In this episode of The Social Selling Show, Daniel and Will dissect authenticity and value in the context of B2B sales and social selling.
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Transcript
Will Barron:
This episode of the show is brought you from the salesman.org HubSpot Studio. Welcome to the Social Selling Show with myself, Will Barron, founder of salesman.org and the king of social selling, Daniel Disney. Daniel, how’s it going mate?
Daniel Disney:
Will, I am good and excited to be back. I think today’s topic that we’re going to be digging into is one that everyone thinks about and I think everyone has the same question, so hopefully today, we will be sharing the answers.
Daniel’s Definition of Authenticity and Value in the Context of B2B Sales · [00:39]
Will Barron:
For sure. So, today’s a double whammy, but they both fit together perfectly. We’re going to be answering the question, what does authenticity and what does value actually mean and especially within the context of I guess, B2B sales and social selling as well. So, I’ve got a few definitions here, Daniel. I don’t want to put you on the spot too much, but do you have a definition of authenticity and do you have a definition of what value is in the context of our conversation today?
“Being authentic means, in my interpretation, being you and being genuine. So, just to put it in context, when a salesperson is only trying to get a sale, that’s not them being authentic, they’re trying to achieve something else and so there’s that ulterior motive. Whereas being authentic means you genuinely want to help, you have a passion about what you do and you are being yourself, not trying to be someone else.” – Daniel Disney · [01:00]
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. I mean, I have a definition in terms of the way it should be interpreted and applied, not necessarily a dictionary definition, that may be slightly different. I mean, just to lay it out nice and clear now, authenticity, being authentic, it means in my interpretation, being you and being genuine. So, just to put it in context, when a salesperson is only trying to get a sale, that’s not them being authentic, they’re trying to achieve something else and so there’s that ulterior motive, whereas being authentic is you genuinely want to help, you have a passion about what you do and you are being yourself, not trying to be someone else. Then value, in the world of social selling, is giving or sharing something that is genuinely relevant and valuable to the other person. Again, not me trying to sell or promote something, but actually here is a piece of content, here is a message that is more about you than it is about me.
Will Barron:
I’m going to push back on you, just slightly here Daniel, from a good-hearted place of … I’ll give you an example. I had a call, what are day we on? Wednesday, two days ago, it was Monday afternoon. It’s an enterprise organisation, they want get on the Selling Made Simple Academy programme. Basically they want to buy a tonne of seats, so it’s a big deal for me, for them to get on there. When we talk about being authentic, I authentically think it’s the correct thing for them to do to invest their money with us. So, I was pushing, and for context, this is a VP of sales in a high growth tech company. So, he’s naturally, you probably can imagine the stereotype, assertive almost, even aggressive, pushing for discounts, trying to get a deal, going back and forth. My authentic self is, “Hey, let’s have a play with this dude. Let’s go back and forth. Let’s have a laugh and really push the product back on him.”
Why Authenticity Doesn’t Mean Weakness · [03:09]
Will Barron:
I didn’t give him any discounts, we balanced out the value equation here by giving him and his team, some more coaching and virtual things on top of that, but I wouldn’t budge on the price. So, my authentic self was to get the deal closed because I know that it’s the right thing for them at that moment in time. Now, of course, I’m not saying that my authentic self thinks that it’s the right deal, the right training for everyone, at all moments in time but in that specific moment, I think it was my authentic self. I was putting across my authentic self when I was passionate, when I was really pushing for the deal to close and it’s come in and we just need to wait for the contracts to get signed now. But just for the audience, so there is an appropriate time and you can be authentic when it is the right moment to close a deal, right?
Daniel Disney:
No, I think that’s a really good point. Authenticity doesn’t mean weakness. It’s not about, not being a salesperson. We’ve talked about this before. You’ve got that balance between being too much of yourself and going into the friend zone in sales and then being too pushy and too much of a salesperson, it’s finding that sweet spot. You can be authentic and believe in what you are selling and push back and challenge and be on that level playing field. So, I think you’ve highlighted it very well, Will. Authenticity isn’t about backing down, it’s about being yourself, but as you said, you genuinely believe your product’s the right fit for their team. That’s the important part, you weren’t trying to sell something to someone that didn’t need it.
