Facebook have announced changes to some of the rules around custom audiences. They are also increasing transparency for users by allowing them to see the ads from Advertisers whether or not they are shown to them. In this Facebook live, I talk about how these changes will impact advertisers, what ‘origin of data’ could look like, and some potential implications arising from the new tools.
These changes impact business who manage their own advertising, as well as the agencies who run advertising campaigns on behalf of their clients.
Here’s the video:
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Social Media Nibbles E05: Should you use Facebook groups?
Paula: Hello! And welcome to Social Media Nibbles. I’m Paula O’Sullivan , Social Media Strategist and head possum at Possum Digital. In this episode we have a very special guest: the wonderful Kate Toon. An award winning SEO copywriter and SEO consultant with almost two decades of experience in all things advertising, digital and writing. Originally from the UK but now based just outside of Sydney. She’s worked with big brands such as eHarmony, Curash and Kmart, and she’s helped countless more businesses produce great content and improve their copywriting and SEO. Kate is also the founder of the Clever Copywriting School and the Recipe for SEO Success eCourse. The Cohost on Hot Copy podcast and host of the Recipe for SEO Success podcast. Kate recently published her very popular business book ‘The Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur’ and personally I have read the book and can highly recommend it, so make sure you get yourself a copy, which also has its own podcast. And I am so super excited that she is with us to talk about how to use Facebook groups to support growing your business! Welcome Kate Toon!
Kate: Hello! I’m very excited to be here, thank you for having me.
Paula: You’re very welcome. So firstly, let’s give a shameless plug for you. Tell us a bit more about you, who you are, what you do and how you help.
Kate: I help small businesses, bloggers, corporates, charities, advertising agencies and basically anybody who wants to get more visible in the eyes of Google. People who wanna make Google fall in love with their website and I do that via courses, podcasts and resources. So that’s one of my businesses, my other business is I help copywriters create better businesses and collaborate, and try to build a sense of community and non competition and I have a conference that I run about that as well. And what else do I do? I’ve got books and speaking stuff and I don’t know, I don’t know what I do to be honest Paula, it’s all a blur today but, you know, that kind of thing.
Paula: Well that’s business life though isn’t it?
Kate: It is a bit. It is a bit.
Paula: It is a bit. Let’s jump in to Facebook groups. So, I personally am a member of a couple of your groups, but can you tell us what Facebook groups you use to support your business, and how you actually use them?
Kate: Okay so they fall in to two catergories basically: free and paid. I’ll talk about the free ones first. I’ve got a large group called I Love SEO which is there to support my free SEO courses and my low cost SEO courses. So it’s kind of an area to get tips and advice and support and ask questions. So that’s a large one that’s got nearly six thousand people in it.
Kate: And then I’ve got another group called Misfit Entrepreneurs, which was created originally to support my journey towards publishing my book, and was supposed to be for people who’d read the book but kind of now the edges have blurred a little bit on that, and that one’s free as well. Just a fun place to hang out.
Kate: And then I have several, I wouldn’t say they’re paid Facebook groups, but they’re groups that support a paid product. So I have a community for copywriters, a membership community, I have a membership community for my graduates of my SEO course, and then I also use Facebook groups for each round of the SEO course to support members while they’re doing it. So all the Facebook groups, I think I’ve got about 7.
Paula: So in terms of the paid Facebook groups, they obviously generate an ROI because they are paid customers or paid clients. Your free groups, so your ‘I love SEO’ group and your ‘Misfit Entrepreneurs’ group, how do you see those free groups as adding value to your business or generating some sort of, ROI or return on your time? Because you spend a lot of time in those groups.
Kate: Yes, and that is not necessarily because of the money, it’s also because I enjoy it. And I’m a big believer you should enjoy your business and do what you love, and it’s great if that can make you money but sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay too. I guess they’re both very different again, so the SEO group: It’s an easy access to the world of Kate Toon. Yeah? So its very easy for me to pop in to other groups, or to mention any emails or to mention “Hey I have this group”, and, you know, there’s very little barrier to entry. Do you know what I mean? Joining a Facebook group is very low commitment. I must apologize for the dog in the background, he loves to join in on podcasts. It’s not my dog, he’s the bane of my existence.
