A few years ago, a client called me asking if I could teach their employees emotional intelligence.
"Can you work with our developers on how to talk to customers?"
I'm a marketer and a sales coach (among other things) who leans heavily on my social presence to make connections and establish relationships. What that looks like is a lot of authentic and, most of the time, "personal content." Because of the stories I have told, this customer knew I'd invested in EQ training and also knew that I had been to India on a missions trip, and because of that, they felt confident in asking me for help.
Long before that specific example occurred, I used to believe that my ability to articulate my company's offerings was the value I added as a salesperson. I was only focused on how well I knew my products and how well I could craft that knowledge into solving their problems until one day, I started recognizing that the real reason people were hiring me had nothing to do with my sales ability and everything to do with who I am.
I honestly couldn't have been more wrong, and that was before "some AI expert said online that the information is no longer powerful because AI knew everything about everything."
It was a few years ago, and at the time was the peak of what I would call the "era of the customer," when you and I, or anyone, could quickly learn a new skill, such as how to fix a car, install a dishwasher, build a website, or (and this will always be controversial) learn marketing. You probably don't realize this, but you should be proud of those "YouTube" degrees you've earned because their (YouTube's) university is a legitimate institution.
People, as in your customers, or whatever you want to call them, want to know two things about you, and only once they understand those two things will they qualify you as a potential suitor for their problems.
Can you do what you said you were going to do, and will you follow through? In other words, are you a credible person, and are you reliable?
We make the mistake of believing that the people who enlist us for help can't do what we offer. They can. In fact, they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves, and during the vetting process, they're not making a decision on anything other than whether the problem they are going to pay you to solve is worth the time it would take for them to figure it out on their own.
This boils down to one common denominator: TRUST
Do they trust you?
If, for some reason, you think that your online presence doesn't matter or that it doesn't need to align with who you are, I hate to break it to you: Your sales value will be transactional at best.
Nothing more and nothing less, but if they trust you, you won't just be "selling a product or service;" you're auditioning for a much more significant role, and more than likely, it's the role you want if, in fact, you are who you say you are.
Your personal brand matters, and rather than telling you to "trust me," all I will say is feel free to look at my profiles or call me directly before you make up your mind.
Thanks for hanging in there,
Derek
P.S. This email is for your eyes only, so please don't tell everyone about it.
It's a newsletter for those of us leveraging social media who don't placate to an algorithm and fall for the social media norms because social media is not a real place.
