Twitter followers start out being hard to come by these days.  It’s just a fact–with all the spam on the site, it takes some time to get followers.  To get meaningful followers takes even longer.  Ultimately we want to have a connection with the people we’re there with, and we want to be providing value.  The problem is, because of the mistrust of twitter there’s a lot of folks out there that are going to “spam twitter,” providing no value, just links to crap like tanning lotion or whatever.

What’s an impatient small business owner to do to get followers?  Especially one that has a Twitter-ready business but no identity?

Well, I took my “PatriotConnect.Com” idea to twitter.  Patriot Connect is a libertarian website provider.  We build campaign websites for libertarians in a day.  We use WP+Thesis, and we provide a donation-ready shopping cart + gateway.  But that’s not important right now.  What’s important is that we got to 100 followers in just about 48 hours.  And that “base” is enough social proof that others will start following.

We did it the “Cheating” way, and of course, we’ll share that here with you now.

1.) Grab TweetSpinner (aff. link). Tweetspinner is a service I use, pay full boat for and love.  I’ve got several accounts under management–it helps get reasonably connected good quality followers all generally speaking within the rules that Twitter has set.  It makes you play by the rules.  Don’t be a dick, don’t push the limits, don’t break it.  It helps market and build a base for those doing it right.

2.) Find a list of quotes in your field. “Libertarian Quotes”  or “Business Quotes.XLS” ought to do it.  You can grab about anything and throw it into a MS Excel spreadsheet.  This might not be trivial, it’ll take a minute or two–but I eventually found a list of quotes.  you need 300+ quotes, this is the hard part.  You can cut and paste into textedit/notepad to use web quotes.

When you have it in excel, use the LEN function =LEN(+A1) to count characters.  You are hoping for quotes under 120 characters to get the Retweets.

When you’re done with that, go through and use the merge cells function (&) to add some industry hashtags.  Hash-tags are one way of organizing twitter and worth googling if you are new here.  Basically, people tag their posts for their own to find them.

3.) Create Your Own Content . Mix stuff about your website at about a 20% ratio–30% if you plan on tweeting from the get go.  (I plan on tweeting only sporadically with Patriot Connect.)   You can use TweetScript to dynamically generate, or you can do it manually.  Since LEN was counting my charachters for me, I did it myself. I did 15 tweets about the blog, 15 tweets about posts, 15 links I love (another reason I wish I’d been a better digg/delicious/stumble curator).

4.) Organize and randomize it: The RAND function is a nice pulldown to shuffle everything you’ve made.  You can then have a twitter spreadsheet of a nice mix of your found quotes and your topic if you then sort by the RAND column.

5.) the manual part: follow 15 people. Ask them to follow you back, wait till you get 3-5 folks.  This might take a minute.

6.) Paste your randomized quote stream into spinner. Should be 600 quotes.  Once every 2 hours.  That’s 50 days of content.  Once an hour is 25 days.

7.) Have twitter autofollow HASTAGS. Hastag users are very likely (35%) to follow you back automatically.  You want initially liberal autofollower ratios and then you want to slide it back as you get more people.    So, every 10 followers, grab one.

That’ll get you started.  If you need help “getting” twitter, please let me know.  I’ll find a way to get you set up on this process and get you your first 100, mostly relevant followers.

I’ll do a video when I’m done with the first video I’ve made and we’ll have fun with all that.

Push vs. Pull Marketing is a big dumb debate.

Seth Godin’s book Permission Marketing has been grossly misinterpreted by a generation of online salespeople.  His book says that it’s most effective to do permission vs. interruption marketing.   A church formed around this and took it too far.  Push marketing and pull marketing (where the customer is pushed around or pulls toward you) are two waring factions. The advocates of pull marketing believe  pull marketing (or permission marketing)  is moral, just and somehow superior to anyone that uses push marketing.  There are more reasonable voices that see a place for both push marketing and pull marketing.