Kate: So, yeah that one is a low entry way in to my groups, into my products, my funnel. Did I just say the F word?
Kate: And obviously it’s a place for me to gather my ideal customers, rather than having to go in to other groups and toot my horn, I have a room of people waiting to hear my horn being tooted. Also I can answer questions, I can share videos, I can show my authority, build trust, so that when I do have something to sell, that journey is already begun, you know?
Kate: The Misfits group is very different. So that was literally created to sell books, and it does a horrible job of selling books. So when people join I’m like “Hey, you can grab my book, here’s a free chapter.” The percentage of people who actually do buy the book, it’s very small. And I’m not sure why. I’ve pondered it but it got to the point where I’m like, it doesn’t matter, because in reality a lot of people in that group had then gone on to buy other things.
Kate: That group builds trust and authority in a very different way because most of the time I’m sharing pictures of hedgehogs or ugly selfies or just silly stuff. But a lot of people who’ve gone on to buy my big expensive courses actually came from that group, not the ‘I love SEO’ group. So it’s a little bit intangible, and I’m not somebody who tracks ROI on spreadsheets. I’m more of a vibe person. Which is probably not great marketing but it works for me.
Paula: Because you’ve got so many groups obviously you’ve gotta have some resources to actually tend to, maintain, cultivate, whatever buzz word you wanna use, but, basically look after your members and the people in those groups. What resources do you devote to managing your groups?
Kate: Yeah, the paid membership groups. So they’re people who have paid monthly or annual subscription to be there. So they get my love. They’re the ones that get the love and attention. So there are regular posts in the group, the obvious ones that everyone has like Monday intention and Friday wins, but we have other ones as well. I also regularly do Facebook Live, we have a coaching calls, and meet ups, and we hear our members and they do training and we do in group training. A whole range of stuff. Some of that is scheduled, so I have regular posts that can easily be popped into the group, and scheduled by a VA, but a lot of it is me. A lot of it is me turning up, you know? I’ve got enough people in there to make it OK for me to be spending about an hour a day in each of those groups helping and supporting. So a lot of that is me, I’m very much my brand, that I have a team of thousands.
Kate: And in the other groups, because they’re free, I feel zero pressure. I will do what I want, when I want to do it, and I will do stuff and then decide I’m not doing it again. So I have something in the I Love SEO group called a Help, and sometimes I schedule it, and sometimes I’m too busy with paper work and I’m not going to feel guilty about that. I just keep the level of expectation relatively low, and also that’s both from my customers point of view but from me. And just do what I can when I can, because at the end of the day I’ve got to earn money. So, you know. You can only do so much.
Paula: Exactly. And ultimately we’re all only human as well.
Kate: We are. We are.
Paula: So in your groups you have a nice little pinned post, which is good practice, and in the pinned post you talk about the rules of the game, and the rules of participating in the group. How do you deal with troublemakers, or people who just refuse to play by the rules?
Kate: I think it’s super important, before you set up a group … I’m just going to take a little step back from that question just a little bit, because I think in order for you to write the rules, you need to be very clear what you want to get out of the group. And I think so many people set up Facebook groups just because it’s another thing to do, like having a pretty Instagram feed, or whatever. Or like us, having a Podcast. It’s like everyone else has got one, I want one. And if you’re not very clear at the beginning about what you want to get out from it, then you won’t be able to set the rules and you won’t be able to apply them.
Kate: So I have basic rules around being polite and not swearing, or swearing or whatever. Rules about copyrite, rules about hashtags. I’m really anal about my hashtags. And that’s … and also, I must state as well, in my biggest group, because it is so big, I don’t allow any kind of free posting. Does that make sense?
Paula: Absolutely.
