Social media plays a huge part in building and progressing the modern day business, but there are still companies shying away from it simply because they have yet to see the bigger picture. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can be fantastic tools to help you reach your target market and engage with the modern day buyer in a way that appeals to their social nature – so don’t dismiss the concept before you have seen its potential.
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media, and then reason so many sales professionals and business owners give up on their social media activity after just a couple of months is usually down to one of the following 3 myths.
1. “You Have To Be Good With Computers And I’m Not”
Actually, most of the people on social networking sites have no background in computer technology.
If you can open your web browser and respond to your emails then the chances are that social networking will be a breeze for you.
2. “I Already Spend Hours On A Computer Each Day. The Last Thing I need Is Another Online Time Waster”
If you’re like me then you already spend hours a day at work in front of a computer, so why would you want to spend even more time online just for the privilege of commenting on people’s photos and updating your status?
Well, this simple answer is that regardless of the type of sales you conduct, real people are involved in the transaction. Like you, these people are busy and view any change to the status quo as much more work for them.
When faced with a purchasing decision, these people are likely to head online in search of reasons to either work with your company or ignore you completely. To the modern day buyer, finding nothing about you is as much of a reason not to work with you as finding something negative is – so it really is important to be out there and ensure that you are portraying yourself and your company in the right way.
Plus, social media doesn’t have to be time consuming or a major hassle. All of the big social networking sites have mobile applications which can direct your updates from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to your smart phone – so you don’t even need to be near your computer to join in the conversation.
3. “I Value My Privacy. Social Networking Could Violate That And Leave Me Exposed”
Privacy has become a major concern for people using online networking sites, but as long as you understand the privacy settings for the sites that you use then this should not be an issue.
Most of the sites, including Facebook, have a way for you to restrict access to your personal information so that only those people who you grant access to can view it. You can also block people that you feel have been acting inappropriately towards you.
You just need to monitor what information you share on your social networking sites and simply use social media to tell the story you want people to hear.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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Online content should be direct, engaging, to the point and personal – which are essentially the same characteristics which make up any good email communications.
To create any type of content, you should always start with you keywords research, in order to ensure that your topics reflect what people are already looking for online. You also need to remember that whatever content you produce should provide real value to the reader/viewer/listener, so make sure you are answering questions and giving clear descriptions of the products and services you are discussing – your content should not be designed as a sales pitch, this is all about adding value to what you and your company do.
Building up a library of content over time is so important to continuously build your internet footprint, as you can use one keyword to create one piece of content, which you can then repurpose into numerous other different types of content to be distributed around all the different platforms available to you online.
Here is a list of some of the different types of content you can create in order to establish your expertise and online authority:
- Articles
- Blog posts
- Press releases
- Forum contributions
- Magazine submissions
- Audio downloads
- Video content
So, you could start by creating a blog post on a certain topic, and within this you could provide links to other resources that would help the reader learn more about the subject – such as YouTube vids, online articles etc.
Once this piece of content has been indexed by Google, you can then repurpose this content by modifying it slightly and creating a press releases or video on the same topic – just make sure they are different as you don’t want to “get done” by Google for creating duplicate content.
There are so many different ways you can create and recreate your content in order to position yourself as an industry expert and build your internet footprint – the choice is all yours, but just make sure that what you create serves its purpose; which is to entertain, educate or inform.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…
Creating the right content can help to position you as an expert and industry authority in your particular field, and you can then start to use it in your prospecting and also for enabling potential clients to find you when they are searching online for the products and services you provide.
Great content can also help you build better relationships online, by allowing people to feel more of a connection with you, understand your personality better and to form a bond with you online.
So exactly what is effective content and how do you create it yourself?
Well, I deem effective content as that which always meets one or more of the following criteria:
- It’s entertaining
- It’s educational
- It’s enlightening
The term “Edutainment” springs to mind when describing the best kind of content you can create, in that it informs you and educates you, as well as being entertaining.
When people are seeking out your content online it should be clear to them that the content they have chosen to engage with will fulfil at least one of those criteria, otherwise they are unlikely to preserve with it.
