“Why the heck would I need a camera phone?”
I never got it. Phone after phone, people tried selling me on the features of the embedded camera. Now, don’t get me wrong - I get why having a camera on your phone is handy when you’re taking pictures of your family or your pet. But using it in a business to business sales environment?
I kept explaining I didn’t need it. They really didn’t listen. So I gave up and accepted the inevitable. Most business phones apparently come with embedded cameras. Period.
Now that I have one, I went and looked for ways to use this technology to my advantage and came up with the following list. Here are 5 ideas on how you can use your camera phone to support your sales efforts.
1. Take a picture of a business card and use scanr.com to recognize the text so you can import them into your contact management software.
2. On the road to an appointment, you pass a brand new office park. Ah! New prospects! Don’t we love those. Take a picture of the directory listing and call the companies located here when you get back to the office.
3. I don’t know about you but when I fly, I always forget where I parked my car at the airport. Snap a quick shot of the garage floor you’re on and you’ll be back on track in no time.
4. You just had a terrific brainstorm session with your prospect or your technical expert. The white-board is filled with pictures, bullet points, arrows and diagrams. But how do you capture these thoughts, short of writing everything down? You got it - your camera phone!
5. Ever had a customer or prospect voluntarily share your competitors proposal with you? Gee, how are you going to remember the components of the proposal and pricing? Be a bit like 007, snap a picture and share them with your marketing department too.
These are just a few quick thoughts. Maybe you have more ideas, leave them in the comments!
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Mike Sigers
1 year ago
THAT was an actionable post if there ever was one.
The tip about taking a picture of where you parked is ingenius.
Thanks !
Craig Klein
1 year ago
Thanks Jan! I love scanr.com!
mike cardus
1 year ago
Using the camera phone always seemed weird to me also.
I enjoyed the 007 espionage idea!
Now I use the camera phone for many things - if my girlfirend and I are out for dinner and find a wine we like Snap a photo to help remember.
If I visit a location and find something unique or interesting I want to talk about later snap it.
Phil Gerbyshak
1 year ago
I love the parking suggestion, and I do this all the time. Especially helpful if you snap the cross street signs if you’re in an unfamiliar city.
One other tip: Snap a photo of your client smiling with you on your camera phone, then use it as your callerID so you remember what they look like when they call you. Then, at the end of the year, save it off to your computer and use it as a custom Stamps.com stamp to send your holiday card to them with the picture on it. Sure to get their attention, and their loyalty!
Owen
1 year ago
The camera secretary idea is a great one! We have been using that at Oprius for a while. Every time we have something even remotely valuable we use a pocket digital camera to take a quick snapshot. I can’t even count the number of times we have gone back to those pictures. More importantly it allows you to “save” a set of ideas, wipe the board clean, then see if you can come up with something better. It removes the fear of loosing a past idea, and allows better ones to surface. We store all the images in a shared location on the network which makes it easy for everyone to access.
Great post Jan
Jan Visser
1 year ago
Thanks - and thank you for the additional ideas. It’s feedback like that which gives posts the extra edge.
Megan
1 year ago
Wow, the ideas in the post were great, and so were the ones in the comments! Now I know why I always wanted a camera phone! :D