As sales people, we have to be excellent communicators. This means managing open lines of dialog with current customers, building rapport with prospects, and continuously networking both offline and online. So how do you make your sales call unique? How do you find relevant topics to discuss with customers?

Adding value to your conversations can be a great way to learn more about your customers and make your exchanges stand out. Thankfully many of the same web marketing platforms we use at Proximity Marketing to help our customers generate business are also effective tools for staying relevant with your customers 1-on-1.

So the next time you’re struggling with conversation starters with customers and prospects, run through these 4 sales support tools:

Google alerts

Let Google send you email notifications any time the search giant finds new results on a topic you’ve identified. Receive instant, daily or weekly alerts about a company, product or industry key phrase – and keep up with latest stories.

Knowing the breaking news in their industry is a perfect conversation starter with a customer. Remember, you’re building trust, credibility and a relationship with your customer. Not every communication should directly pursue a sale. Know what matters to them.

Follow them

No, we’re not advocating you hone your stalking skills. Following their company’s social pages will be much more productive and won’t result in a restraining order.

Assuming your customers are active on social media - following their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn posts will keep you current on what matters most to them. Don’t just be a social media spectator, get involved with their social posts. Liking, commenting and sharing their posts may also lead to additional contacts within the company.

Get connected

On LinkedIn that is. Don’t have a Linkedin account? Clear your calendar and make that happen. LinkedIn is the social platform for business. One that enables you to make business connections, network, make introductions and foster relationships. Again, a large part of a sales role is finding ways to help your customers that don’t involve selling them a product or service. Could you refer business their way? Could you endorse your customer’s skills or even provide a personal testimonial?

Let marketing help

Does your company distribute an email newsletter? If so, make sure your clients and quality prospects are receiving it. Let your newsletter be a conversation starter by following up a day or two after it was sent. The hard work of finding a discussion topic has already been done for you.

The email service provider your company uses to send email newsletters is also likely tracking the subscribers that open and read the newsletters too. Get your hands on that information to find out which of your clients and prospects are the most interested in what your business has to say.

Your motivation for calling, emailing or connecting should always add value for your customers. And today’s online tools and marketing platforms making it easy to always be armed with valuable content to share, break the ice and build stronger relationships.