Mar/106
The right sales mindset and success in social media – part 3 of a 3 part series
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This is the final installment in a three-part series about the right sales mindset for social media success. In the first blog post in this series, I talked about the importance of being a subject matter expert. The second installment in the series focused on how to position your expertise to help a prospective customer decide to allow you to influence their buying decision.
In this last installment, we tie it all together with the glue that cements business relationships on and off the web – trust – arguably the currency of social media commerce.
In the 2008 book Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business by Tom Hayes, the author suggests that trust is the new currency of social media. In the book, Hayes describes an evolving internet business environment that he calls “The Reputation Economy”. This is indeed a double edged sword, as Hayes points out. On the plus side, it is exciting to believe that there are lower barriers to entry and success for even the smallest players. Size is no longer required to grow quickly, and into something significant in this new environment. On the other side of the sword, it can seem a bit scary for buyers. Without traditional entities to mediate and regulate person-to-person transactions on the web, how can there be a guarantee of performance and adequate identification of and punishment of cheaters?
The author Hayes postulates and I agree: the answer is trust. As demonstrated by the success of eBay and Amazon with their user generated systems for rating the reliability of sellers, it seems intuitive that as the online business environment encourages more small players (read: initially unknown and for the most part anonymous even over time), buyers will gravitate towards sellers and interest providers they trust. Trust will be a function of past interactions with the seller, by all buyers or prospects, and mechanisms for displaying this trust will become increasingly demanded and relied upon by buyers.
Today, those mechanisms are mostly content based. Outside of Amazon and eBay, many businesses and business people try to enhance their chances of convincing a prospect to buy from them without the benefit of a formalized seller-reliability rating system. So in these conditions, how do we earn trust? For this, we go right back to the sales mindset that I defined in Mastering Your Sales Process and in the first two installments of this post:
“I am an expert in my field. My job is to help qualified prospects make good decisions about solving problems using my product or service.”
When we embody this mindset in our sales efforts, in social media and elsewhere, we engender trust. People tend to trust those people who seem to know what they are talking about and who can demonstrate that. People trust those who seem to be motivated by the desire to offer assistance in a genuine way. Put these two things together, and you have our definition. Embody this definition, and you will be trusted.
Embodying the definitions means working hard to make yourself and expert in everything that has to do with your product or service, all of the ancillary issues (logistics, finance, etc.), and the business of your prospective clients.
Committing to a business style that focuses on solving real problems in an honest and genuine way means getting past just selling your product, and really working to solve the problems. You will be on your way when you reach the point in a conversation with a prospect at which you KNOW that your product or service is not right for them, and you know what to do next – unequivocally!
This embodiment translates to social media by being the philosophical foundation of your content and aggregation activities. Whether you are posting a blog, answering a question in a forum, or passing on a useful link – come from the place that says “I am an expert who is here to help”, and your content will reflect the right things to lead to trust from those who see your content.
If these embodiments are genuine and well executed, your prospects as well as your connections, followers, friends and whatever else they may be called in the social media lingo du jour will trust you. If they trust you, then you have established the basis for a business relationship.
If this is (all or part of) your goal in using social media, then start every interaction with the idea that:
“I am an expert in my field. My job is to help qualified prospects make good decisions about solving problems using my product or service.”
In this way, you will build the trust you need to take steps in the direction you desire, and your prospective clients will be happy to be along for the ride.
Author: David Masover
David Masover has over twenty years of business-to-business sales experience, including more than eight years in sales management, training, and consulting. He has consulted and negotiated in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Masover is co-founder of Branders.com, the world's largest online seller of promotional products, and is currently engaged in private sales consulting in Budapest, Hungary.Leave a comment
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4:57 pm on March 1st, 2010
This is an interesting take on “reputation economy” — a concept I am most familiar with in its open-source software context, where it gained purchase in Eric Raymond’s seminal essay “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” (first presented in May 1997, and available in whole on Raymond’s site: http://www.catb.org/~esr/).
