If you run a small business, you need to make sales, right? Without making sales, you go broke, and when you go broke, your business closes. That’s no good.
Unfortunately many of you are under the impression that having a relationship with someone means they’re going to buy from you, so I want to challenge this assumption today. Just because you know someone…and you sell something they need…doesn’t mean they’re going to buy from you.
The Myth of “Relationship Marketing”
“Relationship marketing” is not a new concept, but it’s picked up quite a bit of steam with the explosion of social media. Many of us are working hard to “build relationships”, to “connect” with other people and build our brand socially. Kudos. It pays to have a strong network of people behind you. Just don’t assume that it will translate into sales automatically.
Did you know it’s entirely possible to have 20,000 subscribers to your blog and still make NO money whatsoever? I’ve seen it happen. Did you know you can have a huge email list that generates NO sales for you? It’s true. So if tons of subscribers and a huge email list are the assets everyone seeks out in this whole internet marketing world, what gives?
The fact is that blogs don’t generate sales. Email lists don’t generate sales. Twitter lists don’t generate sales. Relationships don’t generate sales either. Selling generates sales. Selling is the ONLY thing that generates sales.
If you want to generate lots of sales for your business, learn to sell. You can sell via a blog, Twitter or any other platform. These are all just communication tools. Communication tools can be used to build relationships, and they can also be used to sell, but selling and building relationships are NOT the same thing.
Don’t count on your friends
Don’t count on relationships or any other mechanism to do your selling for you. If you think about it, it’s a great way to cheapen your relationships…to think of them as a mechanism for generating sales. Nope. Don’t do it. Instead, learn how to construct sales offers that connect with people. If you want to make more sales, study the craft of selling! There are thousands of books out there. I do sales training daily with clients. The tactics and training are available.
Back in the day, I earned good money (probably more than you think) selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. No list. No followers. No relationship at all. Knock, knock, knock. 90 minutes later I’d have a check for $1648.50. I’ve sold 1, 2, 3 and even 4 in a day. Imagine how much easier it is to sell when you DO have a relationship and trust built between you and your customers. But the relationships you have don’t excuse you from having to sell. Don’t forget…
Selling is what generates sales. Nothing else.