Sales Tip: If You Feel Like What You’re Doing is Weird, Icky and Manipulative, Maybe You Need to Rethink Your Strategy · [04:05]
Will Barron:
For sure. If you get the gut feeling that what you’re doing is weird, icky and manipulative, that it’s probably slightly weird, icky and manipulative and maybe you need to rethink your strategy. Is that fair to say?
Daniel Disney:
I think that is fair to say. I’m sure a lot of sales people will put their hands up and know moments when they felt like that. We have guts, we have consciences, we are aware of these occasions and sometimes you just have to take a step back and think, “Okay, maybe I need to reassess. Maybe it’s best, they have a think about it and we can really dig deeper to find out whether it’s the right fit for them.” I think that’s the difference between a good, professional salesperson and maybe someone who’s in sales with the wrong motives.
Why Authenticity is the Most Important Social Selling Skill · [05:25]
Will Barron:
Professional is the best way to describe it. So, two definitions here, very literally from dictionary.com. Authentic, it is real true, or what people say it is. Value, the importance or worth of something of someone. So notice here, we’re not talking about price, we’re not talking about discounting when we’re talking about value. What we’re talking about is the worth, the importance, to somebody at a certain moment of time because that is totally open the air, totally up for debate and it goes into that anecdote I gave earlier on. So all that said Daniel, before we get into the how, let’s sell the audience on, why. Why do we want to be authentic when we’re social selling? What is the benefits to us, selfish sales people here?
“People buy from people. So, when you are authentic, when you are yourself, you are different. You are different from every other salesperson selling the exact same product that you’re selling, and that’s often what the decision boils down to for decision-makers, it’ll be that they will choose you as the individual.” – Daniel Disney · [05:37]
Daniel Disney:
It goes back. I mean, we’ve talked about this Will, with personal branding, it goes back to the whole, people buy from people. So, when you are authentic, when you are yourself, you are different. You are different to every other salesperson selling the exact same product that you’re selling for your competitors. And that’s often what the decision boils down to for decision-makers, it’ll be that they will choose you as the individual. So, when you are authentic, you are you. That’s the beauty of social selling especially, is you get to show them you in multiple layers, not just another salesperson, who’s trying to sell something, but an individual, a person who has stories, who has experiences, who has a life outside of work that they can bring in, in a relevant way. So, when you are authentic, you allow your target customers, your prospects, target decision-makers, to get to know you as a human being and build the foundations of that relationship a lot earlier on.
Data on the “People Buy From People” Sales Concept · [06:25]
Will Barron:
It’d be interesting, and I don’t know, you likely won’t know this, because I don’t know this, I don’t know if it’s ever been studied, but it’d be interesting to see if on an exit interview of buyers who just have recently bought, you could easily quiz them on what was their decision criteria, what tipped them towards your company, product or service. It’d be interesting to know the percentage of people, the percentage of buyers who chose on the back of a individual salesperson, what they were about, the training they delivered, the impact that they had in their conversations. It’d be interesting to know that because … and to be fair to the whole sales process, it might be a tiny sliver. It might be a huge percentage of it, I really have no idea.
Daniel Disney:
It would be really interesting, you’re right. I don’t think there’s anything out there, but maybe that’s something we can look into. I know a lot of companies are doing win-loss reviews to prospects and I think it would be very interesting and to see how much of an influence that would be.
Will Barron:
For sure. So, I’ll call him out because I know he does listened to this show, in fact I think it came from this show originally, essentially an outbound opportunity for him. I mentioned on, I think it was this show. Oh no, maybe it was This Week in Sales with Victor Antonio, that I want to get a bunch of transcripts done for all of our content and it’s going to 20, 30, 50 grand, depending on how many we get done and how fast we get them done. Chad from rev.com reached out and said, “Hey, I listen to the show. We do this, we can help you here. We can do this.” Since then’s gone back and forth with me a bunch of times, I had a bunch of queries. I’ve been a pain in the ass a buyer. He’s probably pulling his hair out every time he gets an email from me, because for us and our small business, 50 grand on transcripts is a big deal, it’s a whole tonne of revenue that could hire an employee for a year. So, I’ve got to make sure that everything that I want out of it, we’re going to get out of it and gone back and forth.
Will Barron:
Now, I will now only do this deal through Chad. He personally, being authentic, being a listener of the show, going back and forth, being able to drop little bits of essentially banter, into our emails because he consumes all of our … not all of it, but a huge chunk of our content. He, has seen the authentic me through the content and so he’s able to have an authentic conversation and essentially skip months of rapport building, which might have had to take place if he just cold called me. Well, he wouldn’t be able to cold call me, if he cold emailed me and tried to start a conversation from scratch.
