Imagine just for a moment you could take away the Internet from your Internet department. What would happen? Now, I don’t mean the Internet just went out because someone didn’t pay the bills and it will come back on soon, but rather if you took away the technology that helps us do our jobs. Pretend you are on an Internet sales team and ask yourself these questions:

• Could I write a handwritten letter to a customer neatly, with good grammar, spelled correctly, with a clear message, and with sincerity, IF THERE WAS NO MORE EMAIL?
• Could make myself be available to speak with my customer any time of the day, IF THERE WERE NO MORE CELL PHONES?
• Could I convince my customer to make an appointment, actually show, and reply on my selling skills to make a sale, IF I DIDN’T HAVE MODERN TECHNOLOGY TO HELP?

Think about it…

Ok, come back to real life now.

At first it seems like a series of silly questions because those things are pretty easy. Right?

If you take away email, cell phones, Internet connections, and online training software; strip it all away, the question becomes “do I possess the basic written skills, verbal skills, and people skills with a personal touch that will make me stand out and be different”? We are now left with just raw person to person communication skills. This is where younger Internet sales teams tend to falter and it will only continue to get worse unless we do something to nip it in the proverbial bud now.

I live by the rule: “Embrace technology, but use it wisely.”

It is just a small part of this philosophy that I want to elaborate on today, focusing on e-mail transactions.

My Internet teams will reluctantly ask me (mostly yell across the room at me), “MIKE! Can you come over here and read this before I send this email? I’m not sure how I feel about it.” The reluctance comes because after I’m done, they usually scrap what they wrote and start over. The follow-up question I get asked is, “How come I never seem to know what to say?”

Listen, it’s not magic. It’s not even so much about being better at speaking, presenting, and writing; it’s about being aware of my surroundings. What the heck does that mean?

I’m about to reveal the “secret” in the first step to becoming a better Internet salesperson & department:

Situational awareness.

Having a good sense of situational awareness is the one thing that can help you in just about all areas of communication. Here’s what I mean…

Imagine you’re in college and you go to the bar with your friends. You’re hanging out and having a good time, drinking like a gangster during prohibition, and one of your professors walks in. The two of you have some conversation and generally enjoy a good time. The next day you go to class and see your professor who is suited, formal and proper in front of his students. You pat him on the back and say to him, “Yo, last night was pretty crazy right? Hanging out, having drinks with my prof, you’re a pretty cool guy! Props to the prof!” How do you think he would react?

This is the equivalent of getting too comfortable with customers. You write a formal email to a customer. They reply with an informal reply filled with lowercase letters, improper punctuation, and an e-mail that overall looks like they quickly replied without any regard for being proper. You reply back to him in the same informal “you’re my bro now” style.

In both situations, you have no idea the other person just dropped you a few notches on their belt. In both situations, you are the one earning something from the other person- in one situation it is grades or recommendations, while in the other it is business. As the earning party, you must be respectful to the power the other person has in the situation.

Situational awareness.

Now, imagine you walk about of the bathroom at a cocktail party for an ELITE (no pun intended) group of people and find them treating you a little strangely for the rest of the night. You have no idea why and just keep going about your business. Later, you realize you had toilet paper stuck to the back of your pants for the majority of the evening.

Back in the office, you’ve written a very well put together email (one you’re proud of that Mike didn’t destroy), and you find out your customer bought elsewhere after many attempts to reach them. It is then that you realize you asked your manager for his advice and he wrote back to you saying he thinks you’re customer is a “tool.” Rather than you sending a NEW email to your customer, you hit REPLY using that email along with your very nice and formal message.

Situational awareness. Is this picture becoming clearer now?

If the sales person was aware, he would always reply in a professional and organized fashion given the audience and forum. He would not only spell check, but message check. He would temper his friendliness with
formality.

Keep in mind that the use of smartphones complicates e-mailing even further. It feels like you’re writing a text, but you must remember that what the customer perceives on the other end is an e-mail. You must think about what the customer may notice and look at a final product through their eyes. Immediately, this “situational awareness” gives your customer a better impression of your verbal, written, and people skills as a whole. Don’t expect songs of praise for your skills. If it is done well, it should be a seamless transaction- meaning that they should not even notice how good you were… until someone else does a poor job.

So now you know my first secret of success in the business of internet sales. Don’t go stealing my job away just yet- awareness is just one variable when discussing how technology consumes us. I look forward to sharing more tips with you in the future!

Remember; always be aware of where you are and what you’re saying.