Jobs of the future are hard to predict.

What will we all be doing in 5 years? Who can tell.

I studied to be a journalist. No, I studied to be a print journalist. And now I work in and around mobile social networking strategy and development.

Let’s just quickly repeat that: Mobile social networking strategy and development. I am almost 100% certain that when I started studying at Rhodes University in 2003 that my current job didn’t even exist.

There is one job in particular that is going to need a lot more focus in the coming years:

New media sales and advertising.

The reason that I think this job is becoming increasingly important and increasingly neglected is because there is a marked lack of skilled and experienced people to fill this position.

What does this position entail?

Sales and advertising has traditionally (back in the old days) been about selling and advertising products. Getting people to buy in to your product or getting advertisers to place an advert in to your publication, on to your store walls or on your car and so on.

Sales and advertising is becoming a much more complicated and intricate art. You cannot just sell banners, text links, full page adverts, splash screens, in-video sponsorships or product placements. Social networks and new media businesses need to have a salesperson who understands every aspect of the business. This person needs to be able to cross sell, integrate campaigns, work on new media, old media and media that might not exist yet.

What does this person need to succeed?

This person needs to understand CPC, CPA, CPM, CPSA and how to make these models work. This person needs to not only know what CRM stands for but what it actually is and how to make it relevant to the client.

This person needs to know who the client is or should be and how that clients business or latest campaign fits in to the business of a new media business.

Sales is shifting as fast as media is shifting and technology is growing and developing. The trick here is that technology, websites, mobile content and advancements can push forward as fast as they like but if there is no team able to monetize the products, there may as well not even be a product.

It’s time start thinking about integrated salespeople, sales teams, sales in relation to your core business and if sales actually might be your companies core business.

Honesty in business, sales, marketing and advertising is by no means a fresh new concept. Yet it is fast becoming an integral one in the world that we inhabit.

There are many posts that discuss transparency online in a personal sense. Don’t lie, cheat, steal, defraud or do anything that might dent your reputation online. But I am referring more to the concept of honesty when selling online to the less knowledgeable.

This has become an absolutely imperative part of selling and talking about online with people. Many companies and agencies are interested and intrigued by online at the moment because it is the direction in which the world is moving. But there are dangers.

The main danger that I have come across is the overselling of the potential of online right now. Many companies almost have their finger on the pulse of things. But this means that they know of Facebook, Youtube and other sites that they can use in a social arena to promote their products. Yet many of them think that the viral nature of the social web world wide applies directly to South Africa. It doesn’t. Viral in SA probably means, if you’re lucky, a few thousand views of a video and a couple of blog posts. In the Western world viral translates to a few million views of a video and a few hundred thousand links to or embeds of a video. Those are the cold hard facts and expectations should be readjusted accordingly.

Unfortunately the “people in the know” often oversell the potential of social media in South Africa to get the hype up and the profit margins higher. This is bad. This sort of selling is doing detrimental damage to the truth and success of the market in SA. This sort of selling makes it very difficult to create a consistent and successful stream of clients, revenue and business in the online industry. People are being burned and are staying away from spending money online because of misleading sales and delivery pitches. Return of investment (ROI) is being oversold and underdeliverd. Again, this is bad.

Honesty is key. Clients need to know the truth and still want to go forward with a campaign and experiment, play in the space and engage with one or two hundred people in stead of hoping to gain one or two million. It wont happen so don’t sell it that way.

I have been in meeting after meeting this week. People pitching me ideas, concepts, website, companies, organisations and people pitching people who know people who can possible do something for me.

If there is one thing that I cannot stand it’s when people don’t know when to stop selling. Learn this lesson quickly: Pitch me your product, tell me about what you do but then stop. Finish. End. Quit and let me think about what you are telling or selling me. Do not try to resell and rephrase and re re re re re. I got it. I’m a quick learner (or so I’ve been told).

Another thing that has irritated me beyond belief is self proclaimed experts from abroad who have learnt how to “fix” our “problems” here in SA. Do not preach to me about the airs and graces of the United States of America (said with a pseudo-American-twang). Do not go in to a meeting with a South African entrepreneur and tell him that South Africa is 20+ years behind America technologically. That is not a good way to sell me on your product or concept.

The next thing is research. In today’s day and age it is possible to gather a vast amount of information about someone from the internet. Look at this blog. I have my personal details on here, I have links to things that can help you clue together my background. Go and visit my LinkedIn profile, its all there. Then come in to a meeting knowing about who I am, what my company does and where we are planning on going. Research, research, research.

These are basics that I have seen in maybe two of the eight meetings I have had this week. How can people still be missing this stuff? It’s simple. If you haven’t thought about this before, then you are hearing it now. Think about it and you will soon realise that if you do not prepare you will not be successful. You can’t invade a country without weapons, you can’t sell yourself without research.

I attended an interesting course today. Clive Price from the Peers Group gave a great talk today on how to alter your approach to sales.

Some brief pointers:

• You can’t close on sale until you’ve pointed out the need for your service.
• Cold Calling (CC) sucks, but it can work.
• Your goal for a CC is to GET AN APPOINTMENT
• Once in a meeting or appointment make sure you show interest in your potential client and their company. Do not focus on your product. Repeat, do not focus on your product, yet.
• Identify gaps for your product/company to take advantage of while getting to know your client.
• When gaps are identified, summarise them for your client.
• Try to make them acknowledge their shortfalls or gaps.
• This acknowledgment allows you to then suggest solutions (your product/company)
• When you have all the above achieved, begin to fill the identified gaps with products or services that you can offer.
• If all the above has gone successfully, close your deal.

Remember to use open ended questions. Stay away from yes or no, true or false or two option answers. The answer will inevitably not be the one you want to hear.

For more great tips and sales assistance get over to the Peer Group website and contact Clive Price!

I will be in a sales conference for the whole of Thursday. Freelance job one has subsidised the course for me. Hopefully I will learn some interesting things regarding marketing and sales and can pass on the knowledge. Woop woop for large corporations paying freelancers to learn interesting stuff they wouldn’t normally pay for!