Stop staring at the PC wondering how to get new clients!
The computer and the technology age has it’s foothold in every aspect of modern business, but one area where I don’t see much evolutionary change at all is; finding new clients.
We are all still trying old fashioned ways to establish business relationships, mainly because there is no other way, the only difference is we are attempting to do it online, and it’s very unnatural to so many people.
I feel that there are so many business people who cannot see a way to get a client quickly from using technology as it is all long term. It’s like having a long distance relationship, and we all know the statistics for that.
As a Social media trainer for many years now I find that most people are so happy to see me, and believe through social media I can teach them how to turn their business fortunes around quickly but not so, I tell them as gently as I can that; the computer offers very few quick ways to find any business a quick return on investment, in fact social media is the opposite; it’s long term.
If you need a fast turnaround in business; you will be far quicker going networking and meeting people than sitting on a PC,
Biz-find networking
Sales and marketing is based on human nature, and as humans change very little then the rules of engagement differ very little also. Selling and buying is an emotion, the buyer feels trust in you and your knowledge and values your opinion, he also feels excitement at solving a problem and increasing revenue through the purchase, the seller feels good helping out a fellow human and making some turnover for the business.
We call it a win-win.
How do you use a Computer to engineer those feelings? Well you can, but it takes much longer to gain trust online than you can face to face. Remember when we were taught;
It’s not what you say it’s how you say it
That 80% of communication is the way we move?
Technology can help develop trust can’t it?
Well, we have all met the online wizards who measure eye movements across the page and the neurotic web designers who will tell you that orange flashing calls to action buttons and annoying
Click here Click here Pleeezzzeeee
‘Please don’t go’ pop ups reduce shopping cart abandonment, or they tell you you have no sales because one of your images is not perfectly central, or even worse; those sales videos that go on and on trying to get you to stay for 30 minutes before they tell you anything valuable, it’s all a little sterile to me and focuses away from the real issue that is;
There is little emotion or passion that can be pulled out of the majority of business websites.
Let’s look at the sales process for a minute: Ask any woman would she rather spend a day with friends shopping for bags, or just buy one online?
This is why the shopping mall will in my humble opinion never die, and why good sales people who work in shops know it’s not so much about the bag, but knowledge about the peripherals of the bag that will make the sale:
“Oh Hi I was looking at that bag myself, never seen a Gucci in that colour before, it’s a new arrival, apparently only 50 are made in that colour every year, do you have the shoes to match? We sold one last week to a lady going to the academy awards, would you believe that?”
This is the shopping experience!
The sales person in my example demonstrated passion about her field, knowledge, and urgency and two separate testimonials; herself and a undisputable third party, without once talking about price; price is never an issue if you have created demand. Making the decision the customer’s decision, that way you will never ever have buyer’s remorse!
This may be easy offline, but a struggle online to develop that kind of rapport so quickly.
You have to get personal and be yourself to make sales online but how do you do that?
Here is the catch no one want to hear, let alone ‘fly by night online marketing companies’ want to tell you; you have to demonstrate your own persona online, so that people trust you, it will take months and months, and if you let up for a week or two, your competitors will gain ground on you on search engines.
Oh sure you may get the website that makes a few sales quickly by promising the world, but like a teenager that grows up, eventually the people will learn who to trust and who not to:
There is no business future in promising and under delivering!
Developing trust online means blogging personal stuff that you are passionate about, and publishing tips you know people will feel is useful to them, on your own website and others, sharing to social media, writing and publishing press releases, power points, images, and growing your social media with targeted people, which is not going to be overnight.
I still wonder how business people motivate social media marketers that they hire to use their personal Facebook profiles to promote their boss’s businesses. I still believe social media should come from the top, from the boss itself.
Search engine optimisation is still important, but it’s only to court the robots of the search engines which incidentally have no bank accounts or no emotions as yet to believe in you and your product, so you have to appeal to humans and that is now 70% of what you need to have a successful web presence.
Off all the signals and algorithms that search engines use they all answer a simple question:
Can you trust the business on this website?
Just today on my business directory cum lead sourcing websites I had to approve a company who registered, and like usual I had to visit their website as they forgot to add their phone number, they sold rice online, and they had no telephone number, I thought how will anyone trust a website with their hard earned money without a human to talk to? These issues are more common than you think.
The internet is so full of fake accounts and businesses masquerading as people I often wonder how people trust anyone online.
social media warning
What sets alarm bells off in my head is the business who says to me:
“My real name is not going to be seen anywhere is it?” Tell me a successful business where the owner is not trusted!
“But Alan” I hear you yelling; “If social media is going to take us months and it’s mostly branding, how can we find new clients today?”
Well one thing you could do is; find someone who already has a massive social media reach and has a large community of over 20,000 business people already subscribed to him, who are asking every single day if he can find suppliers to ‘sell to them’ all the various B2B things that they need, that took him over 5 years of being skint to put together for you, so you don’t have to!
Oh that’s me then!
We at Biz-find have finally developed a scenario where a business person who needs a client quickly can, instead of spending months baring his soul and family to social media and enduring insufferable people at networking events after work, can just log in, click on our Sales Leads banner, scroll down to their category, and see a number of people who need what you sell today, these are what I call real sales leads and are priceless to anyone who needs new clients quickly
BIZ-FIND business leads
Have a look and register to become one of our suppliers today! To answer your burning question; what is the cost of my 5 year opus of finding all these people for you? $10 a month!
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