Will Barron:
So, I’m being authentic in the content I put out, he’s being authentic in his outreach and I’m probably going to do this deal of him and only him within the organisation. If I get passed onto some other schmuck, who is the closer for rev.com or something, I’m going to say, “Hey, put me back to Chad.” I want to get the deal done with him and hopefully get some commission put in his pocket as well. So, there’s an anecdote that’s literally happening in real time.
How to Be Authentic in Sales · [09:13]
Will Barron:
So with that said, Daniel, how the heck do we come across as authentic? Because it’s one thing to say that, it’s another thing, especially if we’re producing content, that’s another level because so many people put on this … and I did it for 200 episodes of the podcast. You put on this weird persona because you don’t want to get your ego hurt, because you don’t want to come across as too real and you want to perhaps even be a professional and then be your real self and your real life and there’s a split between the two. So, how the heck do we come across as authentic when we’re social selling, when we’re creating content, when we’re reaching out to buyers?
Daniel Disney:
At the heart of it all, Will, is this very simple principle and that is human to human selling. Everything you’ve just described is because you are being a human and Chad was being a human and you are having equal conversations. You both respected each other. Chad, as the sales professional in this scenario, had done his homework, done his research, but you were there at the same level. In common scenarios, you’ve got the buyer up here and the salesperson down here and that creates an unbalanced conversation, an unbalanced environment and it’s very difficult for you to respect them because they’re playing this role. They are desperately trying to please you. They haven’t done their research, they’re not being authentic. They’re being the salesperson.
“When we talk about being authentic, it’s about being you. Don’t be intimidated by the prospect. Don’t feel like they’re this person that you have to please and do everything they say, and you have to roll over and give as much discount as they ask for. You can talk at that same level, but it does require you making some effort. And that means going, “Look, I’ve done some pretty deep digging and I genuinely believe we can help and I’m very confident in the solution that we offer and the ROI we can generate for you.” – Daniel Disney · [10:36]
Daniel Disney:
So at the core of it, it’s the whole … And there’s a wonderful quote, “There’s no more B2C or B2C, it’s H2H, it’s human to human.” And ultimately, when we talk about being authentic, it’s about being you. Don’t be intimidated by the prospect. Don’t feel like they’re this person that you have to please and do everything they say, and you have to roll over and give as much discount as they ask for. You can talk at that same level, but it does require you making some effort. And that means, as in this example, consuming your content, getting to know them, and this could be done. We talk about social selling, looking through their profile, looking through their activity, researching their company, looking at the company’s content. There’s a lot you can learn, that you can then bring to the table to say, “Look, I’ve done some pretty deep digging and I genuinely believe we can help and I’m very confident in the solution that we offer and the ROI we can generate for yourself.” It’s that equal footing. So, when we think about being authentic, it’s just about being at that same level.
How Salespeople Can Identify and Present Themselves as Their True Authentic Self · [11:28]
Will Barron:
Does this go beyond sales? What I mean by that is, the last company I worked for was a massive boys club. The hired primarily ex-military, ex-athletes, athletes that didn’t quite make it. I did not fit into that whatsoever of, skinny me, plays computer games, does all this nerdy stuff and I had success within the organisation, but I didn’t quite fit into the company culture. Now, I found within the first few weeks of being mentored by one of the more senior reps there, when I joined, dealing with the management, going back and forth, doing training in-house, all that kind of stuff, that my authentic self, my personality was starting to shift more towards this lads, lads, lads kind of attitude that they all had, for better or for worse and it culminated … I had this stark moment, where my sales manager text me something and I text him some cocky response back thinking, “Hey, I’ll have a bit of banter with my sales manager.” He text me back saying, “Stop being an asshole, we didn’t hire you to … ” I can’t remember the exact one, but it was essentially it was, “Stop being an asshole, we didn’t hire you to be like the rest of the team here.” I was like, “Oh crap.”
Will Barron:
I’m trying to fit in with this culture that I assume is how people want me to behave but in reality, they’ve hired me for the exact opposite because they want me to be, not necessarily the quiet one at the back of the room, but at least appear intelligent when all these other meatheads, just having the banter with the surgeons, they wanted me to go in and be able to have more technical conversations with them. That was the premise that was set up. I didn’t realise this and they didn’t communicate it very effectively with me, but how do we know then, both in sales, out of sales, because I think this is a problem for our generation altogether, Daniel, how do we know what our authentic self really is? How do we uncover who we really are? I know this is a deep question, and how do we get to the bottom of all this so that we know that we’re being authentic?
