It’s amazing how organizations in this current age still resort to cold-calling as a marketing approach. This is despite the known fact that the concept of cold calling is dead or almost dying. However, there are methods of cold calling that can be seen as less spammy and aggressive.

It centers around carrying out extensive research on prospective customers before reaching out to them via email or phone. This involves trying to get a head start by identifying their needs, and possibly matching these needs with if the solution you are selling is relevant to their need and will actually help them solve their issue.

The problem with this is that a lot of people are somewhat allergic to cold-calling. No matter how perfect your research is, a few might listen to you but a lot more others might just start perceiving your approach as spammy and might decline your offer even before you get to speak to them.

But I am not here to talk about cold calling. There is a better approach to marketing and getting new customers who will not only give you a listening ear but become a paying customer and actually stay with you for long. This method is called social selling.

It’s a unique art a salesperson use in building relationships with their prospects using social media platforms and subsequently converting these prospects to paying customers. Social selling knocks off the aspect of interrupting the daily lives of your prospects with cold calls and emails trying to hard-sell.

In short, it’s not enough to just get your product out there. It’s not enough to simply get eyeballs on what you’re selling. Trust, not exposure, is the currency of today. Of course, this raises one critical question: how do you build trust?

Let’s look at it this way;

You are 50 in number and you are all stranded in a remote island. To get things in motion without conflict, you’ve all decided to select or vote for a leader. Now the options are a few professionals indicating their interest to lead.

I bet the vote will result in the following,

Doctor
Lawyer
Engineer
Sales rep

The majority of the people will vote for the Doctor as number one to lead them with the sales rep getting the least number of votes.

It’s almost a human thing not to trust sales reps. Especially those who show up on your doorsteps trying to sell that new product (you haven’t even heard about). It’s natural for you to say within you…”I know you’re saying all these just to get me to buy. I ain’t falling for that this time”.

How to build trust in social media
Now, this depends on your preferred social media platform. A lot of people make a killing on Facebook and seamlessly generate business leads from it. Personally, I find it difficult to see Facebook as a spot for lead generation. I see the platform more of a family and friends virtual hangout spot where we share moments that make us social and connect more often than we do physically.

I see my lead generation platform on LinkedIn. Naturally, its a platform with over 500 million users ALL professionals looking for something to buy, sell, or thought leaders. Others are there to connect with other professionals but I believe it still ends in sales.

Building trust in a place like LinkedIn will guarantee you two things.

Firstly, you’ll keep getting more connections and followers so your pool of prospects doesn’t run dry.

Secondly, your existing connections and followers will trust your brand enough to become paying customers.

You can build trust on social media using your communication strategy and your intellect. I’ll explain more about these later.

Always share top quality contents

It doesn’t matter if you are a food blogger or a YouTuber, or passionate about words, your content needs to be topnotch – always!.

Your content represents your brand. If you want your brand to be perceived as an authority, then let your content reflect that. Note that when I am talking about the brand, it might be your personal brand (person) or your organizational brand.

Your content should always expose your followers to the information they have always wanted. Something they have always wanted to learn.

Remember the 80/20 rule? This rule talks about how you should always ensure 80% of your content is informative and educative while 20% can talk about your brand.

Over 90% of my posts on LinkedIn always talk or refer to my company’s brand usually at the end of my posts. I am not necessarily trying to sell, but I am trying to create the perception that:

“Hey, if you enjoyed what I have just posted, know that XYZ brand is behind it. So, if you TRUST my post to always give you the information sought, then you can trust XYZ brand to always provide you with solutions you need”

This is the reason while I keep getting calls from prospects without actually selling.

Another upside to this is when any of my connections or followers make a public request for a solution to any issue, I can easily swoop in and “sell” my company’s service. And a few hours later, a deal has been struck.

Why? Trust was already established via my contents. That is social selling at work.

If you can establish your brand as a thought leader, you may become a go-to resource. This should build up a strong following on social media and, hopefully, lead to more opportunities to strengthen your position. While followers with an interest in your content may not necessarily be customers, your brand is sure to be to the fore of their minds if they ever need what your company provides.

Posting quality content consistent builds a “hunger” in your followers. They always anticipate for more content from you and get antsy when you do not drop content on time.

Keep nurturing engagements

It’s not enough to drop powerful and compelling content on social media and then abandon your followers when they have questions or just giving you some accolades.

If someone asks a question regarding what you have posted, answer the question. If someone asks a question OUTSIDE the confines of what you have posted, do well to also provide an answer. If someone just comments with a compliment, do well to appreciate the gesture.

When you provide answers and encourage engagements on your content, people will have no choice but to trust you and will feel comfortable using your services or products. The reason is that they now have the full confidence that you’ll do everything possible to make yourself available to them when they ask questions or encounter any problems.

This process makes you answerable to your audience which is one of the major pillars of relationship building and trust.

Source: https://basetimes.com/2020/05/16/understand-social-selling-and-how-to-profit-from-it/

Good post. In line with this, I write simple, short and actionable business lessons EVERYDAY. You can subscribe for free here: ekene.substack.com

BIZHAQER:
Good post. In line with this, I write simple, short and actionable business lessons EVERYDAY. You can subscribe for free here: ekene.substack.com

Thank you.