Kate: Every post is approved by me, when I choose to approve it or not approve. I just delete it. In the Misfits group it’s a bit different because anyone can post whenever they want. And that group causes me more headaches than any other group.
Kate: I’m just of the attitude that it’s my group, you have chosen to join it, there are rules, if you choose not to follow them you can leave the group. And I’m absolutely strict about that, and I know that sometimes that will put people off-side, and that’s something that you have to consider. So I’ve had to school a few people. And I’m sure they’ve gone away thinking, that Kate Toon is a right cow. And that’s not great, I don’t want that. But as long as I can go hey, refer to the post, it did say that, I did set that rule, you could have read it, you didn’t, it’s not really my fault, then I don’t feel too bad about it.
Kate: So I don’t allow really any promotion in my groups at all. Especially the SEO one, because I didn’t spend two years building a group of six thousand potential customers so that another SEO person can come in and start selling to them. I am of the spirit of abundance, but I am not stupid. And I think that’s a big problem that people have. If you have a group and you have a competitor come into it and start trying to sell to your customers, you can just get them out of the group. You have my permission. It is your space that you’ve created, you’ve dedicated time and resources, it is not fair. And it is not on, in my opinion. What do you think of that Paula?
Paula: Look I really love that as a philosophy, and I’ve been talking a lot about boundaries with friends and business colleagues and others at the moment, so I think before we jumped onto this call, onto this Podcast, we talked about a kinder world. What is it that we can do that actually has people behaving in a better way, in a kinder way to each other. And instead of going off and being that horrible person, or being that swear-y person, or whatever the bad behaviour is, how is it that we can make sure that the groups we’re in, or the groups we facilitate, or we own, it’s a space where people can come and be themselves, and feel safe, and have conversations, and do all those things. But also not be stupid about it-
Kate: Yeah.
Paula: And understand that this is your business. This is part of your marketing strategy, let’s be honest. Like your I Love SEO group, that’s part of your marketing strategy to sell your course, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. So, any competitor who thinks they can jump into the course and start promoting their own services, I would think that would just be bad behaviour.
Kate: Yeah. And I think there’s different types of bad behaviours. So people that swear and are mean and whatever, it’s just a no brainer. You just kick them out. You know? There’s no … And I don’t … In the beginning I’d be like, oh you know Sue I deleted your post because it bridged… these days I just delete it. And if someone contacts me and says what happened to my post, I’m like, what do you think happened? Do you know what I mean? Or I just don’t respond. Because they know what happened to their post. They know. They know. We all know when we’re breaking the rules.
Kate: And then when people self-promote in a group that’s someone else’s group … I’m in lots of peoples group who are digital marketers, copywriters, whatever. And why am I there? It’s interesting, and it’s good to see what’s going on. I have left any direct competitor groups. So somebody who sells SEO courses, I would not be in their group. Because why would I do that to myself? I’m just going to be doing comparison-itis, I could be accused of kind of nicking ideas, it’s just not good. Get out of your competitors groups. If competitors are in mine, I try to weed them out and I have no qualms about it. But I have a few people in my I Love SEO group who are SEO consultants, and who do offer similar services to me, and they are polite, and they are respectful, and they are there to learn and be part of a community, and that is cool.
Kate: So it’s just a balance. So you can’t be frightened of implementing your rules, otherwise don’t have the rules in the first place. And that’s where I see people getting into trouble. The people who find Facebook groups miserable, are those that agonise over how to police them. So if you’re just very black and white about it.
Kate: The other thing I’d say in terms of your kindness, and that kind of thing, is a group is only as good as its leader, yeah? People are looking for leadership. There’s nothing wrong with being a leader in your own group. That’s why people are there. So don’t be ashamed about putting yourself up front. But also you have to create that culture. You have to create a culture. And something like Misfits, in the early days it was difficult, but these days I can feel like I don’t have to monitor that over the weekend, because the group self-monitors. If someone comes in and behaves in a way that’s not the Misfit way, it stand out hugely, and I get all these notifications going, this persons just done a Facebook Live talking about their seven figure whatever, and they police the group themselves. Do you know what I mean?