Push vs. Pull marketing confusion means that most people–particularly “professionals”  trying to sell online have horrible habits.  The pull marketers have created a belief in social media sales that it’s acceptable to sell people if–and only if-they jump through a million hoops and PROVE that they’re interested.   This means that the customer has to opt in, stay on a list, click something else, and beg to buy.  Works fine if you’re selling an e-book on freelancing.   Works fine.  But if you’re a palm beach realtor, it’s lacking.   The customer shouldn’t have to be boxed in and railroaded on a path that you’ve made to buy.  It’s a privilege to sell, not one to buy.   And to make someone fill in forms–when they want to pick up the phone and have a real person helping–is an insult.

Yet pure permission marketers make this accusation: if you don’t have “perfect permission marketing” people call you spammy.  And we don’t want to be spammy.

I call BS.  Yes, it’s good to automate, but…hell  yes, it’s good to make it possible to buy at any time.   Someone expresses interest?  Go after ‘em.  Call ‘em up, help ‘em out.  Use the permission you have!  I sell a lot of blog services.  I sell sites, social media propagation and other things.  Someone leaves a comment on one of my blogs?  Their blog is screwed up every which way from Sunday?  Do you think I’m not gonna call and offer to help out?  Sure, you get some people there that clo Don’t hesitate because if you–like me–are proud of the service you provide, and provide a better deal than the other guy…if you let ‘em get away, you’re allowing them to get worse service.  Assume that you have what’s already yours: permission.

Seth Godin would agree with this: when you help your customers get what they want more efficiently, you’re doing them a favor.  I don’t think there’s a ton of question there.

So, what are the action steps:

1. Every blog comment: look at their blog.  Look at their site, look at them as people.  See if they can be helped.
2. Every opt in: Google ‘em.  See who they are and write a 2-3 sentence human-generated email.
3. Every Social Media Add: ask what they need, and offer to help.

This sounds basic, but if you only sell to the customers that beg and plead for you to make sales, then you’re going to have very few customers to help.  You can connect  with email, the phone, hell–it doesn’t matter.  EVERY TIME someone contacts you, upgrade the relationship and engage, and wire that into your soul.  Then you’ll know if your site is a tool that works.

[Edit: you need to make your services good enough that you recommend them to people for THEIR benefit.  You have to crush mediocrity.]

I will admit one thing: I have an unfair advantage delivering this plan and kicking off the “public” plans with this section.  In addition to owning this business, I also do some realtor coaching and training at Harris Real Estate University. So, I know–first-hand–a lot of what works today (and what doesn’t).  Having had 100+ agents go through the program and learn how to connect and help on social media is a huge advantage.  I also actually sold real estate & mortgages to customers I met online, amassing over 10 million in sales from social media.

That said, this kicks off a new Monday focus for us: we’ll be doing real live business plans for the core businesses that we serve.  Some actions steps to take, and some thing that really, you know, sell.  I thought I’d make it easy on ourselves….without further ado:

Real Estate Agent Social Media Business Plan 2010-2011

Objective: to net +25 transactions from real estate via efforts in social media.  In most markets, with an average commission of 2.7% and an average house price of $180,000, this will create Gross Revenue of  $121,500. We always track ROI from social media, so this number is the expected gross result.  Anything that we spend in terms of time and energy has to be measured against this.

Further, we’re going to cap expenses at $5,000 and 8 hours per week. This means that we’ll have a solid ROI from the efforts that we take here.  This means we’re not spending a fortune to get good results.

Declare Identity with a microbrand:

Now, Mike Ferry does a good job of making fun of a lot of what’s wrong with Real Estate Agents/Brokers these days.  Still–you’ve gotta be someone online.  You’ve gotta consider some personal branding ideas and declare your identity.  It’s not because people are watching, they aren’t.  It’s for your sake.  It’s because if you start with a foundation of the salesperson you aspire to be, you’ll be a lot more likely to stick with it, and it’s there.

Doesn’t matter what, but declare an identity.  For more info on this, see Al and Laura Reis’s blog or Dan Schwaebel’s blog on identity.  You’re doing this for YOU, but you want to be focused on how YOU and YOUR TEAM help OTHER PEOPLE.  Being “The man with the dog,” is worthless.  Being “the person to call when your house HAS TO SELL,” is not.