In that essay, Raymond asserted: “The ‘utility function’ Linux hackers are maximizing is not classically economic, but is the intangible of their own ego satisfaction and reputation among other hackers.”
In this post, what I see implied is that the sales professional has multiple businesses going. One is selling her/his product(s). In the other, s/he is ’selling’ expertise as a consultant, and receiving in payment the reputation and trust that leads to sales of the product. In the latter case the payment is indirect, but tangible.
In the Linux software development world that Eric Raymond describes, and in countless other open-source software projects, a virtuous circle operates. New programmers participate constructively in a project, without monetary compensation; the resultant software is useful to a technology business with a model for making money; the technology company is financially motivated to assure the open-source software remains viable, that it has access to solid expertise in the software, and that the software evolves in directions consistent with the company’s business needs; the technology company hires the participant programmer to address its interests; and the participant programmer can pay her/his bills while continuing to code the software s/he originally contributed to for ‘nothing’ (save reputation…).
I would add one concept to your suggestions of what ought to be done by salespeople participating in business transactions in the ways you’ve laid out. You wrote, “People trust those who seem to be motivated by the desire to offer assistance in a genuine way.” That makes sense. But it also makes sense to think about how that motivation is proven. In Amazon’s marketplace of sellers, a buyer is able to see what former customers have to say about prior transactions. A buyer can see how much business a seller has done on a site, how other buyers rated their experience with the seller in a number of aspects, and free-form comments that permit authentic, unconstrained voices of the many to give authenticity to the reports.
So I wonder if it makes sense for salespeople to gravitate toward social media engagements where their participation can be made visible in some way: how many postings, how many consumers of one’s contribution rated it useful, etc.
Thanks for the post…
1:53 am on March 2nd, 2010
Social media is very important nowadays in marketing but it can be a little daunting. Thank you for the very useful information.
Matthew
11:10 pm on March 2nd, 2010
Steve,
Thanks for your comment. I think that you are exactly right about the salesperson being in two businesses. I rather think of it as the salesperson selling two things. The first is the thing that the customer might pay for – whatever product or service the salesperson represents. The key thing to recognize is that most products and services are becoming more and more commoditized. As such, the salesperson needs to add some value to the transaction or there is no reason for them to be there. Switching costs – the cost of a customer changing a service provider – are pretty low in many cases. As such, the salesperson ALSO needs to sell the idea that they add value to the transaction. Being an expert and sharing that expertise by helping the customer make the best possible decision is the kind of sales behavior that breeds customer loyalty. The online purchase rating system is good for simple transactions. For longer term, more complex transactions and for longer client relationships, the need to establish trust and expertise by the seller is a multi-channel affair. In this case, social media is just another channel, but the same sales persona needs to come through – the expert who is here to help!
-David
11:12 pm on March 2nd, 2010
Matthew,
Thanks for your comment! In contrast to the point I made in responding to the comment from Steve, it is clear from your online presence that what you sell is not a commodity (fine art). As such, your social media goals may be quite different from a salesperson with stiff competition in an increasingly commoditized market. I am far from a social media expert, I only write about my perceptions of the interface between professional selling and social media. In your case, I would guess that exposure is the key goal. I am assuming this here, so please correct me if I am wrong, but in this case, I am not sure if the “expert” approach applies. I can see some value in having an artist help me understand art in general – and more so the work of the artist. Perhaps that helps to sell art in the same way that helping a prospect understand a particular wine helps to sell that wine. What do you think?
-David
11:38 pm on March 18th, 2010
I agree about ‘trust’ and ‘expertise’ being important – but also think it’s important to inject some fun. The only way to enjoy sales is to truly believe that what you’re selling will benefit others AND to love what you sell.
5:59 am on March 19th, 2010
Adrian,
Thanks for the comment, I completely agree. While it is possible to trust someone and to appreciate their expertise without also enjoying the relationship (from either side), the alternative has much lower friction, and is just more enjoyable! As Confucius said: if you love what you do you never work another day in your life! And to your point, your prospects and clients will notice and respond as well!