Paula: So looking at the flip side to the good behaviour, and rewarding that, how do you think that culture was created? Were there certain tactics? Or was there anything you did in particular to make sure that the culture is collaborative, and kind, and wonderful, and all of those things?
Kate: Well I think I’m collaborative and kind, and wonderful, so I think that helps. No, I’m joking. I think in the early days, Sharon, who is just a wonderful human entity, was helping admin, and she and I had a lot of fun in that group but it was very gentle humour. We expressed things … When things went wrong we owned it. Like one time people were naming names of people and taking the micky out of them, and then someone would be like, hey I’m actually friends with that person. That’s not great. So I would go into the group and be like hey look, not going to do this people. Let’s not be those people.
Kate: And so owning your mistakes, and people saw those videos, and people saw those issues. And a few things blew up, a few posts blew up and went the wrong way. And again, it’s like closing that off and going I’m closing this conversation, it’s not helpful. Boom.
Kate: So we did lot of that. In the early days you have to police, police, police. You do notice that some people comment more than others. And if they are being useful, and helpful, and great, you don’t stop them doing that. In fact, what I do in my Misfits group is to try and pick a member a month and say, you’ve been awesome, you’ve commented heaps. You can do a big Facebook Live in the group and promote your butt off. You know, as a thank you.
Paula: Yeah.
Kate: I picked someone from the group to be an admin, a guy called Gavin. And that’s really interesting as well. A lot of the Facebook groups I’m in are women focused. You know? They’re all-
Paula: Interesting.
Kate: I didn’t want Misfits … Because I love blokes. I have a brother, and a great Dad, and lovely Husband and a Son, so I didn’t want to create a whole female environment. I wanted to create a human environment, where everybody felt safe and included and welcome. I’m a huge feminist, but that doesn’t mean I want to exclude men from my marketing. So the admin I picked was a bloke, and I think that brings a certain something to the group as well. So it’s hard. I think you just have to find your way, but the main thing is the confidence to make your decisions and live by them. Whether people like it or not. That’s the main.
Paula: A bit of personal responsibility, is what you’re saying?
Kate: Yes. Yes. And owning your mistakes, you know? Because you will make mistakes. And I’ve made oodles. But I just admit to them. And people are pretty forgiving. Most people, if you just say sorry, that’s all most people want to hear, you know?
Paula: Yeah. Absolutely. Well I think that’s a good note to end our interview on. Kate, you and I could gas bag all day I’m pretty sure. But thank you so much for your time today. I know you’re super busy, so I really appreciate it. Now let’s give you a chance to give a plug for yourself. Where can our listeners find out more about you?
Kate: The best place to go is KateToon.com. I’m in the process of redesigning it, so it’s pretty ugly, but you’ll find all my various bits. Or you can Google Kate Toon. Thankfully there aren’t too many other Kate Toons around, you should find something to do with me.
Paula: And to our listeners, thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard in this Podcast, please subscribe and share it with your friends. And make sure to visit our website, PossumDigital.com.au where you can listen to more Podcast episodes just like this one, and read our latest blogs. Thanks so much!
If you’re in business, you’ll know how important it is to toot your own horn to your potential customers. If you don’t say how brilliant you are at what you do, then who will? The short answers is – your customers! So let’s look at why reviews matter, and how you can use them to use your business.
For those of you who are reluctant to say how awesome you are, reviews are a much more gentle way of letting your prospective customers know that you are good at what you do. Additionally, this type of third party ‘social proof’ lends more credibility to you.
So here is how you can gain reviews for your business.
Encourage online reviews
When you’ve delivered a product or service that changes lives, and your customers are raving about it, then you should be asking them to leave a review online.
Ideally, your reviews would demonstrate what you do to help your clients, and how it impacts their lives. And the more specific the better.
