How to keep social media from driving you nuts
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Social media is really a bunch of channels where groups of people gather and discuss particular things. Social media isn't "one" thing. If you think of it as "one" thing, you quickly become overwhelmed with all the things you could be doing, instead of focusing on only the things you should be doing.
I coach businesses of all sizes. Lately I've been seeing the owners of the smallest companies spending more time feeling guilty about social media than they do actually doing social media.
The most successful social media effort, like any marketing effort, isn't driven by guilt. It's driven by a goal - and the right actions taken to achieve the goal.
In a recent coaching session with an entrepreneur, it was obvious that she had become rather frantic about the whole subject of social media. I assured her that the best thing to do was to calm down about it, and then work on taking specific steps that would lead to a positive outcome.
First, we started to look carefully at each of the services she provides. It turns out her services fall into three main categories, which is good - three categories is a great number for potential clients coming to her website. But as she discussed those services, it became obvious that some were "better business" for her than others - for various reasons.
I suggested that, for her first homework assignment, she create a table listing the services she could provide, in the first column, and then list all the criteria that matter to her across the top row. These column headers would be things such as "Profitable," "Pays quickly," "Fun to do," "Easy to get clients," and so on. She could then rank each service, on a scale of 1 - 10, on how well that service met those criteria. The resulting totals would help her decide which services she really wanted to pursue and promote, and which services she should spend less time promoting.
Only after doing that kind of exercise would we then be able to decide which marketing and selling methods she should use - including social media channels.
Then, we can ask the important questions:
- Who are the buyers?
- What is their buying process?
- How do they go looking for her type of product, for advice about her type of product, and to get questions answered about her type of product?
- How can she best facilitate in the customer's buying process?
She could guess about this, but that's a sure recipe for failure. Her next homework assignment will be for her to interview her current clients to get answers to these questions - to "reverse engineer" the successful sales, so we can manufacture new sales in quantity.
This is the most reliable way to shift from "guilt" to "goal." Ask your customers what they think you should be doing. Works like a charm, no matter what you're selling.
Once she knows where they go and where they'd expect to find her, she will also know which social media channels will work best for her, and how she should participate. She will be able to focus on the channels that will work best, and put her time into those.
No longer will it be some overwhelming, vague item on her to-do list that won't necessarily lead to revenue (which is the real reason for her hesitation in the first place - entrepreneurs hate to waste time on things that won't work).
Instead, it will be a concrete set of tasks that she needs to do every day, and she will know why she is doing them. She will also build momentum in those prime areas, which is one of the keys to success in any marketing effort - but especially in social media channels.
"What's enchanting? A book that tells you exactly how to grow your revenue." - Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions
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Some truths from Mark Rainville
Got an email from Mark Rainville with some great truths in it. Asked for his permission to post. Here it is. And no, I don't hate salespeople. I've been selling my whole career, in one form or another. I do hate where salespeople end up when the do all of the things Mark talks about in this excellent rant.
Kristin,
It sounds like you don’t like salespeople! I cannot stand most salespeople and I earn a living as a 100% commission salesperson.
You do a great job describing what most amateur salespeople are like. The problem with most salespeople is they should not be in sales and it is not their fault. The company who hired the salesperson did a poor job in the hiring process.
Most companies have no process in place for determining if a salesperson will fail or succeed. If a company had a system in place and did the diligent work required to hire top salespeople, the results they would get would be outstanding. Sales is the easiest lowest-paying job, or the hardest highest-paying job, in the world. Ninety percent of salespeople are a joke and should not be in the world of professional sales.
Once you get past the company's inability to hire salespeople properly you have to deal with the company’s ridiculous and completely ineffective training program. Most companies, after they make what is usually a weak hire, put that person through their weak training program. The company never invested in a system to hire top salespeople who will succeed, so why would you think they would invest in a real training program?
Their thought process is that the turnover rate is so high, why should they invest a lot of money in a new hire that probably will not be around that long. Do you see the vicious cycle? It is the definition of insanity because they continue to do the same thing over and over again and wonder why they continue to get the same results.The result they get is the type of salesperson you talked about in this article.
The other part to the problem is the salesperson's unwillingness to invest in themselves. Most companies, as I stated, have horrendous training programs, so the salesperson needs to look outside the company for professional sales training. Professional sales training is very expensive and most salespeople do not think they need it and are reluctant to spend money on it. It is a great paradox that they want you to invest in them - but they are not willing to invest in themselves. Think about that. They want you to invest in them but they won’t invest in themselves and then they wonder why they fail in sales!
A true professional salesperson doesn’t try to sell you anything, he or she knows that they are in the decision-making business. They are going to help you make a decision. That decision might not be them or their product or service. They are completely ok with that.
The amateur sales person has what we call a "no allergy" - meaning they are allergic to the word "no," so they avoid it at all costs. When you avoid the word "no," you become the type of salesperson you describe and the type I cannot stand.
The internet has made my life easier as a salesperson because an educated customer is so much easier to help make a decision. I obviously love the word "yes," but "no" is a perfectly acceptable decision for me because it allows me to close that file and find another prospect or customer who might say yes.
A true professional never uses a sales pitch; he or she asks a lot of questions. I don’t agree with you that people are drawn to sales because they don’t want to think very hard. I have been in the sales world 25 years and the majority of salespeople are drawn to the field for the opportunity to make money. The best salespeople are introverts not extroverts. It takes a tremendous amount of training - and I am talking years - to become a top salesperson and you are going to work harder than you ever imagined. The customer does need the salespersons help to make a decision, otherwise the customer would have already made the purchase. An educated customer is much easier to work with, but there is a reason they have not purchased yet and you need to help them make a decision even if it is not you or your company’s product or service.
Sales is an extremely demanding job and really pushes you to the limit, it is very tough but also very rewarding when done correctly. By the way, Rule #1 is prospects and customers lie and that’s ok.
Mark Rainville
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