{"id":6190,"date":"2016-09-07T19:15:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T19:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=6190"},"modified":"2016-09-07T19:15:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T19:15:34","slug":"social-selling-isnt-about-selling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/social-selling-isnt-about-selling\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Selling Isn\u2019t About Selling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Social Selling Isn\u2019t About Selling<\/h2>\n
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If there\u2019s one marketing mantra that will always be true for businesses, it\u2019s \u201cKnow Your Customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether you sell shoes, dry cleaning services, computer software or multi-million-dollar widgets, that\u2019s the one maxim that will never change, no matter what happens to society in the future. It\u2019s the one thing marketers and salespeople alike need to master\u2014because you\u2019re not going to turn a prospect into a buyer without both of you knowing that prospect inside and out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s why I get a little frustrated when I hear people say that this or that kind of marketing doesn\u2019t work anymore\u2014that the digital age has turned marketing on its head. That\u2019s bull, and it\u2019s always been bull.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take radio and the TV revolution. How many years were people marketing and selling to other people before mass media was developed? And did the advent of this new media suddenly change the fact that you had to get to know your customer before you could get them to buy from you? Of course not. The new medium allowed you engage and interact with more people, but your message still had to attract and mean something to them as individuals.<\/p>\n

Yet marketers of the day got so excited about the ability to blast messages at millions of people that some of them got lazy. They thought they didn\u2019t have to work as hard to get to know their prospect, and it became a numbers game.<\/p>\n

Over time, advertising fatigue meant that many of those messages fell on deaf ears or blind eyes. However, those who were successful knew their customer well enough to capture their attention with the right message at the right time. They did the research. They talked to people, they conducted focus groups\u2014they did the work<\/em>. And yes, it was a LOT of work. But when someone was ready to buy that widget that was advertised on TV, the salesperson who won the deal knew enough to shut up and listen, ask questions and get to know where the buyer was coming from.<\/p>\n

None of that has changed. The explosion of digital, social and mobile technology didn\u2019t suddenly make buyers grow three heads. People are still people, and have the same wants, needs and desires they did 50 years ago. And you know what? Blast advertising without thought to \u201cknowing\u201d your customer on an intimate level didn\u2019t work in TV, and it won\u2019t work on social channels. However, these new technologies did turn marketing and sales on their heads in a different way\u2014they make it exponentially easier (and less costly) to get to know your customer.<\/p>\n

Shut Up and Listen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Digital tools like social give us infinitely better ways to understand where our customers are coming from. However, there are still those lazy marketers out there who use social as a blast advertising medium, and lazy salespeople who don\u2019t use social to get to know their customer before they pitch them. In fact, the term Social Selling bothers me because many people just want to know how to use social platforms to \u201csell.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe explosion of digital, social and mobile technology didn\u2019t make buyers grow three heads\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Instead, we should be learning how to use social for the essential work of getting to know our prospects and customers. We need to use these fabulous new tools to listen\u2014and listen closely\u2014to what buyers want. There is so much we can learn if we just shut up and listen!<\/p>\n

What used to take us weeks of pouring through research now takes us a fraction of the time studying profiles, sifting through conversations and reaching out to ask questions and add value. The modern buyer doesn\u2019t want to hear your pitch\u2014he\u2019s done his own research online, and will ask the advice of friends and connections before he\u2019s ready to buy. What he wants from you is value and information he can trust when making that decision. He wants you to know where he\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n

Understand Their \u201cWhy\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure, advertising has its place. It always has and always will. But social gives us unprecedented opportunities to delve into our customer\u2019s \u201cwhy.\u201d We\u2019ve never been able to connect personally with as many people and find out so much about them as we can through today\u2019s technologies. It\u2019s a fantastic launch pad for doing something we\u2019ve always had to do before we could get a prospect to buy from us\u2014build relationships.<\/p>\n

Social selling isn\u2019t really about selling at all. It\u2019s about being social, connecting, interacting, engaging and building relationships. So yes, social has turned the marketing world upside down, but not because we can get in front of more people. It has revolutionized marketing and sales because it allows us to find out more.<\/p>\n

We now have larger amounts of data, platforms and apps available to allow us to get to know who our customer\/prospect is. What interests them? What are their pain points? What causes them joy? Being fully connected and plugged-in in a connected world helps us not just talk to people, but to listen to them.<\/p>\n

When we start using these tools to listen and add value\u2014to study and understand who our customers really are\u2014that\u2019s when the magic will happen.<\/p>\n

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Previously posted at TedRubin.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social Selling Isn\u2019t About Selling If there\u2019s one marketing mantra that will always be true for businesses, it\u2019s \u201cKnow Your Customer.\u201d Whether you sell shoes, dry cleaning services, computer software or multi-million-dollar widgets, that\u2019s the one maxim that will never change, no matter what happens to society in the future. It\u2019s the one thing marketers … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1965],"class_list":["post-6190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tedrubin","tag-ronr-noletup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6192,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190\/revisions\/6192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}