Cost: Zero, time 5 hours.  Weekly time = Zero.

We’ll get into microbranding more soon, but bottom line: YOU are doing it for YOU, so you deliver a long-term, coherent message.

Start building your audience on social media.

Most people rush out to get a blog first.  We do it a little differently.  Getting a blog is important IF you don’t yet have ANY website on the web, since a blog does everything that a website does and more.  It can be both, and yes, it can look highly professional.

But, the step here is to get on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter & Youtube (yes, youtube) and check ‘em out.  You want to see where you fit in, and how to do things.  You’ll probably want to upload a lot of your contacts into Facebook and put that on a schedule.  You might want to check out guest blogging at some of the local-ish blogs.

The goal here is to get your personal contacts engaged, and to start engaging and following local businesses.  You’ll probably want to create a schedule of things that you’ll be doing so it  doesn’t overwhelm you.  Here, you might learn that a site like LinkedIn or Twitter just doesn’t make sense for you.  That’s fine.   You’re learning.

Cost:  Zero:  Monthly Cost: Zero:  Time: 1 hour/week.

Next: You’ll Want to Build A Blog, or (Hint-hint) Have Us Do It.

Your blog website is your central hub.  All roads lead there. Everything you do is designed to get people to your blog and interacting with you on YOUR turf.  Yes, it’s great to have a Facebook page, but it’s better to have a blog.  When you have ‘em both, you’ll win.

With your blog comes some responsibility.  You’ll want to add content to it regularly, and this takes weekly time.  We’re gonna say 2+ hours a week for this.

Build a Blog with the following components:

• Home/Landing Page/Squeeze Page For Leads (we charge a bit or this)
• MLS/IDX Search
• Contact Capture Component (Aweber)
• Able to embed video/pictures/slideshows
• Able to generate printer friendly forms
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (more on that in a bit)
• Your Phone Number
• WordPress

You’ll drive traffic to the blog.  You’ll convert some of it into leads.  You’ll convert some of the leads into customers.  The math will work.  (Let’s say you get 500 hits/month.  10 become leads, 3 become customers and you close 2/3 of the customers, that there is 2 deals a month and it’s a normal percentage with a well executed blog).

Cost:

$797 For the Blog, $497 to develop a landing page.   (We’ll account for Aweber in a minute).  IDX Cost: $35-$100 a month (we’ll use $50).  4 hours a week!  (We only have 3 hours left, but plenty of money!)  Blog’s monthly fee = $15/month.

So we’ve spent:  $1294 + $600 (IDX Search) + $180 (hosting fee for blogs)  = $2074.

Still money left to spend.

Add An Autoresponder To Your Business Plan

Let’s get something straight: an Autoresponder isn’t a CRM.  They are separate systems–for good reason.   An Autoresponder basically allows you to stick webforms on the internet, have people respond & confirm their addresses, and then BOOM they become your customers.  It’s pretty cool the way that it works. I use Aweber for mine, and I’m an affiliate of theirs.

The Autoresponder is a nice catch all.  You can build a newsletter list.  If you have 500 contacts, you should be generating transactions from 6% of them.  The Autroesponder is where EVERYONE is in, under different lists:

• Newsletter only
• Web Contacts
• Blog Comment Leads
• Hand Entered.

More on that in a bit, but that’s the way that I’d do things.  Trying to consolidate the CRM with the Autoresponder is a fool’s errand.  Don’t fight it, don’t insist on one system, or else you’ll wind up with scam artists.

Cost: $20/month = $240 Year.  Time: 1 hour/ week (we’re running out of time!)  I’d argue here that this will save time in other areas of marketing, but you get the gist.

Add  A CRM To Your Business.

I use HEAP CRM.  (http://crmondemand.biz).  It’s not perfect–I reviewed it a couple years ago and most of its shortcomings are intact.   But it’s pretty damn good.  And it’s easy.  And I’m using it, sort of.  That’s the key.  You can create templates of “what has to happen” on your CRM, which can grab most of the good parts of Basecamp and integrate them into a CRM.   Using this allows us to get our contacts anywhere we have a smart phone, and allows us to generate all the things we did all the time.

