Supercharge Your Social Selling in 5 Minutes a Day
THE ART OF SOCIAL SELLING – LOVE IT OR HATE IT.
Social selling. As a business owner or an aspiring business owner you either love social selling or you hate it. No matter your service or product, you know sales is the ultimate backbone of your business.
If you’re like me, social selling or just sales in general is not your most favored past time.
Cold calling, badgering your family and friends, and peddling your precious goods to anyone who will hear you is not your idea of a fun-filled weekend. Yet we all know, without sales, there is no business. Without a marketing mix that includes a healthy does of social selling a business is no more than an undiscovered idea destined to be forgotten on a dusty shelf.
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL TO MASTER SOCIAL SELLING
Given this love-hate relationship with sales and social selling, how does a business owner find the middle ground and ultimately master the skills it takes to be successful?
Social selling, much like the wheel, is not a new concept. Instead of searching for new ways to master an old skill, any business owner would be wise to study those who have gone before them and created their own success – the business owners who have already perfected the art social selling. Find them and follow their lead.
Three such leaders to follow include:
1. Chris Spurvey, author of It’s Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mind-Set
2. Josh Reif of Digital Skills for Entrepreneurs
3. Ben Perry of Organic Marketing Secrets
MAKING CONNECTIONS INCREASES SOCIAL SELLING POWER
Making personal connections across your social media channels does not require hours upon hours in front of a computer screen each day. Christ Spurvey, husband | father | author has proven just that.
By utilizing his LinkedIn platform, Chris takes the following steps to supercharge his social selling in only 5 minutes a day.
Chris Spurvey’s 4 Steps to Social Selling
1. He posts an article on LinkedIn Pulse that he has written on one of three topics: sales, personal banding, or personal development.
2. He reaches out to 3 LinkedIn connections and provides value by including a brief synopsis of his article along with the link.
3. He includes a call-to-action asking these three connections to like, share, and/ or comment on the article.
4. He invites his connections to hop on a quick Skype call to get to know each other better where in the last few minutes, he briefly mentions his book or upcoming products without pitching them as a sell.
{tip: this often inspires his connections to follow up with questions about his upcoming products. Many times this results in a sale and he never had to pitch the sale at all.}
“The approach you take to sales affects how people respond.”
~ Chris Spurvey
In about 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week, Chris implements one simple tactic to drive a huge volume of sales annually. This same activity helps him develop business for consulting giant KPMG (His full-time gig) as well as his personally branded online sales training program, Successful Sales System (His side business).
You can listen to Chris Spurvey’s complete interview with Brendan Alan Barrett on The Business of Family and Selling podcast here or watch it here.
PROVIDING VALUE ABOVE NUMBERS
Becoming an expert in your field or industry is as simple as putting yourself out there each day providing value to your community. Whether that community is in person or across social media, providing value above selling should be your top priority.
A good rule of thumb is to engage with your community at an 80/20 ratio: 80% value to 20% selling. This means that 80% of the time, you will offer tips, tools, tutorials, or any other form of value without ever pitching a sell.
While this may seem counter-intuitive to start, the 80/20 rule allows your views and potential clients an opportunity to know you, trust you, and see you as an expert. Essentially, in time, you become their go-to person for your industry.
Once a potential client believes they can trust you and the value you provide, they are far more likely to purchase from you and to return for future purchases. Providing value above pitching should always be your first order of business.
I have used the 80/20 rule from the moment I became a business owner. Providing constant, quality value without pitching my services sets me up as an expert in my field. In the 20% of posts where I am self-promoting, I have already proven I can be trusted as an expert and often, clients come to me instead of me having to chase them for sells.
YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IS THE REPRESENTATION OF YOUR VALUES
You cannot separate your values from your personal brand. The two cannot be mutually exclusive. Again, people buy from people, not businesses. This phrase and thought process should be forever engrained in the forefront of your mind. Who you are and what you believe is ultimately reflected within your personal brand.
How do you showcase and protect your personal brand across your social media channels?
As a business-owner / entrepreneur mentor, I offer the following suggestions to my own clients and students who see great results almost immediately:
1. Limit friends from tagging you to posts that will show up on your personal Facebook page. While this seems harmless enough, you are known by the company you keep. If your well-meaning, jokester of a friend tags you in an off-colored post, it will not matter if you disagree with it or not. Change your settings to prevent this from the start. Guard your wall.
2. Utilize your personal bio of each social media channel to point back to your website and/ or Facebook business page. Use this small space to show what you have to offer. Any time you offer value on any social media channel, the instinct is for viewers to click on your personal profile and follow the links you provide. Give them the breadcrumbs they need to follow. Don’t miss this opportunity.
3. In social media channels other than Facebook, you are given more characters for your description (bio). Use them. Include keywords, a call-to-action, and a link pointing viewers back to your site and your opt-in. Don’t waste this free opportunity to showcase yourself and your product/ services.