Daniel Disney:
I mean, we’re going down being big rabbit hole of depth in terms of self-understanding and that is a journey that is going to be different for every person. I mean, you and I, are the same age, we’ve only lived so much of our lives, but I think we are both relatively quite self-aware. We’re aware of ego, we’re aware of arrogance and all these sort of things that can be distracting to understanding who you actually are.
Daniel Disney:
The only thing I can really say is, I think to understand yourself, you have to understand your flaws as well as your pros, the things that you’re good at. You have to understand yourself in a real balanced way, look at what you’re good at. Look at what you’re not good at. Look at what you enjoy and that comes from self-reflection, it comes from experiences, from getting out there and learning, from making mistakes and things like that.
Daniel Disney:
So, I think there’s probably a very deep, maybe a different episode where we can dig into that in a lot more depth, but at the core of it, it’s just knowing who you are as deep as possible and trying to take away this persona that some people build. Take ego out of it, don’t try and impress people. Don’t try and be something that you’re not. Don’t try and hide from your failures, or the challenges that you might face. Just be open and honest about it. Go out there in life with your hands up. What you’re good at, great, be good at it. What you are not good at, try. Try and get better, learn. If you fail at something, that’s fine, get back up, try it again. Don’t take it to heart, don’t constantly try and impress other people.
“Salespeople do this a lot. They go out there desperately trying to impress their prospects and customers about how amazing they are and their company is. Sometimes the best selling happens when you level with them and say, “Look, you do have other choices. There are other options out there. This is why I think we are the best one.” – Daniel Disney · [14:57]
Daniel Disney:
Salespeople do this a lot. They go out there desperately trying to impress their prospects and customers about how amazing they are and their company is. Sometimes the best selling happens when you level with them and say, “Look, you do have other choices. There are other options out there. This is why I think we are the best one. Please do go and look at the alternative ones. I can help you with that. Here’s why I think we can help you.” And they show that sort of maturity.
Will Barron:
So, I’ve got three thoughts on this. I’m just trying to quickly jot it down on the laptop here because I’ll definitely forget one of them as I go through them. One’s super practical, a lot of executives will do what is called a 360 degree review. This is a formal process, an outside corporation or consulting company comes in. They ask your friends, your family, your colleagues, your superiors, your subordinates what they all think of you, your opinions and then they basically put that against what you think about yourself. Nine times out of 10, you think you’re one thing, everyone else on the planet thinks you’re the other. And that could be good or bad. So, that’s something that you could potentially do. Ask your boss, “Hey, what am I good at? What am I bad at? What annoys you when I engage with you? What do you enjoy when I engage with you?”
Will Barron:
If you’ve got good customers that you’ve had long term relationships with, perhaps ask them similar questions and then go to your husband, wife, partner, spouse, whoever it is, or a good friend, and ask them the same thing as well, knowing that that’s going to be probably more biassed than the other examples there. That’ll give you some feedback as to whether you are the hotshot that you think you are, or whether you’ve perhaps got a little bit of work and development to do.
Will Barron:
The other thing and I can’t articulate this very well, Daniel, I’m trying to. I’d like to create a course on this, some content on this, but I’m struggling to articulate it, but you’ve got to remember that all of this, your authentic self, is malleable. The authentic Daniel of 10 years ago is not the authentic Daniel of now. I know personally, I’m 34, if I look back at my 24 year old self, I was a complete freaking idiot, just thick, just an idiot, no life experience, no life skills, just getting into sales, just not a bad person, but had no idea what he was doing. But he thought he knew what he was doing. I’ll look back at 44 to now, and I’ll think the same freaking thing again, idiot, wasting loads of time, energy, money, doing all this stuff, not moving towards where he wants to be in life, and on and on.
Will Barron:
So, it’s important to understand that all of this is malleable and the part of this I find really difficult to articulate is you’ve got your current self who has goals that they want to achieve, whether it’s in sales, life, business, just wider goals. Well, the person who is going to achieve those goals is a slightly different person. Perhaps they are less egotistical, perhaps they are more confident, whatever it is, but you’re not going to achieve your goals until you become this other person and if you could become that person quicker, sooner, you’ll achieve your goals quicker and sooner.
