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Improve your sales skills even if you aren’t in sales

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Sales, regardless if you are an actual salesperson or not, is just part of life and your career. Sales doesn’t always mean selling a product or service to a customer, in fact, you are probably giving sales pitches just about every day. That’s right, every time you pitch an idea, make a suggestion, or even go on a job interview, you are “pitching” yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills if you don’t pitch people often?

First off, selling kinda has a bad rap. You typically think of a sleazy used car salesperson, telemarketer, or door to door salesperson. But if you think about it, sales is really the most fundamental life skill. People think sales is pushing someone to buy something they don’t need, want, or can afford. But really, sales is moving someone to take action. And if you think about everything you did today, I’d bet quite a few of your actions involved selling. Am I right?

People are often uncomfortable with sales because they 1. Don’t understand it and 2. Can’t get past the used car salesman cliché. Selling is all about persuading, inspiring, and leading. It’s about collaboration and driving change. The best salespeople make you feel like the sale was your idea. Why? Because you trusted them, they had a genuine interest in your problem, they provided a solution that they knew would fix your problem. You wanted to buy from them.

People often buy for 2 reasons, to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Your job is to figure out which one it is. Sales really is about networking and listening to your customers. Find out who the decision-makers are, learn as much about them ahead of time as you can. When you talk to them take an empathic approach, one that focuses on understanding the other person and what they need. Serve, not sell.

What do the best salespeople have in common? They plan and practice. You wouldn’t show up to a golf tournament and expect to win having never swung a golf club in your life, right? The best in the biz have mentors and coaches who help them practice and make sure their conversation flows – they help them improve their delivery. Practice on friends, peers, coworkers, family, etc. until you get your pitch just right.

Making your “pitch” can be very nerve-wracking at times, but even with all that adrenaline flowing, it’s important to stay calm and not ramble. People don’t want to listen to someone drone on and on about how great something is. Selling should be a conversation, not a lecture.

A good salesperson knows when to fold ‘em and when to walk away. Yes, the late, great Kenny Rogers knew what he was talking about. Most salespeople hear no at least a few times before they make a sale, but they know when to press on, because that no is really a “not yet”, and when to throw in the towel. They are flexible and understand the path that their customer has to take in order to move forward.

Sales is a numbers game – it’s highly possible you will fail more than you succeed. However, it’s important that you don’t quit. You need courage and to always remember the long game. Sales is never rarely a one and done deal, and most times it’s actually not about you. If a customer is happy where they, they won’t get pleasure from buying and aren’t experiencing pain, then now is not the time. Check back in 3 months.

Have any great sales advice to add, we’d love to hear it! We also wrote a blog on increasing sales without a sales team, check it out.

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size doesn't matter content

Size…Really Doesn’t Matter

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What size should my content be? How long should a Blog be – what about White Papers?

How long should my email copy be?  How often should I send them?

The answer is – there isn’t an answer.  Size and quantity IMHO don’t matter – QUALITY does.

My email subscribers get at a minimum of 2 emails per week.  Sometimes more depending on what is going on.  The length of those emails ranges from 250 words to over 1000 – to be honest I never look at the word count because I don’t care.

What I care about is the content.  Is it engaging?  Is it relevant?  Is it entertaining?

You will NEVER nail this for everyone – because everyone is different.  What is engaging to one may be boring as all hell to another.  What is relevant to one will be obsolete for another what is entertaining for one will ghastly for another.

My advice to content writers is to be authentic (you can read more on that there), be transparent and know your audience.  Write for the majority, write from your soul – write as if you are sitting down and drinking a glass of wine or coffee with someone face to face.  Write as you would speak.

How do you know if you are engaging, relevant and entertaining?  Look at your metrics.  What are your open rates on your emails?  Dive into your Google Analytics to see who’s reading your blogs (PS don’t forget to share them on social – that’s where we get our biggest engagement).  If your numbers aren’t where you want them to be – review your content.  Something is off – chances are you aren’t writing to your audience.  Take a step back are dive deep into your Target Client Profile – who are they REALLY?  Then regroup.  It may take you several iterations to nail it – so don’t give up!

Consistency wins each and every time.

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Social Media – Quality vs. Quantity

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Does even thinking about posting to social media stress you out? How many times to post, what to post, when to post, etc.? Are you putting content out just for the sake of putting content out on social media? Are your followers just not engaging and your audience isn’t growing? When it comes to social media posts, quality beats quantity every time.

