Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
5 Ways to Sell In 2020
Show Notes
Hello, hello Episode 50, Wow!
12 months ago, I didn’t think about what is would be like to be recording the 50th episode of Small Business Talk (SBT). Not that I thought I would quit or not do it, I just didn’t visualise what 12 months ahead would look like.
Apparently, the first stumbling block for a lot of podcasts is 7 episodes.
Ray, my podcast mentor suggested we record 7 episodes before going live so we would get over that stumbling first block. Great idea but in reality, didn’t happen for me. As you know, the format for SBT in a guest on week and a solo show the next where I discus a topic that I think is useful to you or has been asked for by the SBT community. When I started this format, I thought getting guest would be the hardest part.
No, what I found was doing my segment was harder.
- Caving out the quiet time to do it.
- Sorting out which of the thousand topics running around in my head to do.
- Pressing record and just doing it.
- Not over editing the audio
Plus getting use to listening to my voice talk back to me. That really spun my dog out when I was talking but it wasn’t me talking in the moment.
What Went Right
50 episodes for the world to hear and share so please do like and share. Please if you are liking my content, write a review on iTunes or the Facebook page.
Speaking with wonderful business owners, lots of business women from all over the world.
Having listeners from all over the world.
Meeting my first fan at a networking event. Someone who discovered SBT from a suggestion form his podcast app.
What Went Wrong
There were lots of challenges along the way, however, nothing that couldn’t be overcome. Listen to episode 22 for some of the mistake I made.
So Where to For Small Business Talk From Here…
Would you like another 50 episodes?
Please reach out and let me know what topics or guests you would like to hear. And please do remember to comment, like, subscribe and share the SBT content.
Small Business Talk Podcast is now on YouTube as well. Subscribe and ring the bell to get notified on new episodes each week.
Ok, so let’s get on with the show.
5 Ways to Sell In 2020
2020, still sounds some date in the future. Selling is one of the most important activities that your business needs to do.
You Must Have A Product or Service To Sell.
Well, that’s obvious. As Brendon Burchard says “common sense is not always common practice”
How many social media influencers are making a living, a good living off all their followers they have? The ones that are have a produce or have tapped into being the “service” so they can make money. However, many have not.
You Must Sell Your Product and Service.
Selling still makes a lot of people feel icky and yes, there still the slimy car salesman out there.
Having recently gone through the process of buying another car, I have seen the good and bad side of car salesmen. Interestingly enough, they were all men.
Some followed up, some didn’t. It was also interesting to see who spoke to us directly, who let us wonder aimlessly around the car lot, from our online interactions who picked up the phone and rang us. It was also a good example of automation gone wrong, when I got a text message at 6am Christmas morning to ask if I needed help with my enquiry.
To make money in business, you must sell your product/service and you must let your customers know that you have something for them to buy. So how do you do it without feeling like a slimy car salesman?
5 Ways to Sell In 2020
The very first thing is stop trying to sell.
Ask yourself
- Do you believe in your product/service?
- Can you help solve a specific problem with it?
- Will it make someone’s life better than before they bought/used the product?
If the answers are yes, then why wouldn’t you want to help people?
You are in the business of helping people, not selling and if you think about it like that, why would you feel icky about helping people.
If you still do, then you need to go back to the previous questions and then look at your product. Something doesn’t add up and you shouldn’t be selling it.
Business of Helping People.
Now that you are helping people you need to look at which people would be best served or helped with your product.
Chances are, you can’t and don’t want to help everyone.
Who Can You Help?
Look at the type of person you can best help. Picture your ideal customer. The person who loves your product, buy everything you have available, tells everyone and gives you great reviews.
What is that person’s name eg “Sally”.
Now write down everything you can about Sally. Gender, age, marital status, children or not, what type of car she drives, does she drive, etc.
Check out my customer avatar worksheet to give you a full list of question to get a complete picture of Sally.
Where Do You Go to Help Your Customers?
Now you have the complete picture of Sally, where does she hang out?
- Is Sally a Facebook girl?
- Does she like groups
- Is Instagram or YouTube more her thing?
When you decide where Sally is most likely to hang out, think about your presence there. Are you spending most of your social media time and content on Sally’s favourite platform?
If not, then you are going to need to change your social media strategy.
If Sallyl has several favourite platforms, start with her most favourite first, once you have mastered that, then you can move into posting on her next most favourite as well.
What Can You Help Your Customer With?
Ok, so now you know why you are helping Sally and where you are going to do it. Now you need the what?
Each social media platform has a different voice and trying to post exactly the same way and content on each is why you are probably getting frustrated and not seeing great results for your efforts.
In episodes #004, #024 and #026 of the Small Business Talk podcast, I give you some tips on Facebook posting. In episode #014, some advice on LinkedIn. Go back and listen to them.
Match Your Social Media Tone
What you need to do is match your voice “tone” of posting to the chosen platform.
For example, to hashtag or not.
- Instagram and Linkedin, yes.
- Facebook and Twitter, more sparingly.
What to Post on Social Media
Now what should you be posting.
Imagine you were standing in front of your girlfriend, your lady friend who hadn’t seen for a while.
This lady has the exact problem that you solve.
She is the perfect customer and you have known her for a really long time.
However, for some reason, she doesn’t know that you have your product available that would help her problem.
What would you say to her?
I have widget “X” and it cost “Y”, buy it?
No.
You would have empathy, explain the benefits of your products, maybe tell about a case study and when she was getting interested, explain some of the features.
That is what you need to do with your social media posts.
- Educate
- Entertain (if appropriate)
- Show case studies
- Testimonial – video works well
- Build trust about your company and your fabulous product
- Before and afters
- How others have used it.
Glen Carlson from Dent.Global says you are not selling the drill, you are selling the hole.
No one wants to buy a drill; they want to buy the hole – the outcome. The drill is just the means to make the hole.
People buy the dream, the solution, the outcome.
We don’t buy the airline ticket because they like flying – we buy it because they want to get to somewhere as fast as they can possibly travel.
We don’t buy the awful tasting shake or protein powder for its taste; we buy it for the dream of losing weight.
When to Sell
Lastly, you need to think about when, when do you want your customers to buy.
All the time!!
Haha… Yes, I get it!
But seriously,
We might need to warm them up first. We want our customers to buy when they need our products. Sometimes, our customers don’t know they need our product and by the time we tell them we have it available, they have already bought from someone else.
It needs to be an education process and a repetition process too.
You might worry if you post too often that people will get sick of your message. Yes, some will, however, they don’t need your products at that moment.
Obviously, don’t be spammy about it. Make sure you change your message up, use a variety of ways to deliver it and possibly, a variety of different platforms.
Generally, we have very short attention spans these days, less than a goldfish and we are bombarded with thousands of messages each day.
How many of these advertising messages do you actually remember?
Allowing Your Customers To Buy From You
You need to tell your customers you have a product and put it in front of them when they are most likely to be looking.
Use your platforms analytics/insights to work that out when your ideal customers are looking at your social media channels.
The 5 Ways to Sell In 2020 Are:
- Build Trust
- Educate
- Showcase your product/service
- Give your customers the option to buy
- Ask them would they like to buy
Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Small Business Talk and all of our previous 49 episodes. Next week we are talking to a special guest and our topic is how to reduce stress when running a small business, I hope you can join us then.