Will Barron:
Again, I can’t articulate this well enough, but I’m throwing it out there now because I think it’s important topics. When I look at my goals, when I look at my business goals, the goals that I have just for my life out of business, I need to become a slightly different person to achieve them. So the point of all this is, your authentic self right now might be malleable, might change. You might think that you’ve got a gut feeling now that in five years you go through the same situation and you don’t have that weird gut feeling, or pulling you one way or another.
Will Barron:
So, just I wanted to wrap up that point there with, that all of this is up in the air and you get to choose what is your authentic self, and you should choose the best bits and you should drop the bits that you want to drop and you’re in control of all this. We’re not born, we’re not set from birth. You’ve got this idea of a fixed mindset versus what we call a success mindset, or Carol Dweck calls it other things, where if you believe that you can change, you’re more likely to change. If you believe and got the beliefs that you have what’s called the fixed mindset where, I have this intelligence. Like my partner, she’s a doctor. She thinks she’s rubbish at maths. She’s got an A star at maths at GCSC. I’m good at maths and I only got an A. I think she did maths at A level, crushed me at A level. All the data says that she’s really good at maths, but she tells herself that she’s bad at it and so she doesn’t bother trying to … she’ll pull out a calculator rather than trying to do mental arithmetic or whatever it is.
Why Your Authentic Self Can and Should Change Over Time · [19:10]
Will Barron:
So yeah, everything’s in flux, you can choose your personality. You can nudge it one way or the other and your authentic self can change over time. I’m done. That was a massive rant. Hopefully it makes sense, Daniel, did that make any sense at all?
Daniel Disney:
It really did, Will. There’s two things I want to say. Number one, 10 years ago, 10 year ago me was probably very similar to 10 year ago you, and of course we change, and 10 years ahead we’ll be completely different people. That’s a really good point. The other point you made that I think is really important is bringing this right back to social selling, digging right into authenticity, is we don’t want to have that arrogance of, this is who I am and if you don’t like me, away you go. You see a lot of this on social media, especially maybe a year or so ago with swearing, that was quite big on LinkedIn was like, “Well, I’m swearing. If you don’t like it, then off you go, you are not the type of person I want to work with.”
Daniel Disney:
I can probably say the majority of sales people out there are not in a position where they can tell customers to go away if they don’t like them. There is a very deep level of arrogance in that type of persona you see on social media. Now, swearing’s a whole different conversation. Maybe we can have a different topic about it, but trying to suggest that you are perfect and if people don’t like you … I get it, you don’t want people to criticise and maybe dig deep in things that they don’t like about you, but as sales people and as social sellers, we should be adapting to our customers. I will talk to one VP of sales differently to how I talk to another VP of sales, depending on … they’ll be two very different people and I will adapt to them to make sure that they feel comfortable and that I’m serving them as best that I can.
Daniel Disney:
I’m not changing who I am. I’m not going to be something that I’m not, but I’m being a professional and I’m doing my job, everything I did when I was in the corporate world to what I do now. So, I think that’s a very important point when we talk about who we are now, how we’re going to change. No one is perfect. You and I, we’ve achieved an amount of success right now. That doesn’t mean it’s the finish line and we’re going to stop growing and learning and changing. We will grow and adapt, right until the very end, that’s how you can you to grow and succeed in life. So yeah, taking ego out and avoiding being that person who unfortunately thinks that they are perhaps better. That goes down to the level playing field. Your prospect isn’t better than you. You are not better than your prospect, level footing.
Confidence Versus Arrogance: Finding the Right Balance in Sales · [21:42]
Will Barron:
There’s something subtle here. Successful people will say no. So, on the scale of one to 10, I’m like a three, two and half in success. I say no to people all the time. Tonnes of opportunities, no, no, no, no, because I’ve got focus on what I’m trying to do. Drive revenue for the business, which means creating content, better product. All I do, create content, better product. Everyone else, a waste of my time. So, even more successful people say no to even more stuff. So, that’s one thing. If you’re making a post on LinkedIn, for example, about things you’ve turned down, that may come across as slightly arrogant, but it’s not, because you’ve got to turn stuff down to become successful.
