Do you want to promote your business to your personal network, but feel guilty about it? Don’t! Just stop trying to promote yourself (and your business) and promote useful information instead. Here’s a 3 step process to make that happen.
No matter how good your service or product is, no one likes being sold to. The ideal sales process is pretty simple. The potential customer has a need, they see that your product/service fills that need, then they come to you to get it. In this ideal scenario, you’re not a salesperson, you’re just the person that takes the order.
You don’t want people to buy a product or service that they don’t want or need.
It leads to resentment and dissatisfaction from the buyer in the worst case, and a simple lack of repeat business in the best case. If this is true, then HOW DO YOU SELL?
You don’t “sell,” you inform. If you consider yourself an expert in your business (which you should), then you have lots of information that your potential customer doesn’t have and might need at some point. All you have to do is share it.
But how do you get started? Easy! You just follow these 3 simple steps:
STEP #1: Make a List
You’ve probably noticed that customers (especially new ones) seem to ask the same questions. To get started on creating a good list of information to share, just list out those questions! Simple as that. What you’ll find is that the answers to the questions lead to new questions. Before you know it you’ll have an entire list of potential topics to talk/write about.
STEP #2: Choose How You Want to Deliver the Information
Now that you have your FAQ questions and answers, it’s time to deliver the info. There are three basic ways to do that: pictures, graphics, or videos. Each has advantages/disadvantages (I’ll explain in a future article), but to start out, you should just try them all.
PICTURES: Take a picture that relates to the information, or download a stock picture from somewhere like Pexels.com or DepositPhotos.com. Don’t overthink this process, just ask yourself: “Which pictures do I like to view/click on Facebook.”
GRAPHICS: DepositPhotos.com also offers a variety of informational graphics to choose from. I don’t recommend sharing memes too often, but if it makes sense, then do it.
VIDEOS: Talking to a camera can be tough at first, but once you’re in the groove it’s insanely easy. Don’t worry about the production quality at first, just start doing it! Start with: “I had a customer ask me about [subject], so I told them .” Simple as that.
STEP #3: Make It Personal
This is the most common mistake I see people make when it comes to promoting content. Don’t just say, “this is good info,” make it personal by sharing an experience or the utility of the information in your own life. As you get started online, the only people that will see you are your friends and family.
You need them to connect to your information even if they might not be interested at first. They have lots of friends and other family that might be interested… if they like your stuff, Facebook will share it in more places.