selling

Blog vs. Social Media

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

With few exceptions to the rule of Social media as a marketing platform is pretty flat. Yes, you still need a social media presence. Let’s talk about function.

Using social media to market products, generate sales, with few exceptions those campaigns yield squat. I don’t go to my Facebook page to buy a car, a home, a watch, etc. I go to see what my friends are having for dinner (photo’s of dinner plates) or see funny pictures friends have posted.

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Do you really want to get bombarded with the latest watch adds or whatever served up ad choice advertisement is on my page? No, and neither do I. Social media is a great place to share silly stories of customer bloopers, company bloopers, but don’t throw in a sales pitch!

Keep it fun.

Keep it social.

Blogs are the same in the sense that you want to not make your post a sales pitch. Blog posts can get into the nuts and bolts of what your service or product’s function is. How is it going to change my life? Don’t direct pitch me!

Use this to explain in lay-person terms why it is my life will be significantly better using your wares. Share customer successes regarding the direct application of your service or product. In-depth success stories. Blog posts can be written just like a white paper.

Feed your potential customers information that gives them results right now. For example, if you’re reading this, I challenge you to write a blog post that does not sound or resemble a direct sales pitch. Here are some free ideas:

  • How is it that I ever lived without your product or service?
  • Why does it make my life, better, organized, etc.?
  • Engaging story of customer success, how your widget changed the lives of someone else? 
  • Share customer photo’s where appropriate and with permission. 

The real challenge is to write content that gets the customer to call you and say, “Where do I sign?” Engage them in such a way that they cannot live without what you provide. Without sounding like a canned sales pitch!  

Where possible, provide enough information so that your potential customer has success now. Without having to pay. Share some of your best information get them hooked so they will come wanting more. This too is a challenge. Why do you think ice cream shops give samples?

Take a look at what you’re putting out on social media. Is it something you want to look at while you’re leisurely surfing Facebook? Grow fans with funny and socially relevant information. Start selling and start losing fans.

There are exceptions to the social media rule, but very few. Testing that water is okay, but focus on social engagement, NOT sales unless you become the exception to our practice.

Question or share with us your success story, we would love to feature your business in a future blog post:

Selling in a Digital Age

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

Selling in a Digital Age (This is the introduction to a new book I will be published before the end of this year)

How to stand out in the crowd

When I first started selling personal computers and cell phones were in their infancy. In fact, it was a car phone that mounted in the car paying as much as a couple of bucks a minute to be on the telephone incoming or outgoing. You were pretty cool if you had a phone antenna on your back glass. In fact, a huge market for fake phone antennas existed one had to look cool!

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In today’s world, salespeople have unbelievable tools to help them reach out to customers. You’re a smartphone away from success. What you will learn reading this book will teach you how to use and where to find digital platforms to stand out in the crowd. Most importantly, how to brand you as the go-to professional for whatever it is your pedaling.

After thirty plus years working in professional sales organizations, I can tell you today’s sales professional has so many ways to reach out and touch customers it’s mind-boggling.

It’s time to laugh a bit. In my day we had no computers, no cell phones. We merely kept tickler cards (old guy version of a CRM) in a box on our desk. Each tab had who you needed to follow up with for that month or week with notes from the last call.

A retired salesman named Joe Girard™ who is an author, but his claim to fame is selling the most retail deliveries of over 13000 in his career. He is in the Guinness Book of World™ records for his achievement. For those of you that are in the car business, he averaged some 80 retail deliveries each month, not a fleet, retail. He did all of this without a computer, and a cell phone was the phone booth on the corner. During the late ’60s and ’70s, he achieved what no other individual has come close to doing. He is also the only salesman to be in the Automotive Hall of Fame.

My point to that statement is you need to be the salesperson everyone loves. You don’t put up numbers like that without being a person that delivers value and most importantly experience the customer never forgets.

So before we dive off into the digital end of the pool. It’s essential you have a general knowledge of selling. All of what you’re about to learn will make sense to you if sales are your gig. What you will achieve by reading and studying the information in this book is how you will be found. Imagine customers finding you before they even see your product or service.

Imagine customers learning more about your professional business acumen than the widget you’re selling. Be the go-to guy within your industry. It could take you years before anyone noticed you without the digital programs that you will learn about in this book. If you got noticed at all!

