the irony: we sell the latest and greatest of (insert your product/service here) and yet we choose to sell to them in the most old school way possible.
What’s the Solution?
The solution is a mix of a lot of things. I can’t tell you what type of prospecting will work for you entirely. But what I can say is that you need a way to at least supplement a little bit of social selling into your day. No one is asking you to revolutionize the way you’re prospecting today, but it may help to evolve into the next phase…little by little.
If you’re wondering if social selling works, don’t wonder long. The proof and signs are all around us. Need some stories from B2B sales people who do this day in and day out? Look no further than right here.
The Bottom Line
I’m not saying that cold calling will have the same demise as Radio Shack. But what I am saying is that if you purport to be modern and advanced, you can’t ignore that a good chunk of your buyers are now going online to do research and get information about what you do, who you are, and what others are saying about you. Let’s not kid anyone, you and I do the same thing.
It’s time to bring some social selling into our lives. It can only help.
If you have questions on prospecting with social selling or want to hear stories about my first computer that had 133 MHz RAM, feel free to pick a time in my calendar below.