Heap’s got a lot of really good systems, and really can be bent to your will.  It’s powerful and flexible (and it has a bad interface, but most Realtors won’t notice that).

Heap costs $9 for the first user per month and $6 for the second.

So let’s say $9 = $108.  You’d be managing contacts anyway, so I’m not going to ding the time.  We have spent $2422, almost half our dough.

Add A Presence on FaceBook

In addition to the rest, now it’s time for you to add a presence on Facebook.  You can use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to get Facebook traffic, and you can learn how to get a lot of bang for your buck there.  Facebook fan pages are a good way to interact with people, and they share a lot of functions with a CRM/Autoresponder.   Anyone can make a page on Facebook, but we need a specific set of calls to action in order for this to work long-term.   And so it is: FB Fan pages that are done right will convert visitors into lifelong fans.

A nice social place to interact (go see ours: 200 fans, very little effort to maintain).  You want to be careful with this and make sure you get to critical mass fast.  Nothing’s worse than a Realtor with 42 fans.  You also probably want to take advantage of Facebook’s ubiquitous coupons on the internet to build your fans: they have coupon codes for free advertising and that way you don’t have to request competitors to become fans of yours.

We set up Facebook fan pages for you that actually have design.  We can probably bundle ‘em with your blog as well.  We’re currently selling ‘em for $399, but we’re going to be at $497, so we’ll use that price.

Time: 30 minutes a week.  Price: $497.  You should get 5-7 customers out of this per year.  It’s not going to be a home run, but a solid base hit.

Now, we have some assets.  We can continue to work the social media channels.  But we need to realize something: Google is #1 for a reason.  Realtors would be dumb not to take advantage of PPC advertising.

We have $2,000 roughly left, and the balance will be spent on PPC.  Why?  Because it’s that important.  I’d recommend having some Autoresponder emails professionally written, but honestly, the best use of the money is going to be PPC.   If you choose not to purchase email copy written by our copywriters, you should check out PPC with the rest.  $160/month should create 30-40 respondents for a Realtor.

5 of those people should call.

One of those should close.

That’s a good yield.  12 transactions for $160/month & 90 minutes a week.

Now, I’d recommend getting some help to put this together in the beginning, and having all the soldiers on the field as quickly as possible.

Every quarter we should revisit this plan to see how we can shift assets towards what’s winning, and to plow more money into the things that are creating easy, pleasant transactions.

The balance of the time that’s left should be spent on YouTube making videos that describe the market.

Photo by Mr. Bill

Let’s do a little bit of marketing trickery.

So, we’re on Facebook, just like everyone else.  Cool, huh?

Some time ago, they started allowing all of us to publish Feeds to Facebook’s notes section.

The cliffs notes:

Go to http://facebook.com/editnotes.php & enter your blog address.  This will auto-publish stuff from the feeds that you run.  The catch?

Team Facebook only wants you running one feed at a time. See picture for details, click to embiggen:

We hate limitations.  We hate rules.  And most of our clients work with multiple blogs.  So here’s how you do it.

1.) Go into your host and create a new WordPress blog.  You don’t need GoDaddy for this–it can be “bigbadfeed.feedblog.com”

2.) Get one of two plugins, depending on how you set up your feed.  Install in the “plugins” section of your blog.  We’re using WP-O-Matic or Feed WordPress.  Neither of these plugins work perfeclty–it depends on your feed and other info.  They both have good results from Feedburner streams.

3.) Go through the screens and give it your feeds.   See the video below–it’s not hard.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4.) They may require a Cron job for best accuracy.  So if that’s the case, go ahead and  email your support with how to do this.  Don’t overthink this unless it’s not working on your host for a couple days.  Some hosts do allow it and others don’t.  Don’t sweat it.

–

That’s it.  You’ve now added all of your feeds to your notes section.  I don’t know what the limit is here, but it seems that as long as you’re not posting more than 2-3 times a day you’re not going to be canned via Facebook.  We’ll see.

