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.

Cross My Palm With Silver

When it comes to asking for money for one’s services or goods, some people have no trouble at all, and some find it the most uncomfortable part of business processes.

Lucky you if you were brought up in a culture where self worth is not tied to your bank balance. The Romani peoples (Gypsies) see money something they can make come to them with little more effort than their use of words (marketing anyone?) and use it to forge closer bonds to each other through celebration and festival. Their lifestyle is foreign (duh!) to us non-Gypsies, and their use and pursuit of money can be abhorrent to us. Asking for money for no effort is begging isn’t it?

For most of anglo western society money is seen as part of the person. The starving artist may be producing the most wonderful of creative efforts, but will be looked down upon because they cannot support themselves through “proper” means. Perversely the rich are also viewed with distrust because no average person could get that rich by legal means can they?  We become tied in moral and self-worth knots when we come to the moment where we put a $ sign on our goods, or our time or labor.

I watched a video recently of a person I respect, a person who can name their price for their consultation and teaching services, but when they came to saying the price for their newest enterprise, they hesitated. It may have only been for a nanosecond or two but it was noticeable. This guy is not shy, has tons of cash anyway, yet tripped when it came to naming his price. It was an odd moment.

Lisa, Barb and I have yet to have our final pricing discussion for the Secret Women’s Business Network teaching area, but we will be talking about what this is worth to our clients and NOT about what we feel we are worth (in the secret depths of our minds *wink*).  There is a lot of time and expertise going into the creation of the SWBN and the experience we will be providing will be worth every penny.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

A recent study in Australia created a list of the most recognised brands by Australians.  This study was not limited to products or commercial ventures.  The survey asked of a tiny example of Australians, only 1000 of them (is that even statistically significant?), and then was judged by a panel of industry “experts”, but the criteria on which they were judged is quite a valid one

“A brand had to fulfill three criteria: whether consumers could easily understand what it stood for, if there was a clearly articulated belief, and whether there was behaviour particular to the brand, for example, people went to great lengths to defend it.”

Many start-ups use the whole vision/mission statement as more of a marketing exercise rather than articulating what makes them PASSIONATE and DIFFERENT.

Passion is a universal attractor, humans are wired to be attracted to someone who is excited about something. Think about it, you are an early human on the Serengeti Plain and one of your tribe runs up gesticulating. They have information you NEED to know because information equals survival.  Instantly your attention on an intellectual AND emotional level is focused on this person. Whether that information was they had found a great place to catch dinner, or that something was coming that was going to make you dinner, did not matter.

Not many people/companies convey that kind of passion, and that is what drives the third step of the branding criteria. Particular behaviour to the brand.

Plenty of factors can ruin any chance you may have of building a good brand, let alone a great one. Bad customer service , the naked desire for cash,  any form of incongruity between what is said and what is done spring to mind immediately, yet these things are often the trademark of internet marketing businesses (no wonder people think IM is the playground of shysters and scam artists).

Look at the Australian Top 20 and see if you know or agree that they fit your idea of great branding

1. Hells Angels

2. Apple

3. Star Wars

4. Dove

5. Moleskine

6. Smiggle

7. The Body Shop

8. Virgin

9. Alannah Hill

10. Ecko

11. Catholic Church

12. Nike

13. Free Hugs

14. Harley Davidson

15. Peter Alexander

16. T2

17. Bra Boys

18. Sunrise

19. Circus Oz

20. Boost

You can bet that branding will be one of the areas we will be covering in the SWBN.

No Mucking Around

It is nine whole days since the end of the 30DC. In that time I have buried my ex-husband, consoled my heartbroken children, gone back to work after compassionate leave and taken a germ of a business idea and made it reality, just like *that*!.

Today saw the first whisper on Twitter announcing the “launch” of the Secret Women’s Business Network.

Now I haven’t done it all by myself (that would have been absolute madness!) and my partners in crime Barb, Lisa and I have a HUGE amount of work still to do, but it goes to show how quickly and painlessly one can do this kind of thing on the internet. How to achieve this sort of result will be part of the curriculum when we fully open the doors (exciting!).

Don’t expect one of those huge hoopla launches, the SWBN is working on the snowball principal. That our environment and content is so good that word of mouth will keep our membership growing at a steady rate. Also, we are totally committed to ALWAYS making our announced dates.  Nothing beats great project management (another part of our curriculum) and we will be eating our own cooking as they say, by demonstrating this as a cornerstone of owning a “real” business.

I had a huge rush of adrenalin this morning after making that one simple twitter post, all of the work in those 9 days was now a reality! My passion has become a reality and I am writing this grinning like a crazy woman.

Look out world, here we come!