Chris Beall, CEO at ConnectAndSell, is a 30-year veteran of the software industry with a background in sales. Aside from being a very cool name, ConnectAndSell is a groundbreaking service that delivers live business conversations to sales people at an astounding pace. Naturally, Chris uses their service to generate leads.
ConnectAndSell gets B2B sales people into a conversation with the people they need to talk to. Chris described it like this; you log in, push a button, and start talking to someone on your list in three to four minutes. The business thrives on the effectiveness of cold calling for its clients. Who knew? Cold calling still works.
Chris became a LinkedIn member around 2003, but he admits his skills with the platform are minimal. Recently he had a mind blowing experience on LinkedIn that opened his eyes to the potential of social selling. Although you don’t usually hear the words “viral” and “LinkedIn” in the same sentence, Chris posted an image with a comment and the post went viral on LinkedIn.
His post was a photo of a recent ConnectAndSell test drive that showed what Chris called typical results; a 2000% increase in dials, leads, etc. With the image, he posed the question, “If cold calling is dead, who got these results last Thursday?” The post caught viewers’ attention, and the likes and comments started rolling in. 
In addition to those who agreed with the main point of his post, there was a group of people who had their feathers ruffled. Some influencers and senior executives were upset by Chris’ point that cold calling still works. Chris tactfully responded to the many comments with succinct, fact-based reasons and ended up seeing more engagement on his post.
“It showed me the potential of a community that I wasn’t engaging with.” @chris8649 #sbeshow
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The data Chris shared attracted high-quality inbound leads to the ConnectAndSell website and proved to Chris the merit of engaging on LinkedIn. He found an audience interested in cold calling through this experience. Even though he doesn’t know how to repeat it, Chris plans to continue to engage with his newly discovered audience, or as he called it the “calling majority” – be that online or on the phone. He wants to continue personal conversations with people, to learn his audience’s thoughts and opinions.
Chris pointed out that all marketing is a means to create a conversation. Content can create context for conversations through email, social, and the phone. But unlike email and social, the phone also provides tone of voice. By posting fact based research Chris created a viral post on LinkedIn. His eyes were opened to the potential of social selling.
As you listen to this podcast, consider the research you have available that might be able to garner attention through your own LinkedIn post.
Featured On This Episode:
- Chris Beall on LinkedIn and Twitter
- ConnectAndSell’s website
- Download Social Business Journal, Volume 8: The 5 Biggest Mistakes in Social Media Monitoring
- Join our Social Business Engine community
- Write a review of this podcast in iTunes
- Social Business Engine on Twitter: @mmenginepodcast
- YouTube channel
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P.S. Our next podcast episode features Chris Rudolph, Business Accelerator Program Director at Dream Bank.Subscribe to our podcast to stay current on new episodes delivered to your inbox every Friday!