A shout out to Phil Gerbyshak that showed us the import notes section.

[Edit: If you want us to do this for you, we'll do it for you for $75 bucks. Just contact sales@flatratewebjobs.com and we'll set you up as a client and get you started.]

How to build lists that shatter your sales goals.

Don’t waste your money on canned lists of strangers. Smart small businesses create lists of qualified prospects and stay in front of them by consistently beaming value into their inboxes.

Our free webinar will cover:

• What to say to get the email
• Writing viral content for pass-along prospecting
• Avoiding unsubscribes
• Comparing e-mail marketing clients
• Maintaining multiple lists

Quick & Free Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/167713995

As always, this will not be a “salesinar” or “pitchfest”, and our tips don’t have strings attached.

Hope you can make it!

We’ve had enough. It’s time to dispel the myths.

Our free webinar will separate fact from fiction and set the record straight about social media.

Whether you’ve only dabbled or you’ve been at it for a while, everyone has ROI-killing misconceptions to expose and destroy.

You’ll learn:

• 5 Twitter “rules” you should break
• How to promote yourself on Facebook without Spamming
• Why connecting online isn’t enough (and how to take the next step)
• Why all social media is sales (whether they admit it or not)
• 3 things you’re doing that are a complete waste of time (and what to do instead)

Quick & Free Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/406332363

As always, this will not be a “salesinar” or “pitchfest”, and our tips don’t have strings attached.

Hope you can make it!

The dumbest thing about “chamber of commerce” type meetings is the big ruse.  Everyone is selling something, and nobody wants to admit it.  Everyone is there to do more business. They play the role of buyer, but they’re usually (and in this economy especially) salespeople.

Everyone pretends that they’re there to hang out, but it’s about sales. At most networking meetings, two people mutually feign interest in buying each other’s products in order to somehow sneak a sale in.  That whole glad handling process is insincere and inefficient. It forms bad habits and it leaves us exhausted and cynical.

The same thing is now happening online.  In groups and forums, everyone is trying hard to monetize… while pretending some how that they aren’t.  Let’s be honest: it’s fine to sell.  It’s OK to admit that’s what you’re here to do.  It’s OK to reach out to people with the intention of selling them something.

What’s totally not OK is to pretend you’re not selling, when you are.  The deceit accrues on your soul and you wind up in an indefensible position.  You are on social media to sell, that’s fine, but let’s execute with some skill.  I’m on Twitter to sell.  That’s the reason I go there, not for the RTs and the Kudos.  I don’t hide that fact, and I don’t pretend I’m there for any other reason.  It works.

With that said, here are  25 Simple (but not easy) Ways To Sell More Sincerely On Social Media

