LinkedIn Letter, click to enlarge

I have a habit of saving and forwarding many of the ridiculous voicemails that salespeople leave in my inbox, but it isn’t too often I receive a letter of this quality, pointing to the problems that salespeople face when introduced to social networking.

The beauty of social networking is that I can typically gain value from the people I am connected to, before I am asked to buy something..  The danger comes when we decide to sell before providing any real value. Gary Vanerchuk said at Big Omaha, “we are like 18 year old boys trying to close too fast.” –This is why salespeople ruin social media.

In sales, people are told that they can reach a broad audience through social media and think they can reach this audience without working at it. To provide real value to the people you connect with takes real work. Social media doesn’t eliminate working hard, in magnifies it. We now have more messages and more people, but each person seeks information. Our messages are read much quicker and distributed to a larger audience, making it more important to respond.

I’m waiting for the realtor who wants to answer my questions online and tell me about market conditions, helping me to learn their expertise.  Teach me about how I can use my home and rental property better.  If I met you at a social gathering, you probably wouldn’t ask me to list my house immediately, you would probably find out my needs and I would describe my situation.

Finally, to this realtor’s credit, I do admire his personal touch in a handwritten letter but I think his effectiveness will improve if he provides content to his network and improves his penmanship.

Mattel’s most recent Barbie® creation, the “Computer Engineer Doll” sports the sort of geek that might fit-in at our office. While I won’t pretend to be dissapointed that it has taken 124 careers for Barbie to become a Computer Engineer, it does bring some excitement to our industry.

I participate regularly with local education institutions who look to help educate students in technology and thought this would present an opportunity for us to give Barbie® a few words of advice as she begins her new career.

image by Mattel

Lose the Bluetooth during meetings. I’m impressed with your use of technology, but make sure you listen to the clients that are in front of you, without getting distracted.

You can’t survive on your looks. It’s true in every industry, you find people who want to survive on their looks may find themselves attracting attention, but soon it won’t be the kind of exposure they want. Study hard Barbie.

Demonstrate flexibility. While you can position yourself for success, don’t expect to have that pose everyday.  After a late night of implementation and troubleshooting, you will learn to become more flexible.

Maintain a well-rounded background. Keep up your grades in your business classes too, you might be surprised when you are asked to understand a balance sheet or write correspondence for a non-technical client.

Don’t talk down to your non-technical friends. Ken will ditch you faster than you can pull out a credit card if you become a tech know-it-all. If you want to keep your friends riding in the pink Jeep, you will learn that you must be able to communicate without displaying arrogance.

We wish you good luck in your new career path and if you haven’t found a place to land, send a resume over to Five Nines’ career page, we could always use a little more fashion in our engineering teams.

-Ben Pankonin