People are busy and their attention spans are short in the digital world, so do not fool yourself into thinking that your information is so important that it will override the audience’s inclination to click through to another site.
Educational content shows a person how to solve a problem. Entertaining content engages the mind. And enlightening content builds bridges between the concepts and sparks the audience’s interest.
By aiming to create a mixture of all of these aspects within the content you produce, you can create the right kind of content to help build your internet footprint and engage with prospects and potential clients online.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…
Modern day buyers want to feel like they are dealing with an expert, and that they have chosen to do business with the most up-to-date and forward thinking company in the market – so it really is important to make sure you have positioned yourself as the go to guy or gal in your industry.
One of the main concepts within the eselling® model focuses on how you can create the right personal brand and online persona to ensure that your prospects want to choose you and your company over all your competition.
In this post I am going to cover two great ways in which you can position yourself as a leading authority and industry expert in your field.
Contributing To Forums
Contributing to forums and other Q&A websites is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and to help build up your exposure online.
There are loads of forums on the internet which you can tap into, but it isn’t always easy finding discussion platforms which are specifically related to your industry – especially if you work within a niche market.
You may need to be creative in your searches but rest assured that people are out there on the internet having conversations about the types of products and services you provide. Simple head to Google, and type in the subject keyword followed by the word “forum” or “discussion” and see what comes up.
Most forums will require you to register before you can answer any questions, and once you do you can set up your personal profile on these sites, similar to those you will create for your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Make sure you include a short but detailed bio where you can, as this will help those seeking to learn more about you.
A top tip for getting started on any discussion forum is to make the most of any New Member areas they may have. Make sure you introduce yourself as a new member, as you will find the most influential members of the forum will monitor this area closely and you can start to build up your relationship with them from here.
Have Your Own YouTube Channel
With over 2 billion videos being viewed daily on YouTube you need to have your own presence on this site!
It’s so easy to make short, informative videos for YouTube, and there is a lot of really professional yet inexpensive recording equipment available to help you make the most of your video content.
As you encounter questions through conversations with your own prospects and clients, or through discussion that you’ve had online, turn each question and answer into a simple online video.
Provide your answer in a simple, conversational and friendly tone. It’s very easy to look “wooden” on video, and as always practice makes perfect so just keep easing yourself into it.
YouTube videos can be embedded on a blog or website, and can be easily shared across your social networking sites too – so make sure you distribute your video content as frequently as you would with your written content and you’ll soon find people are tuning in regularly to see what else you’ve got for them.
Both of these methods will help you to grow your online presence, build your personal brand and position yourself as an expert within your field, which will help you to further engage with prospects and generate new leads for your business.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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Having your own blog gives you a sandbox where you can collect and share resources and information, as well as your own personal insights and vision.
Setting up a blog is a really easy process, but it’s also one where you can easily waste a lot of time and energy on unimportant details if you are unsure of exactly what you are doing.
The easiest way to get started is by opening a free account with one of the many free blogging sites available on the internet. Here is a short list of some of the most popular blogging sites:
These sites provide you with some amazing capabilities and they are all free. New posts can be promoted through Twitter and reposted on your Facebook page with no additional effort.
The kind of information you choose to share through your blog should be reflective of the kind of interests and expertise your readers will expect you to have, as this will help you to build your personal brand further. But as always, none of this will do you any good if nobody can find it, so ensure your name is in the name of your blog so that the search engines will associate your blog with your other pieces of thought leadership content.
But it is not just your own personal brand which you can promote and support through your blog. You can also set up a corporate blog for your company, to provide further information and valuable content for your prospects and customers.
With a company blog you can allow numerous team members from the different departments of sectors of your business all working together to promote your brand. This, however, is entirely dependent on the type of business that you have, and exactly what policies are already in place within the company regarding content creation and distribution.
There are certain issues you should address if you are considering hosting a company blog:
- Who will write content for the blog and how frequently should they post?
- What content should be written?
- Who signs off the content? Is it the MD, the Marketing Manager, or as a whole team?