1. Admit You’re Here To Sell- It will lessen the tension for other people when they know why you’re here.
2. Give First: You have to help others, so give them some knowledge in your industry.
3. Be Knowledgeable: You have To HAVE knowledge to be able to give it away, so study your industry and learn about as fast as you can.
4. Be Excellent: You have to set a good example in your industry.  “If all mortgage brokers were like me, would my industry be better or worse?”  Most people underestimate the commitment it takes.
5. Have Their Back: Become a fiduciary to your customers and serve their best interests first.
6. Breadcrumbs: Leave them everywhere, leading back to your site/sites.  This helps people identify how you can help.
7. Relieve Tension: if people know what you do, that’s going to help them, so identify yourself with how you want to be of service.
8. Broadcast Success Stories: Talk about people that used your product for gain, even if you didn’t sell it.  “Amy and Joe Secured their future with some Life Insurance, Congrats!”
9. Have Testimonials: Needs a post, but carry a flip cam with you to get testimonials.
10. Remember, “As Promised” When you deliver content, lead in with “as promised” as the way to do it.
11. Develop Some Collateral to Give Away: See <a href=”http://authorityrules.com”> Authority Rules </a> for this.
12. Develop a Quiz or Two: Create a sincere quiz that helps people know if they need your product. Magazine quizzes work and they get passed around.
13. Share Links With Non-Competitors: If you see someone doing a good job and upholding a high standard for their company, share the link.
14. Share Links With Competitors: Look, if you show leadership and how unthreatened you are, it elevates you, you become an industry leader, not just a practitioner.
15. Follow Copyblogger, Chris Brogan and Chris Garret. These three blogs are well done, they can help small businesses, and you should be following their content in order to help your own customers.
16. Focus on How Your Product Benefits Your Customer: This should be a big deal.  You need to share how it benefits them.  Nobody wants to spend money, but everyone wants to have benefits.
17. Focus on Building the Best Service System for Your Customers: Lead the field.  Do the extra work for your customers and improve the experience they have with you and your company.
18. Take Away the Pain that is Associated with Your Industry: If you require a lot of paperwork, reduce it.  If an upfront cost is needed, find a way to mitigate it.  Whatever it takes to take the pain away, use it.
19. Learn to Articulate Your Offers: One of my favorites online is Rhonda Porter. Her Twitter stream is transparently full of good mortgage offers she gives her clients.
20. Honor Confidentiality Online: Only Talk With Permission.  Rhonda doesn’t identify who she’s quoting, just that she’s making a quote.  This builds trust as well.
21. Learn to Be Transparent with Your Customers: Flat rate client Mark Shandrow does this well.  He puts REO and bank owned properties up in Real Time on his blog.
22. Learn to Connect as a Habit Automatically: When you see someone, have a plan in place to reach out–without being the annoying wedding guest.  Don’t think that every lead is so valuable you have to sit them down and pitch them.
23. Prepare Some Auto-responders and Courses on Your Service in Advance: This demonstrates what kind of service that the clients are gonna get when they get this.
24. Remember: Your List Is Your Life: You need to maintain and guard an email list and a contact list.  You need to find ways to help them on a regular basis, and give them honest INFORMATION, not monetization.  Give first, the rest will come.
25. Thank Others For Helping You: Gratitude is Attractive: Online, you gotta say thanks regularly.  You’ve got to be the change you see in others.

There’s a mindset shift that you have to acquire in order to sell more on social media.  This “new way” will help you do it.  Selling is a profession, and it requires effort and commitment, not just entitlement.  When you take the extra few steps to do an excellent job, the sky is the limit.

If you show up and half ass everything, there’s no floor to how little you can make and how much you will frustrate everyone around you.

What are you giving away?

It’s exciting, isn’t it? Witnessing the birth of a new paradigm, seeing it spread, excite people, confound others—we might call these “meme stages”.

The idea of free, as explored by Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, has taken the marketing world by storm and its effect has been extensive and largely positive. Small business owners and independent professionals have taken admirable leaps of faith into the world of free, making often difficult adjustments to the way they do business in an effort to give consumers what they want.

There has also been frustration, the kind that accompanies the spectacular rise of any meme-able idea. We may be at the push-back stage, driven in part by excellent posts like Amber Naslund’s, Are We Entitled to Free?, where she describes the proliferation of free events:

But I don’t think free is an entitlement. And there is still a place, time, and important case to be made for paying for things.

…

I suppose the question here is: Are we entitled to have free access to the content of an event that we weren’t willing to invest time, money, or presence in to be part of in person?

Understandable backlash. We can’t give it all away, and it’s difficult to rationalize providing value at no cost, especially if it hasn’t yet resulted in a net gain on our end.

The problem here isn’t with the idea of free, it’s with what you’re doing for free and what you expect in return.

Think of it like a book review. A good review (and I don’t mean positive, just that the review itself is well-executed) will provide value by outlining the thesis of the book, its strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately, if it’s worthy of one’s time. The author of the review will explain the ideas behind the book to the extent that we, the potential readers, know what we’re in for upon purchase.

But a good review also wrestles with the ideas in question, challenging and exploring the author’s views so that a reader can wrap their head around the themes discussed without actually reading the book itself.

