Silicon Halton Workshop Day: March Recap

Silicon Halton Workshop Day I had the honour of presenting a talk on startup sales at Silicon Halton Workshop day. It was a very well-run event with 10 sessions to choose from and a good attendance.

If you are based in the Halton Region and have a technology-based organization, you are doing yourself a disservice by not checking it out. They have great events, Peer-to-Peers, and local support for technology-based companies. The event took place at the Hive in Burlington. It was my first trip to the co-working/event space and I was very impressed.

Here were the highlights from my startup sales presentation.

Targets

Great conversations have a focused target segment based on vertical or horizontal market. Startups cannot afford to have a shotgun approach where they focus on any target customer.

Social Selling

People know they should take advantage of social media as part of the sales cycle, but they aren’t quite sure how. My advice included finding the right platforms, creating a plan, and consistently engaging.

Inbound Lead Generation

People are very interested in generating qualified leads, but again lack a plan to do it. Start with a user-friendly website, add content marketing, social media, SEO tools, email newsletter, calls-to-action and you have a great start.

Also presenting was Chris Herbert, one of the leaders of Silion Halton and a Principal at MI6 Agency. Chris presented on prospecting using social media. Here are highlights of Chris’s talk.

Linkedin is the Best Social Media Platform for B2B Sales

This is a point I agree wholeheartedly with Chris on. Facebook and Twitter are sexier picks, but Linkedin offers the best ROI for most B2B sales reps.

Find the Right Linkedin Groups

Chris manages the Silicon Halton group and has made it one of the most engaging groups by encouraging discussions and keeping out spam. Finding the right groups and adding value can help with your prospecting.

Interact with other social channels

After Chris has identified the right prospect, he uses other social media channels to interact with the prospect. On Twitter he follows them and adds them to a private prospect Twitter list. One item he discussed that I wasn’t doing, but plan to, was interacting with an individual if they have a blog.

I enjoyed my session with an enthusiastic group of Silicon Halton entrepreneurs, and also enjoyed the other sessions. It was great day at the Hive in Burlington. If you would like to find out what event we will be at next, join our VA Partners newsletter and get a list of the top startup and small business events in the Toronto area every month.

Silicon Halton Workshop Day: March Recap