No one wants to be on the receiving end of pressure-filled and fear-mongering sales tactics. So how can YOU get the word out about your great products or services and make sales without being slimy?
In a recent livestream, Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse and marketing coach Russ Hedge talked about how to do sales right by holding yourself to high standards, fostering genuine connections, and promoting your offerings through a servant-minded approach that benefits your customers.
It’s Ok to Hate Selling
“I've been in public relations my whole career, and one of the things I always hated with all of my heart is the idea that I'd have to sell something,” Kami admits.
She knew she needed help, so when an acquaintance recommended she read Jeffrey Gitomer’s book The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness, she was open to it. She found it so valuable that she now calls it “her Bible for selling,” noting that, “it taught me that selling is about relationships.”
The Importance of Relationships
Three aspects of selling mentioned by Gitomer which resonate highly with Kami are what she calls ‘engaging and convincing,’ ‘purposeful posting,’ and ‘personal connection.’
“We want to engage people and convince them that, you know, they want to work with you,” she explains. Purposeful posting, meanwhile, entails posting for a specific reason rather than merely doing so to meet some arbitrary posting frequency or the vague goal of “getting views.” And personal connections are the basis for valuable interactions of all sorts, even in a professional context.
Russ says that fostering connections is one of the big joys of his work. “I love people and I love building friendships and connection and community and really I have always felt… that connection and community building is really a foundation for everything you do, relationships and marketing and sales.”
“I want to invest in people and relationships,” he says. “I want to stay connected because I know how difficult that is with everything in life, all the distractions…”
Raise Expectations of Yourself and Do the Work
Kami also shares that Gitomer says people need to push themselves and develop a goal-oriented and winning mindset.
“When it comes to marketing yourself and building your own visibility… that takes work, that takes commitment, that takes opening up your phone and making sure you do it on a regular basis” says Kami. “It’s the same with social media, it takes work to build relationships – it’s a lot easier to just post a lot of things.”
Russ agrees, paraphrasing Zig Ziglar: “You build your people and then the people build your business.”
Investing in people involves both the online and offline environments. “You can talk to people online… but we need to reach out to people, like, for real, have one-on-one conversations with them,” Kami believes. ”I think a lot of times people have a wall between their social media and their real life.”
Don’t Let Fear Call the Shots
Nothing happens unless we take action, yet often people allow fear to call the shots when it comes to taking important steps in business.
Russ observes that, “we let fear override what we're going to do because we're afraid that we'll fail or we're afraid that people won't like what we're doing….you need to push those things aside, just step forward and take a chance, take a risk, go out there. That's how things, amazing things, happen and you need to just dive in.”
Add Value to Others and You’ll Reap the Rewards
Ultimately people want to know you care about their wellbeing, not just your own.
Says Russ, “When you're adding value to them, they have an opportunity to gain visibility. It's all about visibility in sales – who knows you, are you visible enough to get out there in front of people so that they know who you are and what you do…”
Personal Branding Is an Important Part of Sales
People like to do business with those they know and trust, Kami has said throughout the years, and the best way to make that happen is “by building the relationships with people that are your ideal client so that they think about you when they need your help.” It’s been an important part of her success. “It's almost 100% of how I've gotten all of my work for my agency through all of the years,” she explains. “I go out, I meet people, I listen to them, I want to understand them and what they do.”
“People need to understand what you do so they know what to do and how to refer you. So even if they can't use you… they may know somebody who needs your service. I can't tell you how many people send me leads all the time.”
Value is Really Important in Sales
Even the best products and services don’t sell themselves, which is why Kami argues that, “you need to think about your offerings and how they're going to help your client… how it's going to make them feel, how it's going to solve a huge problem for them, those kinds of things, not just a list of things that you're going to do but those benefits.”
That’s where value comes in. “So value is really really important in sales because you know they need to see the value before they're going to buy.”
Treat Others With Respect
Some people make the mistake of treating others based on their perceived importance or social prominence, but Kami says this is extremely short-sighted. Not just is such a transactional approach distasteful, there are practical business reasons it’s not advisable.
“You never know who you're talking to. Always treat everybody that's in front of you with the greatest respect. This online flaming and stuff [we frequently see]… it's a bad idea because it limits the future.”
Address Possible Objections Before They Come Up
Even when people seem ready to buy they may fear making the wrong decision and start second-guessing themselves. Addressing and minimizing possible objections is therefore critical.
“Whenever you're putting out social media content, think about the most frequently asked questions. That's a great exercise anyway, thinking of all the questions you think somebody could ask, the objections, the issues. And guess what? Create a piece of content for each one, create a piece of content for each objection that you might get, and then guess what, you can give that to any kind of decision maker and say, ‘here's an answer,’” Kami says.
To see the complete list of Gitomer’s Principles of Sales Greatness and hear more of Kami and Russ’ insights, watch the full livestream.