This is going to take some work. If you’re not willing to make an investment in your own success, shame on you! However, if reading this book, then I imagine the person that we want to serve this information to is you.

You will learn how to leverage social media, blogs, and landing pages that will serve you well in the marketplace. Sharing information not only about your product but its successful application. How end users will benefit from your product or service. Most importantly, how they will help from doing business with you.

At the end of the day, people do business with people they trust and like. Planting that information and letting it will serve you for years to come. Search helpful information that allows clients to find you, get to know you before you ever make physical contact.

The whole book will be available in December 2018.

Can You Sell, Sales?

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

This article is for folks that don’t think they can sell. In fact, you detest the ground a salesman walks on. You can’t stand anything about the selling process.

Well here I come in my plaid pants, white shoes and belt to teach you something about sales. Okay if you’re still reading, I’m joking. However, I am not kidding about helping you learn some powers of persuasion that you can use to sell anyone on an idea, a product, or just yourself. All in a good, healthy, and fun way. Nothing crazy here!sales,selling,business

We all at some point in time need to be able to get others to like what we have. The what we have does not matter remember that. It’s getting our point across in a fun and engaging way. So whatever it is you want to swing your way. Buckle your belt and let’s get rolling.

Selling is incredibly simple. You need to convince the person or persons you’re trying to pitch that what you have will change the lives of those who use it. If someone believes that they can’t live without what you have, you don’t have to sell. You just have to push the pen in front of them, sign here.

This process takes a passion for what you’re offering. Understanding the product, service better than what the average Joe does. If you know how to show someone how what you have is life-changing, it’s not sales. Getting someone to understand that a tire will change their life, that takes real skill. Selling a tire is just selling a tire. If you can demonstrate how this set of tires will improve your driving experience, create value around that. You have to understand every single aspect of a tire, from the raw materials, manufacturing process, testing, life, safety, and quality.

Then you need to formulate a story that does not put customers to sleep. Storytelling (NO not lying) authentic storytelling. You need to be the person that National News organizations would call for a professional opinion. If you can tell the story that would rival a James Patterson Novel, then you will be well on your way to benefiting your customers in a whole new way.

Compelling customers, NOT SELLING CUSTOMERS. The big difference with a better, long-lasting result. We have to get passed, turn them, and burn them attitude towards sales. Why do you think advertisers use ways to make you feel special if you use this product or that? The persuasion is better than “hey, this is crazy Bob’s widget sales right here in downtown USA we’re dealing, slashing prices, we won’t be undersold.” ARRRGGGG gross no way it’s junk!

Telling a story that touches my soul. Figure out how what you do changes lives. I hear everyone saying, “okay Mr. Big Time, how do I convince someone that my tomatoes are going to change my life, their tomato’s for goodness sake.” My answer is to stop whining and let’s figure it out! Together!

Yes, this will take some real thought and research. You need to dive in and learn everything from why the tomato seed you use is far better than your competition, that the dirt where your tomatoes are grown makes a difference. That the packaging, the shipping of your vegetables is done in ways that genuinely preserve the end product. Do you see my point yet?

Think about it for a good while. Understand your process from the cradle to the grave. Learn it like you, your life depended on it. That if you miss one small detail, it could be fatal. The story has to move people to action. It has to run me so that I want to buy it. I will happily pay more for something I see the life-changing value. If you knew in your heart that what your purchasing was going to increase the benefit of your life in some significant way, would you put a price tag on that? NO, you would look for a way to BUY it. I would not need to sell you anything because you want to have it far exceeds any other emotion.

Telling a story about what products or services do to change the lives of those using it. If you can master a story worthy of inspiring the soul. All the sales skills in the world won’t matter. The customer will want to buy, you won’t have to sell a thing.

Rehearse the story until it flows from your lips like a river flows through a meadow. It has to come from your heart. Otherwise, it sounds like a canned presentation, and you lose. Obviously, if you have a product or service you perform the passion is there. So the story will come if you allow it to. Meditate on it if you have to. Take notes, organize your thoughts. Read your story aloud, when you do so, then you will hear how it sounds. Great way to edit!

When you can master the art of storytelling, you won’t need a bunch of fancy sales mumbo-jumbo. You have to ask for the sale, but you won’t have to what I call sales to beg someone to buy from you. They will already see the value from your story, the rest is just signing here folks.

Please send me your questions and comments:

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