Social Media is part of most people’s sales or marketing plans and many think it has changed the selling landscape. In the current podcast episode the Sales Whisperer explains why it is only the start of an effective selling campaign.
Talking with Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer, can be a lot of fun because he has loads of funny stories to tell, but he is deadly serious in his mission to help people understand sales and effective selling activity. Contrary to popular thinking, he contends that the process of selling has not changed that much over time. Basically people are still looking for interesting stories that along the way help them solve problems they are willing to pay for.
Humans have always been social beings and sharing information or stories helped us plan our lives until the introduction of mass media like TV began to tell us how we should do these things. In his mind, social media has allowed us to come full circle to valuing interactions and making connections, only with an electronic twist. Where a lot of businesses have gone off the rails is that some have made it the end in itself rather than seeing it as a means of making connections and building trust.
He debunks the idea of the natural born sales person, and even if they do exist, anyone can gain real benefit from adding more science and skill to their selling. It is sort of like someone is naturally strong and then one day decides to do some weight training. Their muscles become stronger and they are more focused in terms of which muscles will generate the greatest return for their workout goals.
You’ll hear Wes say that no amount of cat videos is going to sell your product or cause a potential customer to trust you. Social Media allows you to come up on people’s radar or help them get an idea of what your product is about. It is then up to you to develop a means to bring that attention to life either through phone calls, follow-up emails or webinars and workshops where you can fine tune how your product will actually work for that individual customer. The more you are able to measure these attempts holds you accountable and gets you closer to your sales goals. Social Media is the spark that begins this fire and is not the fire itself.
Once you begin to understand that the “social” part of selling is the most important part and the various platforms allow you to begin to develop this, social media selling makes a lot more sense other than doing what everyone else is doing. Some platforms are going to be more along the lines of your personality and sales goals, and one size is not going to fit all. This episode will change the way you look at social media and social media selling specifically. The information Wes provides is golden.
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