I work with a copywriter who is incredibly talented, and the best thing she did is send me an email asking me to give her a review, and listed the links of where she wanted the reviews. You can do this to. The platforms you should cover off are:
Google (because Google owns the online universe)
Your Facebook page
Your website
Show case studies on your website
To help potential customers understand what you do and how you help, case studies are a perfect tool for this.
What was the situation like for the clients BEFORE they found you? Take a photo of the before. Then as you are working with your customer, you can take progress shots (if it’s a long project). And then when you are finished, take a photo of the end results and get your customer’s feedback in writing or on video.
Use testimonials in your content
Once you have written (and hopefully some video!) reviews and case studies, you should use them across all of your online channels. Use a platform like Canva to whip up a template where you can drop in a quote or testimonial from a client.
For case studies, write a blog article, or create a video, so you can post the link across social media.
Over to you
Do you have a way to collect and use reviews from your customers?
On 20 June 2018 Facebook announced that it will trial the ability for Facebook group admins to charge a subscription fee for their groups. A small scale trial will help Facebook determine if this is a viable way for Facebook group admins to make money out of their groups, especially if they are running memberships and taking regular payments on an external platform.
Some may think that this will make custom built membership website obsolete, but is that really the case? Does the announcement seem too good to be true?
Make sure you don’t miss out on more Facebook Lives by joining our Facebook community!
Social media marketing is never a set and forget marketing channel. If you’ve created a Facebook page, Twitter account or Instagram profile, you still need to regularly review how each channel is performing and make tweaks or changes to your activity.
One huge lesson we all got from the major changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm is that you can no longer rely on doing the same activity over and over again and expect to always get the same results.
Here are seven things you can do to review how your social media channels are performing:
Is the channel still relevant to your business? If you can’t answer this question, head over to ‘Social Media Channel Plan’ and work through the questions.
When was the last time you updated your branding? Do your profile pictures or cover images need refreshing? And is your branding consistent across all of your channels and aligned with your website?
Are all of your profiles fully completed and optimised fully? Do you have completed bios for Twitter and a proper ‘About’ section for Facebook? Make sure these are consistent with your branding and align with your website.
See how your awareness is performing. If you’re using social media to increase awareness of your brand, then you will want to examine metrics like reach and impressions, as well as clicks (especially those that drive traffic to your website).
Have a look at your engagement metrics. Each channel will have insights data that you can have a look at. Spend a little time looking at your engagement (likes, shares, comments) month on month for about 6 months. Do you see the engagement trending upwards? Are you getting better engagement in some channels?
Are you posting content at the right time of the day for your audience?
Do you have the right followers to match your desired target audience? For example, on Facebook, you can see in your insights tab, data that shows audiences data such as location, gender and age.
Social Media Nibbles E04: Using social media to improve your sales
Paula O’Sullivan: Hello, and welcome to Social Media Nibbles. I’m Paula O’Sullivan, Social Media Strategist and Head Possum at Possum Digital. In this episode, we have a very special guest, my good friend Abbie White from Sales Redefined. She is ridiculously passionate about helping businesses to authentically increase their sales and has more than a decade of experience in sales and sales management. Abbie’s mission is to break down the barriers to sales by ditching outdated cliché sales tactics, and applying highly practical proven sales strategies
Paula O’Sullivan: What I personally love about Abbie’s approach is that it’s very much about getting it done. She is with us to talk about how to use social media to improve sales in your business. Welcome Abbie.
Abbie White: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Paula O’Sullivan: You’re very welcome. Tell us a bit about you. Who are you? What do you do and how do you help?
Abbie White: Thank you, I mainly focus on helping small to medium businesses. It’s all around showing them how they can authentically increase their sales. It’s really, as you were saying, about getting stuff done, getting results and looking at what works in the real world.
Abbie White: For me, there are two factors that I focus on in that. The first is around being authentic. None of us went into business because we wanted to be a great salesperson. I don’t think that was many people’s dreams and desires when they were a kid. It’s showing people that you can be true to yourself, you can be true to your brand, you can be authentic while still increasing your sales and getting rid of the outdated cliché tactics that no one likes in this day and age.
