How We Forgot the Telephone
We should understand that Social Media is not the complete marketing toolbox, it's just another tool in the box. As businesses, we need to leverage every tool we have and choose the best ones for us, tailored to our products and services. We should therefore still be giving all due consideration to analog media marketing methods, such as hand written letters, post cards and that weapon of mass discussion, the telephone.Unfortunately, some social media marketers who don't have the right kind of social skills have convinced businesses that the telephone, in particular, is evil. This is bad for business, because the telephone is, in reality, still a very important business tool indeed. Social Media didn't replace it, but it did allow people who could not do telemarketing well an opt out. One reason they fail is because they already have gone through the conversation in their heads over and over before they call. When the conversation goes a different way, they get flustered and then it's game over. Bad conversational skills have given telemarketing a bad name. Unfortunately the people who were poor at it promulgated a myth that it is the telephone itself which is bad.
But the telephone is not dead. It's very much alive. My collaborator Angus Grady gets through to CEO level people all the time for his clients (10 a day is a standard target). His calls do generate business which can be measured in terms of monetary income. His calls do not create ill will (generally, apart from in extreme cases of telephone averse managers). So Angus is opening very thick doors with the telephone. I also know people who sell office telephones. They tell me that they're selling more than they ever did. What does that indicate to us?
So when we’re beating our head against a brick wall, trying to get to exchange written text with someone's electronic avatar by using social as our blunt weapon of choice, we might consider hiring someone who has the right kind of social skills. Someone who can pick up the weapon of mass discussion instead to open the door to a real conversation with a real person. Who knows, it might be the most important conversation we ever have.
written by Gary Sharpe
