Don’t get me wrong.  I really like Facebook and consider myself a pretty avid user on both  business and personal levels.  I’ve read the book (The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing) and attended some seminars and preach the rules of engagement in my own social media consulting.

But here’s the thing.  Facebook is not going to substitute for good, old-fashioned sales strategy, processes and skills. Never.

Social media is a super duper cocktail party at which you are bound to meet lots and lots of new people. You schmooze a little, have a drink, engage in some interesting dialogue but then what.  Just like at the “real” cocktail party, you simply go home, never to communicate again UNLESS, of course, you’ve done something (anything) to continue the conversation and move it forward.

Facebook is a wonderful platform to have conversations, generate interest, incite enthusiasm, share information, showcase your smarts but make no mistake about it, it can’t do all the work of winning and retaining business.

As a sales trainer I’ve seen lots of companies fall into the great black hole of Facebook. Yay, it’s free. Yay, it’s fun. Yay, EVERYONE is on it so I am bound to get eyeballs. Yay, I can play just like the “big boys” with my own Facebook page and all.

Really!

Well, for starters, the big boys have social media gurus at their beck and call helping them with strategy and tactics. How free is it if you are spending time and seeing little or no ROT (return on time)? And as for those eyeballs, how many of them have monetized?

See, told ya so.

It’s time to go back to basics:

• Take a long hard look at your unique selling proposition. What makes you different? (I am purposely avoiding the word “brand” at this point!)
• Assess your sales processes and procedures, starting with lead generation and all the way to follow-up and follow-through.
• Review your marketing initiatives. What’s working? What’s not?  (What, you aren’t measuring?!)  And yes, this is where you figure out your social media strategy and how it integrates with whatever you are doing.
• Assign sales responsibilities and metrics and if necessary, add more sales ammunition (aka hire sales staff)
• Train. Train. Train. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.  Skills are where it is at. I don’t care how much marketing you do or how strong a brand you have, if you can’t sell it, you have nothing.

They tell me business is getting better and to be truthful, I’m seeing some positive signs as well.

With that being said, this IS the time to move forward and stop relying on Facebook and other “free” platforms to do your selling for you.