Abbie White: The other factor you just talked about is around making it highly practical, highly actual, getting stuff done and just really getting some results. That’s sort of my focus area when I’m helping businesses.
Paula O’Sullivan: Nice! So really it’s around breaking down those stereotypes about the used car salesman and really getting people to kind of tap into who they are personally, who their brand is and trying to express that to the people that they’re going to be able to help most. Would you say that that’s worth while looking at?
Abbie White: Yeah, absolutely. That’s one of the number one factors for me. I’ll actually sort of answer that with a really quick story. I actually helped someone the other week and they were starting a membership. They had zero sales. I talked to them about what results do you get for your clients? What are the outcomes? She was telling me how people are able to change their lives, how they’ve lost lots of weight, how they can play with their kids, they’ve gotten rid of health issues all these different amazing results. I said okay, you’re denying people the opportunity, if you are not giving them the chance to join your membership program.
Abbie White: You’re getting great results for people, you’re helping people, you’re providing value. You’re not ripping them off like a used car salesman, therefore you need to offer them that opportunity, in your words in your style and talk about the results that you get. Long story short, she started doing that, and she sold out her membership within two weeks.
Abbie White: Nothing changed in her sales strategy. Nothing changed in her marketing. She didn’t suddenly invest a lot of money in it, it was purely shifting her mindset towards what she perceived sales to be and doing it in her own style that she felt comfortable. When we try and sound like someone else or we try to use the latest buzzwords, we all feel uncomfortable and that just comes across. Yeah, it’s about finding your voice and your style.
Paula O’Sullivan: So, already we have a huge takeaway and that is sales is not a dirty word.
Abbie White: Absolutely!
Paula O’Sullivan: Sales actually brings you money in the door and really allows you to help more people. You need to sell more to be able to help more people. Now let’s have a look at how social media plays a role in this. You’re a sales expert and you know how to help people increase their sales. What role do you think social media and social media channels play in helping people do that?
Abbie White: I think social media is absolutely critical. It is a critical piece of the jigsaw to sales strategy. There’s been so many countless studies now that actually prove this. Where I personally see it go wrong is when people think it’s the only strategy. When people are only trying to increase their sales as far as one social media channel, and that is it. I look at people like Gary V., who I’m sure lots of us know and love if you’re a fan of social media and you look at what Gary does. Whilst he is very prevalent on social media, he also is doing speaking gigs most days of the week. He’s doing so many other things offline as well. He’s blending both his social media strategy and other sales strategies to get the incredible results. That’s some of the key takeaway for me. I think that I’ve personally had success using social media.
Abbie White: I’ve got a group myself as you do and I’m starting to see some great referrals coming from groups. I’ve had business from referrals from groups. I think that’s quite an interesting place right now. I absolutely think that social media is critical to your sales strategy, but it’s incorporating it with where do your target market hang out and therefore what’s the right channel. Also, making sure you incorporate it with also sales activities too.
Paula O’Sullivan: If we’re looking tactically at how social media can augment your sales strategy, would you be looking at things like the use of testimonials and reviews or groups that you just mentioned or prospecting, advertising? Can you talk about a couple of those tactics and how you think they would support generating more sales?
Abbie White: For me again, it’s about blending. I think if, on my social media for example, every single day I had a promotion for you, you would very quickly unfriend me, unfollow me, whatever the case may be.
Paula O’Sullivan: Yes
Abbie White: We would no longer be friends. For me, it’s really about blending those different factors. Social proof and credibility is enormous, whether it’s on your website, whether is on your social media. Everyone these days claims to be an expert so having that social proof, whether is a testimonial or a video of someone talking about the actual results that you got and you achieved with them, is absolute key. I think that’s really important.