The norm has always been that consumers expect companies to have content readily available to consume – blogs, social media, enewsletters, downloadable ebooks, white papers, etc. They still look for this type of content, however just having a large library of stuff isn’t enough – consumers want quality of resources from companies they do business with – not just fluff.

First, we need to back up and define what quality means to consumers – it’s targeted, more personalized, highly creative messaging. Content that is focused on better understanding and interacting with your clients. Even small brands can easily produce content that looks just as good as the big dogs.

When a prospect is looking to learn more about your company, yes, they will Google you and visit your website, but they will also look to see what social media channels you are on, the type of content that you post, and how long ago you posted. Just throwing posts up that your customers and prospects don’t care about is not going to help you engage with them. However, one good quality post on Facebook can do way better than five poor quality posts.

Some tips to posting high quality content are:

  • Photos – they don’t need to be done professionally, but make sure they are well lit, not blurred or grainy.
  • Videos – also need good lighting and good sound.
  • Sharing Blogs – need to be interesting and relevant topics but also have good spelling, punctuation and grammar. It should be around 500 words or more to keep readers on your website for longer which is a good SEO signal to Google.
  • Sharing 3rd Party Content – share content from reputable sources that don’t require signing up for memberships. Articles from newspapers, magazines, etc. are usually good sources
  • Your content – only 20% of your content should be around your business – if you are constantly pushing a sale people will unfollow you

I get asked a lot about the best times to post on social media. There is no concrete answer to this. You need to post when and where your audience is going to see your posts. Why post on Twitter if your audience is on Facebook? If your audience primarily engages in the mornings, don’t wait to post until the afternoon.

Don’t get hung up on the numbers. Many people will engage in campaigns to buy likes or followers. This might seem great in the short term, but these people are most likely not your ideal clients and will never engage with you. At the end of the day, your goal is to be seen as an expert, a trusted advisor, and of course to get traffic to your website as that is where the sale is. If your engagement is low, then ask yourself if it is the quality of the post or is that the content isn’t resonating with your audience.

When it comes to social media posts quality will always beat quantity. You aren’t Gary V or Jenna Kutcher – you don’t need to keep up with the quantity of posts that they put out daily – they have teams of people who do this for them. For the DIYers – just focus on the quality. That’s all you need to do.

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Copy-Competition

Why you should STOP copying your competition

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The old saying goes “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, but when it comes to your marketing, it’s just NOT a good idea. For centuries, we’ve been using other’s ideas, creative, and art as inspiration for our own work – and that’s fine if it’s used to spark ideas of your own. BUT if you are just copying every move your competitors are making, you are just setting yourself up for failure.

At Red Barn, we love a good life hack or a process or software that helps us save time and energy, but when it comes to copying competitor’s content – we draw the line. Copying other’s content is a big no-no because it can actually hurt your marketing strategy and your business. Let’s go back to why you started your business, because you wanted it to be uniquely yours including your content. Here’s several reasons why copying your competition is just a recipe for disaster.

  1. They don’t know what they are doing either. Just because your competitor has interesting and flashy creative it doesn’t mean that it’s actually working. Unless you have access to their analytics to confirm, you could be making the same bad mistakes as your competition. Also, your competition could be just as clueless as you AND they also could be copying another competitor – and now it’s an endless cycle! No matter how good the creative seems, there is simply no guarantee it will work for you.
  2. You might have a different target audience. Every business has their own Target Client Profile – or target audiences. Your competition may actually be targeting a difference audience than you, and an audience that you have no intention of targeting. You and your competitors each have your own unique strategy in regard to targeting your audience, without knowing the thought and reasoning behind the marketing, you simply won’t know if that creative is appropriate for your audience.
  3. It doesn’t set you apart. Customers aren’t dumb, they will recognize if you are doing copycat marketing. Not only are you showing them that your business lacks creativity and is unable to promote your business in your own unique way, but by copying others you’re also not getting valuable data. You need to see what works and what doesn’t for your business and use your own data to adjust your marketing accordingly. Your marketing should be authentic and original to you and your business – that’s why your customers want to work with you – because of who you are.
  4. You’re limiting yourself and your marketing. Not only are you limiting your creative ability to target your prospective clients, but your creative won’t be nearly as effective as your competition because you won’t know exactly how to execute it like they do. If you have someone who does your marketing, you’ll also be limiting them and their creative ideas and expertise and producing great creative in the future.
  5. You are confusing your customers. You are not giving your business its own unique brand and identity. You’ll also confuse potential customers, as they will see the same style and messaging of creative from both you and your competitor.
  6. You don’t have the same budget or resources. Even though you have an idea of what your competition is doing, there may be a lot of software, staff, budget, or even a marketing company behind the scenes that are all working together.

