How To Do This “Social Selling Thing”

“Juggler” by Markus Lutkemeyer

Social Media vs Face To Face Interaction. (One Could Drive You Out of Business.) 

(Next week I’m speaking at Social Media Marketing World on the topic of “Social Selling” so I’m freshening up this post that goes back to 8/7/09.)

entrepreneur: en·tre·pre·neur: ?ä?n-tr?-p(r)?-?n?r, -?n(y)u?r noun

: one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise (According to Merriam-Webster)

Entrepreneurs are like jugglers you see at the circus or state fair with one teeny tiny, itsy bitsy exception:

THE JUGGLER HAS TRAINED RIGOROUSLY, ARDUOUSLY AND IN A FOCUSED MANNER FOR YEARS to perfect the trade before he jumps on stage.

We entrepreneurs, afflicted with “restless mind syndrome“…

…just hop right in to start our own ventures because we get fed up with the inefficiencies, the lack of respect, the lure of more money and the dream of “being in control” of our own lives.

But more times than not, we’re not really prepared for life and business on our own.

This happens because Entrepreneurs are doers. We don’t read the manuals. (That’s what “managers” and “technicians” are for.)

We get things done! (At least we get things STARTED!)

We’re the dreamers. The big picture people. The visionaries. The losers of sleep and gainers of much anxiety but we’re getting things done…and we’ll get to that sales training we know we need soon. Promise!

We often wish we had read the manual but where do we get that “How To Succeed at Entrepreneurship: The Starter’s Guide”?

Life as an entrepreneur is trial by fire, drinking from the fire hose, and—hopefully, if you’re smart—learning from those that went before you.

Look at the “manual” the SBA provides. WARNING: DO NOT GO TO THEIR WEBSITE if you operate heavy machinery as it may cause drowsiness, shortness of breath, dizzy spells and light-headedness.

For “starters” the SBA website has a Small Business Planner section with a nice, neat, tidy, concise 4 step, 31 part, 522 subsection guide on their homepage to help you “Manage your business from start to finish.”

JIMMINY CHRISTMAS! I made it through 5 years of college and two degrees without reading that much content or writing as many reports as the SBA recommends!

And this is supposed to be our Guru-on-the-mountain-top, tax-funded source of “programs and services to help you start, grow and succeed?”

But wait. There’s more!

To show you just how thorough the good ol’ SBA is, they’ll help you fail! (You can’t make this stuff up. If I’m lying I’m dying!)

According to Step 4, Part 30 they even help you file for bankruptcy! (How’s that for leaving no stone unturned? I just love an advisor that can help me plan for both success AND failure at the same time.)

I’m amazed that this program EVER worked for more than 1 person out of 8 million but I’m sure it did help someone launch a business. Just not me. And probably not you. But even if it did how well did it prepare you for today’s economy in the age of disruption and attention deficit disorder?

You and I both know the typical dreamer, doer, mover, shaker, producer, go-to-guy is not ever, not once gonna even visit the SBA website let alone read all the way down to Step 4 with its 31 glorious parts.

And we sure as heck aren’t going to write a business plan with its 87 pages, 187 footnotes, 45 charts, a table of contents and an appendix along with a 5 year earnings projection and ROI calculations. (How’s that forecasting working out for you on that business plan you created back in 2008, huh?)

Today, the entrepreneur is either catapulted to her zenith or to her death by an extension of Moore’s law, a 51-year old discovery first documented by Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel.

Moore observed that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit since its invention in 1958 increases exponentially and doubles every 18-24 months. Doesn’t it feel like your “To-Do” list and your “Still-To-Do” list and your “When-Will-It-Ever-Get-Done” list doubles every 18-24 months?

How often do you think that Moore’s law applies to the quantity and severity of critical issues you must manage, navigate and juggle just to keep that entrepreneurial spirit with no user’s manual alive?

Today sales may be down, haggling over your prices is up, deals are delayed and when they do come in they are cut in size and your customer still wants extended terms and delayed payments. Your salespeople are whining about not having leads and you know you need to do more to advertise and market but that’s just another manual you’ve haven’t read and another To Do to add to your list.

Now you throw this whole “social media thingy” into the mix that your kids insist you gotta do and you notice that all your employees and competitors and mentors are doing it so you stop selling, stop marketing, stop advertising, stop focusing on your business and join and/or download 44 different social media sites and tools to help you “manage” your social media profile and VOILA! 100 people want you to join “Mafia Wars” and they want to know when your birthday is and who your relatives are and what your favorite TV show, movies, books and food are!

Wow. You had no idea you were so popular, did ya?

Then some uber-happy-appearing person in Oshkosh, Wisconsin wants to “follow you” using some strange electronic shorthand and a co-worker from 1987 (who you think got fired for stealing toilet paper from the office) wants you to give him a glowing recommendation on another website for all the world to see!

Whew!

After hacking around 16 different sites an average of 6 hours a day for 6 weeks listening to your computer bleep and whistle and snort at you in order to remind you that “@no_life is going to have a cheese sandwich and take a nap” you see your leads are down, your sales are down, your stress it up (why can’t we all be as happy and prosperous and famous as “@no_life” appears to be all the time) you begin scheming how to create a “laptop sandwich” for the person that first told you to “get into social marketing to grow your business!!”

But forget that thought for just a moment longer…

As the inestimable Randy Jackson of “American Idol” fame would say,

Social Media—and leveraging the power of Social Marketing—is a must for the business that wants to stay ahead of the competition. However, like any medium and skill, there are tips and tricks and techniques that must be mastered if you are to control it. Otherwise, it will consume and control you either through wasting time trying to figure it out on your own or by losing to those that have already figured it out. 

Cliff Ravenscraft Made a Cool Image of Me Speaking at Social Media Marketing World 2015

But I have good news and bad news for you if you’d like the “Owner’s Manual to Mastering The Right Marketing Concepts For Your Business, Including Social Media.”

• The bad news is, there is no single owner’s manual to master all of this.

• The good news is you can tame this beast if you break it down into its core components:

  • Social

  • Media

  • Marketing

• The additional good news—and I cover this in my talk “The Art Of The Close: 7 Social Selling Success Secrets”—is that as long as you are human and remember that you are simply trying to connect with other humans at the other end of your feed, you’ll be fine.

So stay “social” and “sociable.” Remember that this is just one form of media in the same way that direct mail or PPC or printed ads or radio ads are forms of media to get your word out, albeit with a tad bit more timely interaction from your readers. Finally, always keep in mind that you are leveraging social media as a form of marketing, and marketing is just selling in print.

Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, reminded The Sales Podcast listeners that

So look at what has worked in your business so far and see how you can adapt it to work in social media. With a little bit of research you can quickly determine where your prospects and customers are hanging out online and you can begin to engage, first, as a sociable member of that online community, then sprinkle in some marketing nuggets.

Before long you’ll be a social media marketing whiz making as many deposits as you are friends.

If you need more help growing your sales, check out the following resources scattered around this site and a few others I operate, such as:

• Apply Magnetic Marketing to your business and watch your business grow

• Learn to put Personality In Copy and watch your influence grow

• Go where the money is: Marketing To The Affluent

• Hire The Best Keynote Speaker

• Ontraport Demo