Selling On The Internet - You Are Doing It Wrong

Several pieces of information have intersected and fell in place with an audible “click” for me this past fortnight as I launched the Secret Women’s Business Network blog.

One hint came from the tiny tome The Contrarian Effect (Why It Pays Big to Take Typical Sales Advice and Do The Opposite) by Michael Port and Elizabeth Marshall. Michael made the point that sales tactics and processes of yesteryear, while they may “appear” to work, they are short sighted, burn potential and repeat customers, and were designed with the seller in mind not the buyer.

How many of the large internet marketing launches did you feel was really to help you the customer compared to “I know this is all just trying to get as much money as quickly as possible”? The big boys in the business sniff at anyone saying that the current method of launching does not speak to them on a personal level. The big guys are missing the point entirely and should be careful they don’t lag behind.

If you are hearing feedback that your most savvy customers are not enjoying something on a personal level, you better listen. You are doing something wrong. You may gain short term customers, but you will lose those customers that are going to be most valuable to you, the long term, socially connected ones that will sell FOR you. With all the buzz currently about Seth Godin’s Tribes, I hope this message gets through, build your tribe, on a PERSONAL level. Be yourself and lead people like yourself.

The next piece of information came from a quick scan of this report (well it is 43 pages and I am out of printer paper!) that looked at 1000 socially connected consumers ( a massive group and getting larger every day). An absolute MUST read I believe.

The first tip in the social networking part of the report is to “Share the Spotlight”. Alas many of today’s marketers only share that spotlight with their product, or within their own network. It is not hard to see who masterminds with who (or who paid to be in a mastermind group with who) because that is ALL these people promote. They do not favourite the little people that “may” be a customer one day, they do not respond to random reachouts by social network users who are keen to speak to them. they have a closed loop happening and it is obvious to those outside of it.

The third part came from a Frank Kern give-away video that talked about the “Core Influence”. The same stuff I learned a few years ago while going through my NLP training, but when Frank delievers it to his audience it is a new concept to them because they are all still thinking of their customers as walking wallets. Frank takes them through the exercise of visualising their customers as a human being with a real life so they can connect better with that “person”.

Why is that such a radical idea? Why has connected with your customer on a “personal” level been the very last thing a sales person has wanted to do. Is it because they do not really believe in the tactics they are using and product they are selling? I certainly think so!

The new world demands authenticity. If there is even a hint of some form of duplicity your customers are going to find someone else to buy from, and there are a LOT of other sellers they are now aware of. Gone are the days of the single sales area of the Fuller Brush man; the internet means your customers can buy anywhere, any time, and they want that to be a friendly, fun purchase. They also want to buy from someone they LIKE, because the new consumer is VERY AWARE of where cash goes and what it does. Everyone prefers to help friends over strangers.

The oldest sales tactic of all, also has to go. I believe the “sales letter’, that wall of text that the seller convinces themselves works, is in it’s twilight. Why? Very soon the written word will not be “personal” enough on the internet unless it can be seen to have come spontaneously through social networking. This new measure of how we weight personal communication is already in place in the spoken word. A discussion amongst friends at the pub holds more weight with you than something you read in a magazine, even if it was written by an “expert”. The human algorithm says give more weight to the word of a friend over the word of a stranger (unless your friend is an idiot). It’s automatic!

I am watching with interest and curiously at the changes that are happening as the so-called sales gurus of the internet are evolving (and remember the whole internet marketing thing as an entity to itself is only about a decade old). As it dawns that there are better ways to do things, that the friendly shop keeper on the corner had it right, and the relationship between him and his customers was mutually respectful and long term, rather than the soul-less mall wham-bam of cash grabbing.

Allison Reynolds Makes The Grade

Allison Reynolds the Movie? You might have noticed the video I have just posted ( Allison Reynolds the Movie ) and wondered “what on earth is she doing?!?!?!”.

To recap, I have been working to ensure that my blog ranks #1 for the Google search term Allison Reynolds.

For many of you out there that might not be an issue as you have unusual names, or there is not that much in the way of competition, or you have some awesome backlinking going on. But woe is me, my name happens to coincide with that of a character from an 80’s cult movie and that means I have some pretty stiff competition from fan sites and entertainment trivia type sites.

It is pretty important to your internet image to be able to be instantly found by a search for your name. Sure it may seem like a huge vanity trip to be fighting for that #1 position, yet when you think about how hard names are protected in business you should realise that your name is a huge part of your “brand”.

Exhibit A

After 6 months the blog has worked its way up from position 7-9 to position 1 & 2 according to SEO type measurement (yay!!!!) . For the average punter looking for my name there are those two pesky YouTube videos at the top.  Hmm, how does one get around those two. Well first is to have some competition against them, which means….videos.

If you search YouTube for Allison Reynolds this is what you will see

Now I Have a video up there from a year ago for my fund-raising activities and I am going to leave that doing what it does. What I need now is something that can be linked to the blog and possibly get a leg up from the blog’s authority.  You will note that to get to top position in YouTube I need to get 17k+ views and 5 stars. Well when people catch on that there is one frame in my video of me totally naked I am sure I will grab a few more views (that is totally a joke …. maybe).

Until then it will be same old, same old. Building more authority, and I am an expert in me

Getting To Know You

Currently I am struggling with staying focused on my day job. I have created the finish line (Dec 1 2010) and as each day brings me closer to that date, I feel less and less inclined to put in 100%.  So to make sure I am squeezing every last drop of enthusiasm and excitement I can from my current role I have gone back to what my core strengths are and am applying them every day to the tasks at hand.

