Turn Contacts into Opportunity - Fill the Funnel

Turn Contacts into Opportunity

Every successful SalesMaker I have ever known has built a substantial contact database.  It is protected and kept away from the eyes  of peers, bosses and company executives with a passion.  What used to be found in a Rolodex is now housed in LinkedIn, Jigsaw, Outlook and/or your favored sales CRM tool.  Wherever it is housed, those contactsNew MyWay Logo are usually the most prized asset of a SalesMaker.  People are recruited and hired because of them, legal battles over non-compete agreements are fought over them, and they always hold promise for future business.  These contacts are most  often customers, but also contain business partners, manufacturers, fellow employees and even competitors.

I have been exploring an intriguing new Web Tool that combines the many advantages of social networking and the contacts that you have accumulated.  MyWay Interactive has announced the availability of Reach, a social network for sales professionals and small business owners.  Reach provides live secure connections between salespeople for the trading of qualified leads.  Reach provides a secure platform to “trade” leads  with other sales professionals that are in a non-competitive or complimentary role.

Using Reach, salespeople and small business owners are able to immediately generate greater sales revenues and expand their number of qualified leads while building collaboration networks with other sales and business professionals.  Sales people can now conduct business at new levels of productivity using the collective account knowledge of thousands of sales peers.

Here is a brief overview of how MyWayInteractive’s Reach works:

  1. You have contacts within companies.
  2. You would like to obtain new contacts within your target prospects and current customers.
  3. There are many other non-competitive or complimentary SalesMakers engaged within the same account from other companies.
  4. There are manufacturer reps engaged within the same accounts.
  5. You can search the database for a contact within a specific company.
  6. The name and contact information is NOT provided at this point
  7. You initiate a trade of contact information with the owner of that contact for a contact that you have that they would like.

Examples:  If you are selling copiers into Company X, others are selling Computers, office supplies, recruiting services, and numerous other advisory services to them at the same time.  There are manufacturer reps from most of the major companies calling on the same company.  Would it be beneficial for all to share contacts with each other?  You are not competing with each other.  In many scenarios you are not even crossing paths.  How about the ability to create a private “network” of these same people to collaborate?

Another scenario that holds great promise is for a very large, multi-divisional sales organization.  The company will have various sales teams for printers, computers, servers, infrastructure, storage, software, services, leasing and even recycling.  How useful would it be to share information and contacts effortlessly with each other?

Reach is a hosted,  free service that includes:

  • Personal web based contact manager
  • Sales trading partner locator
  • Exchange engine for anonymous trading
  • Secure network for information exchange
  • Easy integration of your LinkedIn contacts
  • Fast, responsive customer support if you have a question

You can create an account easily by visiting MyWay Interactive and signing up for the free Beta account.

Create your account, load some of your contacts, search for some of your desired contacts and trade contacts with others.  Let me know what you think of the experience.

Greg - 13 years ago

Interesting comments about salespeople protecting these contacts. I wonder whether this might change as firms like Jigsaw seek to share these contact between anyone and collect a brokerage fee. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and over time people realize that it is difficult to protect information. That said, I am not sure that (if I were a salesperson) I would type the direct number of my hottest new sales opportunity into Salesforce.com out of concern that via sharing it I would end up in the calling list of my competitor. Why not wait until the deal was signed and THEN share?

And it is not just competitive products/services. Any salespeorson competing for budget from the same decision-maker is making your life more difficult. Why make their life easier. The direct number might well make the difference between them connecting the DM or not.

Steven Burda, MBA - 13 years ago

Great post – thanks!!

– Steven Burda

Sales 2.0 Linkfest | Weekend Reading — Chad Levitt New Sales Economy Blog - 13 years ago

[…] Turn Contacts Into Opportunity by Miles Austin […]

scotta458 - 14 years ago

Joy; that’s exactly the idea! By recieving a contact from another non-competitive sales person who knows the person you are trying to meet you get many benefits over a name you buy from one of the list companies. First; the name is profiled with their interests, hobbies, etc. Second; you are automatically linked in a virtual chat room with your trade partner so you can ask him/her about the contact….what is their purchase authority, how do they like to interact, etc? Perhaps your trade partner will even introduce you! So yes; it’s all about warming the leads up! I’d be happy to walk you through the system; just email me at scott@mywayinteractive.com and we’ll set up a time.

Regards,
Scott

Joy Johnson - 14 years ago

Very interesting. Are these contacts intended to be warm contacts as in Brian Jones gave me your contact info and suggested I call… A warm contact can make all the difference in getting in the door,

Miles Austin - 14 years ago

You gotta’ love the interaction between Scott and the Team at MyWayInteractive and all of you. This level of response and interaction is what Web 2.0 and Sales 2.0 is all about. It also demonstrates that our readers and their opinions are very important to these companies.

scotta458 - 14 years ago

Ed, Jacob & Paul; We conduct bi-weekly webinars to walk new users through the system. We’d love to have you join! The specifics are on our Web page. Ed; I’ll give you a call early this week to have a discussion.

Regards,
Scott

Ed Roberson - 14 years ago

Interesting concept. I see a number of real world applications for project I’m working with. Drop me a line at your convenience to discuss details if you’d like.

Ed Roberson
801-597-8980

scotta458 - 14 years ago

Paul; Reach is compatible with any language. Of course the screens will be in English (at least for now); but your input to the dialogs can be in any language. Fell free to go to MyWay’s site at http://www.mywayinteractive.com to get your own account…it’s free of charge.

Regards,
Scott Anderson
MyWay Interactive

ohana - 14 years ago

Sounds interesting
do you have a french version?
Paul

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