I’m what you call old school when it comes to sales. I think there is nothing better than a face-to-face meeting with a prospect. When sitting down with someone, you have all your persuasive tools at your disposal—your voice, your body language, your active listening skills—those are the big guns.
But face-to-face sales takes a lot of time: driving time, meeting with folks and following up. Worse yet, people don’t want to meet face-to-face like they used to. Many of my prospects prefer to get their own information and make up their own minds.
These realities have forced me to get a little creative and look for some other ways to “get in front of” my prospects. I may not be face-to-face, but these are great alternatives that can eventually get you the face-to-face time you want.
None of these options put pressure on people to buy; instead they compel people to learn more about you on their own time, which may make them more inclined to buy.
All of these tactics create content that you can share through your social media channels (because you use social media, don’t you?). Social media is a great way to keep your contacts updated, keep you top of mind and share your content with new faces.
I know you didn’t start your business to become a content developer, and you may be wondering what you’re going to write about or speak about. Just think about what you say on a daily basis. What questions do people ask you over and over again? What points do you constantly try to drive home to your clients? Once you become aware of it, you’ll start thinking, “Hey, that’s a blog post right there!”
And one bonus tip before I leave you—content takes a lot of work to create, so never use your content just once—always recycle your content!
Brad Farris is a Small Business Advisor at Anchor Advisors in Chicago. He also shares tools for small businesses at EnMast.com, a community for small business owners. Connect with Brad on Google+.
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Andy;
Face-to-face time is getting harder to secure. I’m glad I have some good alternatives that can get me that one step closer. But with you — we’ll find time to get F2F.
I’m also a big believer in face-to-face time. Nothing else comes close.
Although I’m leaving this as a comment, I would prefer to tell you in person, how much I agree that face time rules. Making a video of this blog comment would be the next best thing. Or maybe I should just call…
Glad you liked it Amanda! It was fun to do.
Great post, Brad. Thanks for sharing the video of you and John as well!