Show notes
As social media has evolved, so have the ways that people are selling. From Facebook to Twitter, to LinkedIn, to whatever comes next, we all have to be on the lookout now for when social media conversations turn salesy and every conversation is suspect.
David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be discussing the idea that as more and more poor quality sales-people turn to social media, nearly every conversation we have becomes suspect. Welcome Chris.
Chris: Hi David. You know it is a growing trend, isn't it? You post a question or a comment on social media. People essentially start spamming you as a result with pitches for their products, that sort of thing. Where do you draw the line between helpful content and a blatant sales pitch if you're on the delivery end of that type of thing?
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David: Yeah, it's a great question because as salespeople and as business owners, we know that we want to have conversations online that could potentially lead to a sale but we don't want to do it in a way that is just us being obviously self-promotional. So there is a fine line there, and I've really noticed this recently over the course of the past really month or two. Particularly even in the past few weeks I've become more and more aware of it. And as I have, I've just noticed it everywhere. It's like that thing where you buy a certain type and color of car and then all of a sudden you keep seeing that.
I've been seeing this on social media all over the place lately. Someone will post a comment and in fact, a situation I had recently was I had asked a question on social media. I asked if people got their leads primarily online or offline and I had some people who came in and they said, “I get most of my leads online,” I got some people who said, “I get most of my leads offline.” And then I had somebody who just posted an ad for their place because they help get people leads online. So essentially they hijack the thread and they're sort of spamming people with a response. And I thought, it's so foolish and shortsighted to do that because if they had actually responded and said something like, "Well, you know, we used to get them online, but now we get them offline and we've developed a few strategies that have helped us to do that." Then they could at least start planting seeds without being obvious about - here's my link, go click and buy from me. And I think that's where people are getting a little more skeptical.
Chris: One of the things that I always noticed, I was in web development for many years and the thing that I loved in web development was people that had bad web developers that would come to me, because of the bar was so low that really exceeding expectations was so easy. And I think that this is exactly the same thing where you've got somebody who doesn't have the presence of mind to say, hey, how can I help somebody to understand or have a different perspective on the question that's being asked? Like you asked and talk about solutions that work without it being a pitch and still make it clear that that's what you do, but it's more informational. And I think that this just creates this great platform to exceed people's expectations. But that's a great way to knock people's expectations about you down to pretty much the basement, don't you think?
David: Yeah. And so much of it is just about being a decent human, you know, it seems so simple. It's like that book, Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten or something that was out had a long, long time ago. But that idea just sort of be nice to people, treat people well. It's all such basic stuff, but it's basic for a reason... because it's important. And I had a situation recently on LinkedIn where when somebody new would connect with me, I'd send them a greeting message and I would just basically say, “Hey, great connecting with you on LinkedIn. If there's anybody in my network that you'd like to meet, please be sure to let me know, I'd be happy to arrange an introduction.” because I figured, okay, that's just sort of offering something that's nice and helpful. And there was this one guy who replied back and he's like, “Well, why would you do that?” And I'm like, “Well, because if we're connected on LinkedIn, if there's somebody that you'd like to meet, if I know them, I'd be happy to arrange an introduction for you.” And he's like, “Well, how do you make money doing that?” I'm like, “Well, I wouldn't necessarily make money by introducing you to someone, but if it's helpful to you, this is supposed to be social networking. So this is an opportunity to network. That's why I figured I would do this.” I'm like, “You don't have to. If there's nobody in my connections you want to meet, that's fine. I don't have to introduce you, but I'm putting it out there, making that available.” So very skeptical, very skeptical. And so he finally came back and he came up with somebody that he wanted to meet. So, he gave me the name of the person that he wanted to meet, and I said, “Okay, fine. I'll arrange an introduction.” So I sent a message through LinkedIn to the person that I was connecting with and letting him know that this other person I was connecting with wanting to meet him and gave him the information, said, if you do want to connect, by all means, please feel free to do so. And so, then this guy who I had now referred to, this other person I'm connected with, sends me this message saying, “Oh okay, thanks.” And then he gave me a list of seven other people in my list that he wanted me to connect him with.
Chris: Wow.
David: And I replied back, and I said, “I'm sorry, I can't actually spend my entire day connecting you with people. And if there's somebody who I connect with new, I'm happy to connect them with one person, but I can't spend sort of the rest of my day or the rest of my life connecting you up with people. Let's see how it goes with the first one and we can go from there.” And the guy wrote back, and he said, “Okay. So, there it is.”
Chris: That was his response? “So, there it is”?
David: “So, there it is.” So it's like, okay, there's the catch. The catch is that you're only going to introduce me to one of the people who's on your list.
Chris: Wow.
David: Now here's somebody who didn't make any attempt at all. I don’t even think he said thanks for the referral to the first person, but it's like he saw, okay, hey, here's this idiot who's willing to introduce me to as many people as I want. I guess that's what he thought. Although I didn't say that, but it's like he went in with this idea of you know, that there was some sort of catch or whatever, and he ended up creating his own scenario. He ended up creating his own result because a result of his behavior it’s like, do I want to connect him with anyone else ever again? No, probably not.
Chris: I certainly hope not, no.
David: And I almost feel bad for the person that I connected them with, although hopefully that person realized that this person might not be worth connecting with. But so this whole idea of conversations being suspect, it goes a number of different ways. One is that there are some people were just suspicious of everything, even when they shouldn't be.
Chris: Right.
David: And then there are other people who sort of fall down the rabbit hole where somebody starts engaging them and then the next thing you know they're buying stuff that they didn't mean to buy. So, there's definitely a balance here.
Chris: But congratulations, by the way - when we connected on Facebook, I saw that and it blew me away. Here's a whole different approach David. It was like, wow, this guy wants to help me and it's so easy to fall into these default thoughts about how can I get on LinkedIn and make the most business, and it's the kind of thing when I see that kind of response like you had, Hey, let me know if there's anybody in my network that I can connect you with. It goes to exactly what I was saying earlier. It totally changes the perspective that I have of you because you’re thinking in a way that serves others and that's how you end up serving yourself, isn't it?
David: Yes. And the other thing that it does is it lets you know what people are made of; because you'll be sending something like that out. You're making this offer, “Hey, if there's somebody I can connect you with, let me know.” And some people reply back, and they'll say, “Oh hey, thanks. Can't think of anybody off hand. But I really appreciate the offer. If there's anybody I can connect you with, please let me know as well.” And nine times out of 10 there's not and I'm not looking to be connected with somebody else, but at least at that point we've had a friendly exchange and we can take it from there. The other thing is you find guys like this guy who is just paranoid and so you recognize, okay, this is not the type of contact that I would like to maintain long term, but it allows you to start to establish those real relationships, which we've talked about in previous podcasts. When you think in terms of networking, can we establish a real relationship with a real person? Something else that I've been really focused on recently with social media is connecting with people who I really enjoy connecting with, who are fun, who love business, who want to grow their businesses, who want to grow their sales. Of course, they're the people that I can help, which is why I want to interact with them,