Will Barron:
Now, what you’re alluding to, more than alluding to, but I can picture a few posts that have come out in the past few weeks that maybe you and I have both spotted, is just attention seeking. If you are making a post saying, “This, this and this, like me, or love me, or hate me,” whatever it is, nobody asked you the question. If someone asks you a question and you respond and you say, “Hey, no, I don’t agree with this. I’m not doing it. It’s my assertive right not to do this.” That’s one thing. For you to create a post blabbering on about, “This, this and this and my ego and my personality. I love this, I hate this.” Nobody gives … I nearly swore then. Nobody cares, literally nobody cares. Who gives a damn? That’s the least swearing word I can use in that scenario. If you’re create content like that, you’re just turn people off because you can look like an arrogant idiot. It’s as simple as that.
Will Barron:
You just look thick because nobody … you’ve got three comments on your post anyway. Now, if you’re Madonna and you’re making a post like that, maybe people would care. Maybe you’re going to get a response, but otherwise just keep your opinions to yourself.
Daniel Disney:
When we talk about social selling Will, it is sales on social. So, you are doing everything you would do in sales and social. You wouldn’t go into a face-to-face meeting, sit down in front of your prospect, the VP of IT, or whatever it may be and say, “I’m Dan, this is who I am. If you don’t like me, I’m going to walk straight back out.” Because your sales manager will probably have a few words to say to you when you get back. You wouldn’t do that in face-to-face. You wouldn’t do that on the phone, but for some reason, social media, people misinterpret it and sometimes see it in a very different light, mainly because we use it personally. When we use it personally, we feel like we can say it whenever we want and get away with it because it doesn’t matter.
“When social selling, when using LinkedIn especially, we are using it for a work purpose, whether it’s to get a job, whether it’s to generate sales and get customers, we are using it to get an outcome and so we need to bring our professional selves into it and treat it, our prospects, our customers and our audience the same way we would if we were sat with them face-to-face.” – Daniel Disney · [24:05]
Daniel Disney:
When social selling, when using LinkedIn especially, we are using it for a work purpose, whether it’s to get a job, whether it’s to generate sales and get customers, we are using it to get an outcome and so we need to bring our professional selves into it and treat it and our prospects and our customers and our audience, the same way we would if we were sat with them face-to-face. There’s a very big difference between personal use of social media and professional use and when it comes to authenticity, we have to find that sweet balance of being us, but being a genuine, authentic, and I guess, a good positive side of us.
The Number One Rule of Social Selling · [24:41]
Will Barron:
For sure. It’s took us half an hour to get there Daniel, but is that the rule that we should be living by when social selling? We shouldn’t say, do, pick a fight with, anyone that we wouldn’t do, say, or pick a fight with to their face? Is that that a rule that we can implement here?
“Treat everyone on social media the way you would treat your customers and prospects in real life. Treat people with respect, be genuine, and be authentic. Just be you and have good intentions. If you are a bad salesperson, you’re probably going to be bad on social media. If you’re the type of person that lies to your prospects to try and win deals, who tries to sell to anyone and everyone, that’s probably going to go into social as well. But if you are an ethical salesperson, then treat social the same way.” – Daniel Disney · [24:58]
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we put it in more sales context, treat everyone on social media the way you would treat your customers and prospects in real life, treat people with respect, be genuine, and going back to the word, be authentic. Just be you and have good intentions. If you are a bad salesperson, you’re probably going to be bad on social media. If you’re the type of person that lies to your prospects to try and win deals, who tries to sell to anyone and everyone, that’s probably going to go into social as well. But if you are an ethical salesperson, then treat social the same way. Some people get confused because they’re slightly different platforms, but bring it together. If you genuinely care about your prospects and customers in real life, do the same thing on LinkedIn and social.
The Demerits and Consequences of Acting Like a Fool on LinkedIn · [25:38]
Will Barron:
For sure and just in the same way that outreach on social can scale, versus sitting there doing cold calls all day, I think this idea of being an on ass social scales as well. So, you might get away with just on a phone call every now and again, being pushy, manipulative, it never gets back to your sales manager. Maybe you push someone into a sale and they refund and it never gets back to you that that’s happened. But when you do that at scale, or when you’ve got the opportunity for that to happen at scale, you’re just upping the chances of being caught out by it all.
