My husband is in sales. Car sales, to be exact. He’s sold new cars, high-end used cars, and currently is in the car leasing industry. This often takes people by surprise when they meet him because he’s a former rocker with a very relaxed personality. (His coworkers don’t call him “The Blur” because of his high-speed, high-pressure sales tactics)
When he moved over to the leasing business, it was in the role of “Internet Sales”, which basically just meant that his direct phone number was the one on the company’s web site. If you went to the web and were interested in talking to someone after browsing, you’d get him.
Well, while we were on vacation, they changed that so the general number that all of the sales guys answer was on the web; and, when we returned they decided they weren’t going to change it back. So, this has caused some introspection on hubby’s part. Is it a sign that he should switch jobs and go back to something more entrepreneurial? Maybe open another landscape design firm like the one that paid the bills during his rocker days – when he didn’t have a girlfriend.
But, he’s built up a good customer base over the years and he kinda hates to leave them. One of his customers recently returned to Austin to lease through him even after moving to San Antonio, so he’s got loyalty that would be hard to rebuild. One idea he tossed out is that maybe he could scale back to simply servicing those return customers and their referrals, thus taking himself out of the competition amongst all the sales reps for new leads. He could do a lot of that from a home office, and potentially we could avoid having to pay for after-school care when our girl starts kindergarten in the Fall.
But, maybe there’s more that could be done. I’ve mentioned to him before that getting involved in Twitter could benefit his business. I used Summize (now search.twitter.com) to show him that people were talking about car leasing and he could jump into their conversations. I told him about how many realtors were leveraging it. He remained reluctant.
Now, I’ve renewed my pitch to him that getting involved in social media would be a good thing. While he continues to serve his loyal customer base, he could begin to build a new one online. He could blog about cars, car sales and car leasing. Sharing his knowledge could help establish him as a good source of information and potentially generate new business.
He asked me about Facebook, and I told him while it wouldn’t hurt to get on it, I don’t think it should be his primary focus. He asked if he might be viewed as predatory or a pushy sales guy if he got into Twitter, and I said it all depends on how you approach people.
I’m not sure he’s convinced about my social media marketing plan for him. So, I thought I’d take it to the blogosphere for more input. What do you think about all this? Could it be a good thing? How would you react if you twittered “thinking about leasing a new car” and someone replied to you that they could help you out? Would you read a blog about cars and leasing? What sort of content would interest you on the topic?
Let me know if I’m way off base here; or, give him encouragement to give it a go!
