I know I’m not alone in having a squeamish relationship with sales. It’s bizarre when you think about it. We’re in business. If we don’t sell stuff, we don’t make money. Then we have to go back to having what’s generally known as a ‘proper job’. Picture me shuddering as I write that. As much as the security of a salary and a pension would be lovely, I don’t want a boss. And I’ve had some perfectly lovely bosses in my time. (There have been some fairly hideous ones too, but that’s a story for another day.)
Yet when you get into marketing and networking, it almost feels as if you need to apologise for wanting to sell. No-one wants to be seen as ‘salesy’. This is particularly true in women’s networking groups. I don’t like to generalise and (of course) there are always exceptions. It just feels as if we’re generally more apologetic. I took part in a challenge recently that aimed to help female business owners increase their leads and get more sales. It got me thinking about my own attitude to selling and why it makes so many of us feel uncomfortable. Here’s what I came up with.
Why am I like this?
The obvious answer to my sales aversion is that I hate the hard sell, but is there anyone who actually likes it? That’s too simplistic an answer. I realised that most of my earlier jobs were in businesses where sales were someone else’s department. As a lawyer I had to convince people to take a particular course of action but I never had to persuade them to work with me in the first place. I’ve also worked in environments where women in charge were treated differently. Behaviour that would have been perfectly acceptable from a man was seen as ‘bossy’ or ‘pushy’ in a woman. These issues have deep roots but it
certainly feels as if we’re expected to be quiet and not bother anyone.
How my attitude to sales changed
I recently took part in a challenge run by the lovely Gemma Gilbert, who supports mums with service based businesses and helps them to make consistent sales. Her take on selling firmly stomps on the idea that we’re bothering people. We’re in business because we offer a service that will help people. Telling people how we can help them should be, well, helpful. It isn’t diving straight in with a sales pitch. That’s like proposing marriage on the first date. Sales start with telling people what we do and how we help them in our marketing. We build trust so that when we finally say ‘if you’d like me to do x for you, this is how it works’, they decide to buy because they know us.
What now?
Part of the challenge was to post on our personal Facebook page telling people what we do. It felt odd as I’d always been told that Facebook actively discouraged business posts on personal profiles. I’d always assumed that people know what I do – turns out a lot of them didn’t. Ultimately, it wasn’t a business post. It was just telling people what I do so that they can support me if they want to. It’s definitely made me more open to talking about work on
my personal social media and in life generally. I need to remember that my network goes beyond business contacts. It’s also taught me that my marketing is
on the right track, I just need to take it a bit further sometimes.
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Every so often you get a little flurry of articles about blogging and they all ask a variation on the same question. Yup, you guessed it. ‘Is blogging dead?’ Now, obviously I have a bit of a vested interest here. Writing blogs is a core part of my business so if everyone suddenly decides that blogs aren’t worth bothering with I might have a bit of a panic. Only a small one though. My granny was a farmer’s daughter and always taught me never to put all my eggs in one basket, so I do 
There have been a few times recently where I’ve started to feel that no-one else gets it. Logically I know it isn’t true but there’s no accounting for the wobbles a human brain is capable of having. As I write this my mood has improved considerably and I feel much less isolated, but I still think it’s worth talking about the time where I felt really lonely. That’s the only word I can use to describe it.
Believe it or not, there are those who think that people who talk about strategy are out of touch with their clients’ lives. They probably think that a strategy is created somewhere off in cloud cuckoo land. I disagree. You can use whatever word you like for it, but a strategy is basically a plan. You’ll probably have seen a meme that says something like “a goal is a dream with a deadline”. If you have a goal, you need a plan to make it happen. That’s all a strategy is. So the question is, does your strategy match your goals? If not, here’s how to make it happen.
I’ve found that there are two types of business owner. The ones who love strategy and planning and actively seek out tools to help and, well, the other kind. To be fair even they could be split into two camps. People who know they need a strategy but just can’t quite bring themselves to do it and the ones who would happily wing it forever. Ultimately, guess which businesses have greater success long term? Yep, the ones with a plan. So why do you need a content marketing strategy? It’s an important piece of the overall puzzle. Here’s why.
As I write this we’re heading towards Christmas and I know that a lot of you are starting to wind down. I’m always reluctant to write off the end of a year but I understand the impulse. This year seems to have flown by. There’s political turmoil that’s making everyone feel tired. There have been a lot of changes in my personal life this year too. I’m ready for some time off. But that doesn’t mean I’m switching off altogether. This is a good time for reflection and thinking about the year to come. So I thought I’d give you some Christmas themed food for thought. There’s something about Christmas stories that really hit a nerve and I think it’s something we can learn from and carry through our marketing for the rest of the year. So I asked myself a question. Why do Christmas stories resonate with us?
At Christmas it’s easy to feel as if everything has become overly commercialised. When you’re running a business you might feel as if you’re just contributing to the problem. After all, the run up to Christmas is often referred to as the ‘Golden Quarter’ because of the increase in sales. The good news is that you can evoke the true spirit of Christmas in your marketing. You just have to work out which Christmas stories you’re telling. Thankfully there are plenty to choose from…
You need to focus on your customers at Christmas. Of course, you need to focus on them all year round, but especially at Christmas. To quote Andy Williams, it may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it can also be the most stressful. If you can bring your customers something useful and give them a dose of the warm and fuzzies, you’ll be on to a winner. However, to do that you need to think about their personality and how you can help them through the festive season in one piece.
How much time, money and effort do you spend on content marketing? I’m going to hazard a guess that at least one of those things is going to loom large in your marketing efforts. Hopefully it’s working for you. (If it’s not you can go back to basics and sign up for