Fill Your Funnel. Tom Hopkins

relating to your business or services

       Special offers your business is running. Coupons, discounts, and so on.

       Awards you or your products win

       Personal accomplishments that apply such as if you represent health products and have achieved a personal health goal using them

       Questions you would pose to existing clients to get and keep them talking positively about your company or products

      Facebook allows room on a fan page for what they call a “cover photo.” This is where you’d want to show yourself or your product in action, or perhaps provide a great testimonial from a happy client over a professional photo. Creating something like this takes a bit of graphic design experience, and possibly the use of some graphic design or photo software. If you’re not confident in your skills, ask around. There are bound to be some people in your sphere of influence who can direct you or maybe even do it for you. There are online services such as Fiverr where designers offer services very economically and can complete projects quickly.

      You would build your fan base through promotions and by invitation. Inviting existing clients to “Like” and “Follow” your fan page allows them to see the information you post in their home feeds. You might also create some promotions to capture the interest of potential clients and get them following your fan page as well. Look to the examples of big corporations in or related to your industry for other ideas of how to grow your fan base.

       Who’s on Facebook?

      According to Statista, as of January 2017, the distribution of Facebook users in the United States was as follows:

Ages	Percent of Facebook Users in this Age Group
13-17	1% - 2%
18 – 24	9%
25 – 34	13%
35-44	9% - 10%
45 – 54	7% - 9%
55 – 64	2% - 5%
65+	4% - 6%

      If your ideal client is in that 25 – 34 age range, you may find them, or get their attention there.

      One of the great features of Facebook advertising is the ability to define your demographic. In Tom’s case, an example of that might be 25-to-34-year-old Entrepreneurial men a specific geographical area where he holds training, whose primary language is English, and who have an interest in Sales. The result using the city of Phoenix, Arizona as an example is approximately 45,000. Depending on who you are and how large your business is, that might seem to be an extremely large number. However, the quick search we did narrowed Facebook’s approximate 1.73 billion users down quite a bit, didn’t it?

       2. Twitter

      Again, referring to WhatIs.com: Twitter is a free social networking microblogging service that allows registered members to broadcast short posts called tweets. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users' tweets by using multiple platforms and devices.

      When you set up a Twitter account, you give yourself a name which is called a “handle.” In the cases of your authors they are: @TomHopkinsSales and @DanPortik. If your name is common, it may already be taken as a Twitter handle by someone else. You may have to add a number or identifier, as Tom did, in order to establish your place in the world of Twitter.

      Millions of people rely on the instantaneous nature of Twitter for news and updates on people and causes they care about. If, among your group of friends on Twitter, you enjoy sharing commentaries, be aware that the default settings for Twitter are public. Your comments about religion, politics, and sometimes sports could be viewed negatively by clients. Granted, you’re entitled to your opinion and to express it. Just decide whether you’d speak what you tweet if you were in a room with your ideal clients. If you have strong feelings that might alienate potential clients, consider having a separate Twitter account where only your close friends who share the same feelings know and use that Twitter handle when they reference you.

      Regarding photos, Twitter offers space for both a profile photo and what they call a “header photo.” The “header” is like Facebook’s “cover photo” mentioned above. However, they require high resolution images in specific dimensions. You’ll need to comply with their specifications or your photos won’t upload.

      Twitter also has options for reaching your audience demographic. Once you establish a pattern of following certain people, such as public figures in the sales training or marketing industry like us, Twitter will start making recommendations of similar profiles for you to consider following. On Twitter, you can search people out by hashtags as well. A hashtag is a word or phrase, preceded by a hash or pound sign (#), that is used to identify messages on a specific topic. If your ideal clients are all neurosurgeons, you might do a hashtag search of #Neurosurgery to find people tweeting about that subject. Or, if you’re posting great tidbits of information about your product that neurosurgeons need to know about, you would include that hashtag in your tweets so they’ll be likely to see them.

      Since the number of characters in tweets is limited, you will want to include links to other places online where people can go for further information. Below are a few examples from our actual tweets:

      An activity plan defines activities & tasks you must complete to achieve your outcome goals. #successhttp://ow.ly/B1Dm30ccjNH

      Sharpen your sales skills here: http://ow.ly/zVeO30bmSy4 No charge!

      $699 Summer Video Special! https://youtu.be/bka_NQZ7zM4 via @YouTube

      Fun project with music legend last night. https://t.co/wcfZHtagnA

       3. LinkedIn

      LinkedIn is a networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.

       A LinkedIn member’s profile page, which emphasizes skills, employment history and education, has professional network news feeds and a limited number of customizable modules. Basic membership for LinkedIn is free. Network members are called “connections.” Whatis.com

      THIS is where you’ll make money with business-to-business sales—when you “do” LinkedIn well. While LinkedIn is an incredibly helpful tool for sales and business professionals, few use it well. Our experiences on LinkedIn were a big part of the initial conversation when we decided to write this book. We’ve both generated a lot of business through LinkedIn connections.