4. Be cautious with your posts, likes, comments, tweets, and repins across social media. Make sure each word you say, each post you comment on or agree with are words that represent your brand in a positive light. Remember, the world is watching. As the old saying use to go, “your word is your bond.” Now, it’s your brand.
USING FACEBOOK TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR SOCIAL SELLING
Facebook isn’t for the faint of heart and it is no longer only about connecting with old high-school buddies. Facebook has become a powerful marketing tool for entrepreneurs from all industries.
So how do you go about using Facebook to make valuable connections with “friends” who you hope to turn into a consumer and raving fan?
Pointing back to the 80/20 rule-of-thumb, Facebook is a channel best utilized for:
· Making meaningful connections
· Providing quality value
· Establishing yourself as an expert in your field to help others
Josh Reif offers his tip for using Facebook to supercharge his social selling.
“Facebook at its core is about people. You should first seek to make connections and find ways to help. People buy from people they like. Start with the relationship. Many get this backwards. Your first message should not be a sales pitch.”
Josh is a former doctor turned Facebook marketer. He is the founder of “Digital Skills For Entrepreneurs,” a thriving Facebook group where he teaches organic marketing, sales, outsourcing, advertising, and more.
SIMPLE CHANGES TO YOUR WEBSITE CAN IMPROVE YOUR SOCIAL SELLING SUCCESS
People buy from people, not businesses. My clients and students will tell you I preach this to them constantly. Because of this truth, the About Page of any website is the number one most visited page. Even without realizing it, consumers inherently want to know the person selling them a product or service. They are searching for a connection. Common ground. Something that makes them trust the business-owner. Something that makes them trust you enough to hand over their credit card.
Knowing the details of your ideal client will help you to create a path for them to connect with you on a more personal level.
To improve your social selling before you ever need to sell anything at all, making a few simple changes to your website can put you ahead of the game.
SIMPLE CHANGES FOR SOCIAL SELLING
A few simple tricks I suggest to my clients and students: your About Page should be about you, not about your business. This is your “get-to-know-me” corner of the world that draws your consumer into a potential relationship with you.
1. Include a professional head-shot. The same head-shot you’ll use across all your social media channels. This helps your viewer recognize you across multiple social media channels with less effort and to ultimately trust you at a faster pace.
2. Include personal photos that show your fun side. Your viewers want to know you are more than all-business.
3. Consider including interesting fun facts about yourself or intriguing “secrets” that will allow your viewer to make a personal connection with you.
4. Share your story. This includes your trials, fears, and path to success (but save some for the welcome email sequence they’ll get when they subscribe to your free opt-in.) This shows them you’re human. That you aren’t pretending to be perfect.
After implementing these small changes to their About Page, many of my clients and students have seen an increase in their page views of their site which often results to an increase in sales as well. Their bounce rate decreases, and viewers are spending more time browsing their site as opposed to being unimpressed and bouncing to another site.
ORGANIC MARKETING FOR SUPERCHARGING YOUR SOCIAL SELLING
Ben Perry, founder of Organic Marketing Secrets offers a few quick tips on bypassing the pay-to-play technique Facebook is slowing forcing upon business owners.
In what Ben refers to as a value bomb, he says: “It’s 2017. Use an Emoji Already”
For many of is, this may seem like an odd suggestion for a business owner to follow. However it odd it may seem, it’s quick, simple, and effective.
“Don’t ask why. Just accept that the market (& Facebook) LOVES IT when you use emojis.
Face it, emojis are here to stay and there are so many useful things you can do with them that I can create an entirely separate post JUST off of the effectiveness and usefulness of emojis.”
Ben Perry is an expert on creating organic engagement and offers more tips in his free downloadable e-book, Ben Perry’s Secret Playbook to EXPLODE Organic Engagement.
THE SECRET TO SOCIAL SELLING SUCCESS
Whichever method you choose, or if you choose to create a combination of all the methods mentioned above, creating an easy-to-implement strategy will supercharge your social selling in less than 5 minutes a day. By taking a more personal approach to selling and providing value before the concern of numbers, you are giving your viewers the ability to know you, trust you, and ultimately become raving fans.
You can find more tips, tools, and mentoring on supercharging your social selling in less than 5-minutes a day on The Business of Family and Selling with host Brendan Alan Barrett.
About The Author of This Article: Kalynn Dier is the founder of SHE Co Gladiator. “Find your passion, love your life.” Kalynn left a 26-year medical career to get a degree in marketing and pursue her three passions:
· Being a full-time stay-at-home mom
· Helping women find their passion and love their life
· Bring awareness to the epidemic of Sex Trafficking in the US.
Instead of fighting fires and saving lives, Kalynn now spends her days homeschooling her 5-yr old daughter and mentoring female entrepreneurs as they navigate their journey in the business word.
Learn More at SHECoGladiator.com
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