Do you know what your core strengths are?

A great place to get a generic cultural core strength evaluation (VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire) is at this University of Pennsylvania site.  After completion make sure you are looking at your top 5 and nothing else. Remember your strengths are what is going to push you through a task, not your weaknesses.

Curious about what core strengths are?

Here are mine…..

Your Top Strength

Love of learning

You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.
Your Second Strength

Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
Thinking of new ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

Your Third Strength

Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

Your Fourth Strength

Humor and playfulness
You like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You try to see the light side of all situations.

Your Fifth Strength

Zest, enthusiasm, and energy
Regardless of what you do, you approach it with excitement and energy. You never do anything halfway or halfheartedly. For you, life is an adventure.

Can you see the enormous value of this information? (can you also see by telling you this you now know how to engage me to do whatever you want with promises of the above *wink*. Wouldn’t that be handy information to know about anyone you interact with!)

For me the goal every day when I wake up is to now

1) look for what I can learn new from my work

2) look at how I can reorganise processes around the place to work in a better way

3) poke my nose into a new area and check out what is happening there

4) keep having fun with everyone

5) remember that my current job is part of my life’s adventure, and that my enthusiasm is infectious

Funnily enough, all of these things are what attracted me to my job in the first place. I have the opportunity to run wild and do these things, be paid to do them, and I learn a hell of a lot more than I ever would just as a technical specialist.

I may not love my job as much as I used to any more, but I am not going to let that continue to affect my productivity or my attitude in the office.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

In the marketing world there is a line. They (marketers) call it the free line. Many marketers pontificate about “moving the free line” That is, providing some fabulous stuff free up first to encourage people to either sign up for something more expensive, or something that will have a recurring cost that will eventually end up to be more expensive,or have a higher profit margin for the provider.

These campaign methods can run off the rails and end up damaging reputations and bank balances

1. The FREE stuff being offered is attractive but the ongoing content is not.

This is what seemed to strike the Mike Filsaime campaign earlier this year, and the first cab off the rank in the major launches that focused in signing up as many punters as possible for a content continuity subscription.

Let me be totally transparent here; I signed up with NO intention of continuing into the paid subscription. Having brushed with Mike’s stuff before I know how his email lists worked and I was not willing to be voluntarily bombarded by a gazillion continuing emails. Some people might like that, I do not. I wanted to see what this campaign was all about, how it worked, and what could be learned from it.

When the free (well for the cost of postage and handling) stuff came it was pretty obvious that the “printed content” was of inferior quality. It looked cheap and shoddy. When you are used to seeing flashy shiny websites, a matt printed thin newsletter type publication is NOT going to excite your subscribers. If you are conditioned that the magazines you subscribe to have decent quality paper, glossy photographs and professional typesetting, then you will expect the same from something more expensive.

Couple that with the obvious delivery issues that Mike was having and I think some valuable lessons were learned by high-end marketers by this initial campaign. With the mastermind group of marketers out there that revolve in the same circle I wonder if the decision for Mike to go first was a strategic one…if there is nothing to compare to, maybe you can get away with delivering crap?

Compare that to the Frank Kern Mass Control 2 launch where opening the “box” was a carefully orchestrated “experience” combining the luxury-colour black, the exciting/dangerous colour of red, piece on piece of top quality “stuff” all topped by the icing yellow sales letter (to stand out like dog’s balls I bet!).  But for all of that Frank’s stuff ended up with

2. Great free stuff but ongoing subscription not worth the ongoing cost.

Transparency statement, I was prepared to go on with the subscription IF the cost was worth it, so i was up at 4am to sign on the dotted line.

I like Frank’s stuff. He is a pretty smart dude and I can see where he is coming from. Why wouldn’t you want to attract affluent cashed up customers who can afford $300 a month, month after month? If there is one thing I have learned in the last two months is this.

Some people are really, really “generous” in how much they will spend to …… [insert burning ambition here].

So Frank is looking at these people as a source of income and he will continue to get them too. I just don’t think I can afford to be that “generous” with what I spend without getting the content I need. This is not a case of not implementing and sitting on my hands while there is great information…. it’s just not $300 a month worth to me. (Still love Frank and his stuff though!)

Another free line pitfall is

3. Free stuff attracts people who have no idea whether they are in the right place or not

I am contemplating leaving a paid site I have been around for a couple of years because the “free trial” has brought in a group of people that really should NOT be there.

Pitched at a certain level of expertise, i have always looked at this site as a place where you don’t muck around, you get down and dirty with like minded and experienced people and do productive stuff. It would never occur to me that there would be people who would sign up for something and have NO IDEA what on earth they signed up for. Can you say “membership level miss-match”

Sure if that kind of person keeps paying it is all well and good for the owner of the site. Especially if the experienced paying membership decide to help these people out (free employees yay!). For the other experienced members the choice is to disappear for a month and hope that the people there for the freebies disappear, or cancel membership. At this stage I am sitting out for a month (and slowly gritting my teeth I am paying for the privilige) and if things do not improve with people leaving then I will be clicking the cancel subscription button in Paypal.

I can appreciate that getting the balance right between free + ongoing income is going to be a difficult one.  As soon as someone gets it “right” I hope they stick to it like glue and reproduce over and over because great freebies + value for money ongoing subscription + some form of membership gatekeeping, will earn more money and reputation points for that person than going for the big bang greed slam.