Daniel Disney:
You see it with people that build personal brands and they get the spike, they get all this traction and then it maybe goes to their head or they feel like they can really … and it’ll start to plateau. And if they’re not careful, it drops and you see their engagement drop, you’ll see their followers slow right down, compared to people that use it and then keep being genuine, authentic, and having a giving mentality, then they’ll keep climbing. So, it is very transparent the people that maybe don’t have the right intentions, that get this growth and then they use it to just make lots of money and they just want to sell something and people see it. It’s very transparent, it’s very obvious and it will turn people away.
Parting Thoughts: Value Selling · [26:53]
Will Barron:
For sure. Right, anything else to add? Or should we wrap up there, Daniel?
Daniel Disney:
I think just a final thought, because we really focused on authenticity. Just a quick final thought on value, which was the other word we were talking at about today. Just, I guess, the easiest way to fix the value problem that a lot of sales people and companies have is when you share a post that is promoting your company or product, is promoting your company’s blog or an article about them, or it’s too much about you and the business, that’s probably not valuable to your prospects and customers. Whereas, let’s compare that to, here’s an interview with an expert in the industry, an industry thought leader, an author, or something like that, about a topic that is a pain point to you right now, that’s going to be valuable to you. So, when we talk about value … and it’s the same with messaging.
Daniel Disney:
A lot of sales messages that come through on the LinkedIn, “My name’s Dan, this is what I sell. Do you want to buy?” Ultimately. Compared to, “My name is … ” or maybe not even, “My name is Dan. Hi, I’ve had a look at your profile. I loved your post. I love your content. I’ve been following your company for a while.” It takes the focus from you to them. So, when we talk about value mixed with authenticity, be yourself and go out there and try and help people. That’s probably the easiest way to frame up authenticity and value together.
Will Barron:
For sure. Okay, so two rules, I’ll add these in the show notes over socialsellingshow.com for this episode. So one rule, the first rule we [inaudible 00:28:16] down there is don’t say something on social that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face. Totally reasonable, not an unreasonable thing to do. Just on the internet, don’t pick a fight with someone who, if they’re six foot tall and built like a beast, you wouldn’t say it to their face. Don’t do it on the internet either, you’re just being an idiot.
“Before you post a piece of content, once it’s written, it’s on there, it’s ready to go, ask yourself the question: what’s in it for the buyer? Is there something in it for them? Or are you just posting it because you are addicted to likes, clicks, comments.” -Will Barron · [28:33]
Will Barron:
But perhaps two other rules. Before you post a piece of content, once it’s written, it’s on there, it’s ready to go, ask yourself the question what’s in it for the buyer? Is there something in it for them? Or are you just posting it because you are addicted to likes, clicks, comments, and you’re waiting for that dopamine rush of click and refresh on LinkedIn and you’re waiting for that page to pop up with a number in the top corner. So, what’s in it for the buyer?
Will Barron:
Then also, because it’s quite easy to post stuff that is probably somewhat useful for the buyer, but why should they care? Why should they click on that? You’ve got to sell the person in the content on reading further, clicking further down, go into the article itself as you’re linking externally. So, perhaps there’s three rules that we can live by there, right?
“A lot of sales people have that in them, a lot of salespeople do go out there genuinely trying to help and guess what? They’re the most successful ones. So, just go out there and be good. Take pressures away, targets away, ulterior motives away, just go out there and help people. Most salespeople are selling a product that will benefit people. You just have to do the work to go and find the right people that it can benefit.” – Daniel Disney · [29:24]
Daniel Disney:
I’m fully with you on that, Will. It’s, just be a good person. Be a good person in yourself, be a good person with the content you share, just genuinely go out there and help people. A lot of sales people have that in them, a lot of salespeople do go out there genuinely trying to help and guess what? They’re the most successful ones. So, just go out there and be good. Take pressures away, targets away, ulterior motives away, just go out there and help people. Most salespeople are selling a product that will benefit people. You just have to do the work to go and find the right people that it can benefit. Whether you use the phone or social, go out there, be a good person, go and help people.
Will Barron:
For sure. I think this has flipped. Maybe 10, 15 years ago, you could get away with being an idiot, being an asshole, being pushy and manipulative. Now, there’s such a magnifying glass on you. If you’re doing any of this on social, on LinkedIn, over email in fact, that it can be forwarded from one person to another, that I think it’s flipped the other way round. People who are authentic, people who do add value are going to win long term and that’s what we care about. So with that, that was Daniel Disney, the king of Social Selling. My name is Will Barron, founder of salesman.org. And that was the Social Selling Show.
Daniel Disney:
See you next time.