Your competition’s content and marketing strategy may seem easy and obvious to you from the outside, but it could be very complex with a lot of systems running on the inside. The best content is fresh and new and also is optimized. You can’t emulate and replicate a company that has a full-time in-house content marketing team, in addition to external agencies or consultants, who also help with their content marketing when you are a small business on limited resources. It’s just not feasible.

What you should do instead of copying your competitors

  1. Determine your goals – create your own marketing strategy that will outline your own content creation, paid search, email, social media, SEO, social media, and design (digital and print). You should have a focus and target client for each of these channels. Some of your goals for social media may include increasing engagement on Facebook, driving more repeat traffic to your website, etc. Having your own goals and strategy will allow you to stick to your own plan and not follow your competition – which could conflict with your goals.
  2. Start using the right tools and people. To be efficient and productive you need to use the right tools. If you need to segment your email lists, then use an email marketing software that makes it easy. If you want to schedule social media out in advance, use a tool that lets you do that. And make sure you have the right people doing the right things. Don’t use staff who hate writing and have poor grammar to write your blogs. Use the best people for the job to create and execute your content marketing strategy – this could be an outside firm too if it’s something that can’t be managed in house. Learn to delegate when needed or when it makes sense.
  3. Do your research and don’t stop reviewing metrics. If you do your research right, you should be able understand some of the reasons why and how your competitors are doing what they are doing. You’ll also want to track your own metrics and adjust your marketing accordingly. Less traffic on LinkedIn and more on Facebook – boost your Facebook posts to capitalize. More email opens with specific topics or subject lines – adjust and implement more like those. You can also subscribe to email newsletters of your competitors so you can see what they are doing, how they onboard new subscribers, what their subject lines are, etc. You shouldn’t copy, but it’s a good idea to know what they are up to.

Don’t underestimate the damage that copying your competitor’s creative can cause when it comes to your marketing efforts. If you have questions or need some advice, give us call or send us an email. We love talking about this stuff!

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The power of your LIST

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It’s no secret that Team Red Barn is Pro Email Marketing.  The bang for your ROI buck is huge compared to other advertising and customer engagement methods.  It is all about the POWER of your LIST.  The more targeted, the more engaged, the higher that ROI will be.

The biggest question I often get is “But Cindy, how do I get a list to email to?”

You build it – over time.

First let’s talk guidelines.

Email rules here in the US are not as stringent as they are in the EU – as long as you follow the guidelines of the FTC CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business and ONLY email to people in the US you will be fine.  Note – GDPR rules and regulations are insanely stringent and carry large fines. So if you work globally – make sure you are GDPR Compliant.

In the US, you CAN add people to your email list without having them OPT IN as long as you give them a clear OPT OUT option and comply with that request within the CAN SPAM guidelines.  There are also rules around advertisements, etc.

Note if you add people without them opting in you WILL by default have lower engagement rates, higher spam rates, and higher opt-out rates.  We only suggest this if it is a very targeted audience such as an association you belong to or are associated with and you are offering some type of educational content to them.  If you get high spam rates your email provider WILL turn you off and even black list you.  So beware.

The best way to build your list is organically. Here’s how we do it:

  1. Make is CRAZY EASY – is the rule and have opportunities everywhere for them to subscribe.
  2. ASK.  Every time I do a speaking engagement, training, etc – I ask people to sign up for my weekly email – I tell them the value they will get and of course they can opt out if they don’t like it.  I entice them as well – by giving them something OR making a donation to a local charity for each sign up. Works every time.
  3. LEAD MAGNETS on your Website – valuable educational and/or entertaining intel that they need to give you their name and email address in order to get your content.
  4. In your EMAIL SIGNATURE – have a hyperlink to your sign up form.
  5. ON YOUR WEBSITE – have sign up forms in a variety of places.
  6. Share lead magnets on SOCIAL MEDIA – capture email addresses that way.

It doesn’t end there – you need to actually use the emails you’ve collected to bring in the ROI.  Weekly nurturing emails and email automation based on segmented lists is what we do here at Red Barn and it’s how we help other companies tell their story in a low cost conversational and converting way!

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