- What will the branding and style of the blog be? Is it formal and corporate or does it have more of a personal touch?
By tackling some of these questions before you start producing the content for the blog you will have clear cut ideas of exactly how your own corporate blog will work for your business.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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As a sales professional and business owner, being found in the right place at the right time by your prospects – especially when they are actually looking to enter into the sales process with a company and are ready to buy – is hugely important.
As we have previously discussed through the eselling® blog, building your personal brand and positioning yourself as an industry expert and leading authority within your field can vastly improve the way you prospect online and can help you generate far more qualified leads for your business.
But simply building your brand and then sitting back and waiting for new business to land at your feet will not be enough. You need to be out there on the internet, contributing and sharing your knowledge across the many different forms of media.
You want to be everywhere your prospects look. Every time they go online in search of the products and services you provide, you want to be there. After all, the whole reason you have built this brand is to ensure that you can be found – so make this happen.
It’s hard to position yourself online with a single blog post or video – and one tweet will not turn you into a Twitter star. To be effective online, you must consciously build your online empire and leave a large digital footprint for your prospects to stumble across.
So what is an Internet Footprint and how do you create one for yourself?
Your Internet Footprint could be defined as how many times you have content or are referenced online. It quite literally is your legacy!
If you search for “Sean McPheat” in Google you will see over 440,000 referenced pages relating to my companies, my products and services and myself as an individual. As you can see, it really is all about the content you are putting out there.
Content, as it relates to you, is anything you create that can be found online. This includes articles, videos, blog posts, tweets and any comments or discussions you have produced in forums. Every time you post or say something online you’re leaving a breadcrumb trail leading back to you. So producing quality content really is the name of the game – and remember, the quality is defined by the value of the information received by the person who reads, watches or listens to it.
You don’t need to have a Hollywood budget and a full production crew to create great content, it just need to be entertaining, informative and educational. That is what your prospects are looking for when they conduct and online search – information.
The key to producing the right kind of content for your prospective audience is having a good understanding of what they might be searching for online. This goes back to our discussion on keyword research, as it gives you a great insight into the marketplace. This also leads on to another post I created on using long-tail keywords to bespoke your online content, as using specific keywords in your blog titles and videos will increase your chances of being found and help drive more targeted traffic to your sites.
When creating your Internet Footprint you need to ask yourself these questions:
What content can I create that will:
- Help my prospects?
- Position me as an expert in my field?
- Offer my prospects something different to other professionals in my field?
By questioning the quality of the content you produce before you spend time creating it, and continuously building upon this overtime you will soon start to reap the rewards from your successful Internet Footprint.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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Building your personal brand is a vital part of creating your online footprint and ensuring you are found by your prospects when they go online in search of the products and services you provide.
As I have previously discussed in this blog, your online presence leaves behind a digital footprint and helps to shape the perception that others have of you when they first encounter you online – so it is so important to make the right impression with these prospects from minute one.
So, a big question to ask yourself when building your personal brand online is whether you actually embody the right characteristics of your desired persona?
I’m not just talking about whether your personality lives up to this, but instead I am asking if the qualities you want to portray to your prospects actually translate into the content they will find about you on the internet?
You need to consider which characteristics you believe your prospects would be looking for from the sales professional or business owner they eventually choose to do business with, and then you need to amplify these within every piece of content you distribute about yourself and your company online.
So how can you ensure you are getting the right message across to your future clients?
When evaluating the characteristics of a personal brand, the various ingredients which others see of you derive from a combination of three main categories:
- Your values
- Your skills
- Your style
So what you do and how you do it are the most important aspects of sculpting your personal brand.
Your values will be the most influential aspect of this, as this is what drives your interest and passion for your chosen industry – but all three areas of your persona are equally important to work on as these will give the whole and complete personal brand which you wish to portray to your prospects.
Your Values
Think carefully about what your values are, because sometimes key aspects of your persona can be overlooked. You may value honesty, compassion or reliability most in life or you may have a combination of values which make up your work ethos. Make a list of your most important values and use these as the starting point for building your online persona.