In other words, the review provides enough value to most people in and of itself. Most people won’t purchase the book, but will understand a bit more about a subject they’re interested in. That’s enough for them. Others will be eager for more. The review will have piqued their interest and given them a reason to go beyond its depth. They’ll need to buy the book, and they’ll be happy to do so.

This is the balance you should be looking for when thinking about what you will give away. The value you provide should be enough to satisfy most, and you need to understand that this is alright. As long as you’re letting them know that there is more to the story, that there is deeper value that they should pay you to access, some will.

Put a good free value-proposition in front of enough people, and it will pay off.

Don’t give up on free.

Afraid of ruffling some feathers?

Fill in the blank: I don’t sell to my Twitter friends because _______.

Excuse 1: It’s not effective!

Why this is an excuse:

Certain platforms are more conducive to sales than others, but this is only part of the larger truth. Spamming the hell out of Twitter followers with an orgy of links is not the way to convert your “friends” to clients, even if it were effective (which it’s not).

There are other, far better ways to reach out to people you’ve met through Twitter who will benefit from your product or service. One of them is called the telephone. Our various online networks are the starting points of the relationships we create, but these platforms should never hinder the development of these relationships. And 140 characters is cute and all, but it’s a serious barrier to dialogue.

If you’re not finding success with your Twitter sales efforts, do blame the messenger (yourself). But don’t sweat it! Find another way of approaching your contacts with something of value and you’ll be rewarded with elevated relationships and serious revenue.

Excuse 2: It’s not appropriate!

Why this is an excuse:

If anything’s inappropriate, it’s your attitude, approach and/or expectations. Nobody’s telling you to act like the annoying wedding guest that tries to get everyone signed up for Amway. Well, maybe that guy would tell you to do that. But I’m not that guy. I hate that guy.

What you’re selling is face-meltingly awesome, right? If no, you shouldn’t be selling it. If yes, ditch your hang-ups about approaching Twitter friends. You’re putting something in front of them that will help them. Don’t expect them to always embrace you for this, but know that rejection is nothing personal and it feels a lot better when you truly believe it’s their loss. Don’t approach people that have no use for what you’re slinging. That should go without saying.

Think of the Twitterverse like a traditional networking event. Another guy no one likes is the guy that loves to hear himself talk about his business and pitches everyone within seconds of meeting them. But most of the time, it’s well received if you follow up with the contacts you made at the event. In fact, it’s often expected. The truth is, we’re not there yet with Twitter. People don’t expect the same level of follow up. So freakin’ what? If we limit our actions to stay within perceived boundaries and norms that have little or no justification, we can say bye-bye to innovation, entrepreneurship and societal progress in general.

Start your relationships without thinking ahead to any sales-oriented agenda, and they’ll evolve much more organically. You’ll know when the time is right to reach out, but it’s never going to be 100% comfortable, or always the best course to take with every contact. Such is the nature of sales, but you know that by now, right?

Excuse 3: It’s against the rules!

Why this is an excuse:

Because it’s not true!  Twitter’s TOS and even Rules documentation make no mention of contacting Twitter users by other means.

The Spam & Abuse section describes only the following as being verboten:

-Using serial accounts

-Name squatting / selling of names

-Invitation spam via Twitter’s address book import feature

-Malware/Fishing

-Spam (too much to include here, but see for yourself that extra-Twitter contact is not considered spam by viewing their definition in the Rules).

Twitter’s official rules are the only ones germane to this discussion, and anyone arguing that there are any other rules should be immediately unfollowed for their boring, seemingly-authoritarian view of new media. Or pitied, if you’re feeling charitable.

Stay classy, stay genuine, stay focused.

Twitter doesn’t give you an excuse to be a sleaze. Good salespeople are as professional and amiable while using Twitter and the phone as they are “in real life”.

Twitter does give us the opportunity to provide our contacts, including those we’d like to sell things to, a more complete representation of ourselves. Be yourself (“Be 3D”), and everything else is easier.

Focus and being active on Twitter might seem mutually exclusive, but that’s amateur-hour thinking. Tweet with intent, gusto and big goals in mind. The platform can be whatever you’d like it to be. Make it a jet pack, not a pogo stick.