How many people are you seeing on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn today who constantly are “Staying on Point”* with everyone they meet online.

*Staying on Point: A reference to the actions a bird hunting dogs takes when finding a bird.  The dog will freeze in a position that points to the location of the bird for the hunter.  A bird dog will stay on point until it received a command to stop or the bird is flushed out.

Staying on Point In the Sales arena, is a term describing a method of selling that focuses only on making a sale or contact for a sale and disregarding any personal or social ramifications that develop. The sales person will stay on point with directing the conversation only to the product or service and will not come off point until they have made a sale.  A sales person will void a conversation or any ideal chat that changes their focus on selling. This form of selling is a negative method of selling.  Usually used by people who are working a ‘number of contacts a day’ routine or are desperate to make a sale.

Starting last month it was like someone turned a faucet on that released a lot of misguided traditional offline people into Twitter and into the internet as a whole to focus only on what they are selling.  I see a lot of tweets from people saying things like..

@unluckysomeone  I am bringing a new product online that I know you will want in on..DM me your offline contact info.

Then a few hours later that same person is hitting on someone else on Twitter.

Are people falling for this method of selling?

I don’t see any problem with people posting a link and a remark on ‘check out my product’..  That is a form of positive aggressive style of marketing..a way that is preferred if someone is to market effectively online.  Posting a link with a short remark about something or reference to a blog is what Twitter does well.

The aggressive style of getting someone on the phone never has worked as well as online social media marketing.   Old school methods take a lot of energy that more than likely goes against the person’s efforts more than it helps.

True, it is good to find that there is a real person behind the avatar of an ocean wave, but most of the time you can find that out if they are a person by looking at their online profile.  If there is not a person behind that Ocean Wave then do you want to Stay on Point with them?

I get into a lot of arguments with old schools sales people who feel they would never sale anything if they left it up to people to read a link.  What they are really saying is..

I have no idea how to use the internet so I am using it the way I would use the Phone Book…

Their argument dissolves when I tell them how real social media marketing works for me.

Someone staying on point with everyone will and does eventually produce a bad image of that person.  Tools like Twitter are viewed by a lot of people on the sidelines who see these efforts by people staying on point with others.  As a result many viewers usually will quit following the person or not respond to them online since they now are seen as someone who stays on point…too long.  And when the Twitter Network kicks in..well lets say those people have Stayed on Point online too long…

Don’t be one of those people.  If you have something to sell, tell us about it in a blog, or a ‘check this out’ statement on Facebook or whatever and then provide us a link..if what you offer is that good then business will come.  If it is not that good, then you can see you need to come up with a better way to tell people what you offer without having to waste time on a phone call or some other old method of selling.

Use the internet to your advantage, not as an electronic Rolodex of people to ‘Stay on Point” with.