There are no right or wrong answers with this; it is personal to you and simply shows the way you interact with the world. These make up the deep-rooted essence of who you are and it is important that these values are upheld in your personal brand as they will inevitably influence everything you do.
Once you know what your values are you can then begin to apply them consistently in your work – and this is how you will start to build your personal brand.
Your Skills
Where you choose to engage with your prospects online should be a reflection of what you do. For instance, when you participate in a forum discussion, or respond to a social media comment, the way that you participate and respond – and what you choose to participate in and respond to – will reflect what you do as an individual.
As a sales professional or a business owner, what you do is reflected by your company and in the products and services that you sell so it is important to make sure you are representing yourself in the right way.
Instead of thinking about what you sell, think about it in terms of how what you sell benefits the customer. How does it help them? Do you help them make their own products and services more efficient? Do you help them make better financial or process decisions?
Whatever it is that you do to benefit your customers, focus on conveying this to your prospects through your online presence.
Your Style
Your style is a very much a reflection of your values, so you need to consider how you do what you do when you are building your personal brand.
It’s fairly easy to reflect your style through the content you produce online, but remember that your personal brand is far more than just the packaging. You need to focus on revealing who you are and ensuring that you stand out online for all the right reasons. You need to be consistent with who you are and what you do – as this will be what helps your prospects buy into you as a sales professional and business owner.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
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Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…
People just love dealing with experts, and many of the experts that you will come across online will have strong personal brands.
Your prospects want to be led by someone who knows their stuff and can impart their wisdom upon others, so developing your personal brand and positioning yourself as an industry expert can really help bring prospects to you.
Being an expert doesn’t mean you need a PhD in your chosen field, it is all about the way you position yourself within your industry and what impression you portray to all those who come across you and your company online.
What you need to appreciate is that your prospects are being bombarded with sales and marketing messages every single day, and when you add to this how overwhelmed they might be with their work and home life you can begin to see why so many of your potential clients are crying out for guidance and reassurance in a very uncertain world.
So, the key to reaching out to all of these keen prospects is to demonstrate your wealth of knowledge and experience in a space where they will be able to interact and engage with you. It really is about how you apply what you know to help others that provides a display of competence and encourages people to trust you.
So, exactly how do you position yourself as an industry expert and a trusted advisor in your field?
Here are three top tips to help you build your online persona and create an internet profile which will benefit you as a sales professional and business owner:
1. Stay Focused
When you’re writing thought leadership content, tweeting or contributing to your LinkedIn groups you need to try to stay focused on your end goal of building your online profile as an expert.
Small talk is fine in moderation but you should be consistently producing content which actually shows your activity as a thought leader in your field.
2. Be Original
Our internet-based and social media activity should have a good balance between engaging with other thought leaders in your industry and having your own original ideas to contribute and share.
If you’re constantly retweeting and linking to other thought leaders content rather than producing your own then you will not be viewed as an industry expert; you will simply be seen as another follower of other people’s good ideas.
By providing plenty of your own original content and complimenting this with recognition of work produced by others in your field, you will display the persona of someone who has plenty to say for themselves but also acknowledges other great minds as being just that.
3. Don’t Sell, Sell, Sell
If your content screams “buy my stuff” over and over again then you will simply be ignored.
By all means, provide your followers with information on any new offers you may have available and direct them to your landing pages occasionally – but your thought leadership content is what your prospects really want so ensure you keep providing your followers with this and they will continue to follow you.
As the famous saying goes: “You have to give the people what they want” – it really is that simple.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…
As a modern day sales professional and business owner, developing your personal brand has never been more important, as it will actually help prospects find you online and ensure that when they do come across you they will get the right impression of you and all that you have to offer them.
Your online presence leaves a digital footprint and shapes the perception that others have of you when searching for you, your company or your products and services on the internet.
It is so important when your prospects first encounter you online that you make the right impression, and the more exposure they have of you the more this relationship is strengthened and refined.
With a strong, consistent approach to personal branding the right people will follow you online, and these will be the people you want as your future clients. So what is a personal brand and how can you develop your own to really benefit you as a sales professional or business owner?
Firstly, a personal brand is not just the way you present yourself as an individual overall – it is actually held in the relationship between you and another person.
As people are exposed to you they will develop and impression of you, and that impression influences how they hear you, the trust they have in you and what they expect from you.
It is important to note that developing your personal brand is not just about getting people to like you. It is far more important that you are seen to be trustworthy, reliable and consistent than likeable. People might not always be bowled over by your award winning smile and all-rounder personality, but if they know that they can count of you to get the job done then they are still more likely to work with you and your company than someone who has shown less consistency.
You need to consider how you would want your prospects to think of you, and what qualities you believe would be of value to them when looking for a company to invest their time and money with – and then start to build your personal brand around these factors.
Developing your personal brand is not just about how you would want to be viewed by other people as a sales professional and business owner, but you should also be focused on developing a personal brand that will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to interact with you over others in the same field.
After all, the aim of the game is to win more business, so always consider this your end goal when establishing your personal brand.
Sean McPheat
CEO (Chief eselling® Officer)
http://www.e-selling.com
Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…
- eselling® Returns To The ISMM This October
- 3 Myths Of Social Media
- How To Turn One Keyword Into A Wealth Of Online Content To Help Position Yourself As An Industry Expert And Continuously Build Your Internet Footprint
- How To Create The Right Content To Build Your Internet Footprint
- Two Great Ways You Can Position Yourself As A Leading Authority And Industry Expert in Your Field
- How To Build Your Personal Brand And Corporate Image Through Your Blog
- How To Create Your Internet Footprint To Help Your Prospects Find You Online
- Do You Embody The Right Characteristics Of Your Desired Personal Brand?
- How To Position Yourself As An Industry Expert And A Trusted Advisor In Your Field
- Establishing Your Personal Brand To Help Boost Your Business
On October 12th, Sean McPheat – the creator of eselling® – will be returning to the stage at the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s (ISMM) Successful Selling Conference at the Ricoh Arena to deliver his special breakout seminar on “How To Use Social Media In Your Selling”.
Sean made his first appearance at the ISMM in 2011, when he delivered his keynote on eselling® to over 1,000 sales professionals from across Europe who were in attendance at the coveted event. Sean is at the forefront of the modern day selling revolution and the concepts he presented in his eselling® session caused quite a stir with the ISMM delegates.
This year Sean will be delving even deeper into the concepts behind modern day selling and showing attendees at the event why they should be selling through social media and how they can get a real return on their investment through harnessing the power of social media for their business.
Even the local press have been jumping on the eselling® bandwagon, with the Coventry Telegraph recently publishing a great piece detailing the concepts behind eselling® and acknowledging Sean’s contributions as a modern day sales professional and successful business owner.
Sean says “I think the reason eselling® has become so popular over the last 12 months is because it’s so easy to implement and sales professionals and business owners across all industries are seeing the real value that social media and other internet based resources can bring to their business. You have to acknowledge that the growth of the Internet has changed the way that we do business across the world, and just as businesses have started to get to grips with selling in the online marketplace, the rise of social media has brought about a wealth of new platforms for companies to try and get to grips with.”
“The modern day buyer is online, researching the products and services you provide every single day and if you aren’t accessing these online platforms and don’t understand how to use them to their advantage then your bottom line will start to suffer. Sales professionals and business owners alike need to learn how to sell to the modern day buyer in the modern way and the concepts within my eselling® approach provides them with a step-by-step guide on how to do this.”
As the owner of many successful internet-based businesses, Sean has proven that his modern day approach to selling really does work and his session at this year’s Successful Selling Conference is a must for all business owners and sales professionals who want to learn how to use the Internet to improve their sales performance and generate more qualified leads for their business.
For more information on the 2012 ISMM Successful Selling Conference, please visit http://www.ismm.co.uk/events_successfulselling.php.
Louise Denny
Marketing Manager
http://www.e-selling.com
Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with Sean McPheat’s FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…