Abbie White: I think likewise providing value. When I’m looking at what I put on social media, I think is this gonna be of interest to the audience? Is it going to be of value and then I blend it. Every now and again, I will make an offer if I’ve got a promotion going on or if I’m launching, for example, an online course soon I’ll talk about that.
Paula O’Sullivan: Yeah absolutely. I guess looking at what you’ve just been talking about there, I think it beautifully illustrates the integration between marketing and sales. It’s almost the know me and like me factor going into the trust me factor which is the sales component.
Paula O’Sullivan: For people out there who do a lot of that marketing, they’re writing blogs, they’re producing content, they’re doing all those wonderful things so they’ve got the marketing piece down packed yet, they’re still not making sales. What are some of the things that you can recommend? A couple of tactics or maybe mindset shift activity that you can recommend to help other people along?
Abbie White: One of the best mindset shift ones that I like is think of your favourite client testimonial, or client journey. Think about whatever that story is, type it up, print it out and put it all over your wall, your screen, wherever. Every time you feel yourself thinking ooh, I don’t want to make that follow up call or I don’t want to contact that person, or I’m not sure and feeling yourself shying away from sales, reframe it and look at how you help people, the outcomes you achieved, the results you get. Look at that testimonial or example and think, if only I can achieve that outcome, for this person and for more people. That’s one of the ones that I love. It just really helps you shift around your great intentions to provide value and help people as opposed to selling them something.
Paula O’Sullivan: Exactly. So really what you are talking about is a mindset of service first. How is it that I can help you with the view to potentially solving a problem rather than selling them a product. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?
Abbie White: Absolutely. Say 70 percent of people buy to solve a problem. It doesn’t have to be world peace. Whether we’re helping them to make more money in their business, or to go to the gym and lose weight. Whatever it is, we’re solving a problem. You’re going to get the best results by looking at how do you help people solve that problem. How do you help them solve it differently to anybody else, and then the outcomes and the results that you get.
Abbie White: I focus so much on outcomes and results deliberately, because as I said before, everyone claims to be an expert in this day and age, so we have to show how we are different. We buy emotionally not logically, so it’s not about it’s going to be three hours of personal training, it’s not about the fact that I’m going to do 10 burpees, it’s about the fact that if I do this program, I’m going to get the results that I want and my beach body quicker than if I was to use an alternative. That’s what it’s about. It’s about the outcome. We don’t necessarily care how we get the outcome, we just want the confidence that if we invest in this product or service, we will achieve that result.
Paula O’Sullivan: Yeah absolutely. Really it’s ‘let’s talk about the benefits rather than the features’.
Abbie White: Yeah the features are an element in terms of logic. We need to understand okay, well how many hours a week is that personal training, using my example I’ve seemed to have stuck with, and how much is it going to cost me and so on. We do need to understand that. What people tend to do is only provide the features. It’s just pure feature, feature, feature and there’s none of the emotional factors into it. As I said, we buy emotionally. We want to feel great, we want to feel younger or whatever it is that’s the outcome that we want and it’s around that confidence that we’re going to achieve it.
Abbie White: If we don’t touch on those emotional factors, for example, in our sales messages, in our language, then we’re not going to get the sales conversion that we want. That is, going back to your previous question around what could be missing with the people, that’s often what’s missing. If you look at your marketing materials, your website your social media, whatever it may be and all you see is features, features, features, and there’s nothing about that emotional piece, then that’s what’s missing.
Paula O’Sullivan: Okay. What would your recommendation be for how people could use testimonials or case studies on social media or other channels to help with their sales?
Abbie White: That’s a great one. I love testimonials and case studies. I believe we need to blend it with other content as we were talking about. Whether that is a written testimonial, that could be a post and a little bit of a story. Everyone likes to hear somebody else’s story. That’s great. A video, as we all know, is hugely popular and has massive amount of credibility if we see someone talking through their journey. Likewise, we all go and read Facebook reviews, Google reviews, whatever it might be, we all read them. Getting people to do those sorts of reviews also helps.
Abbie White: I also think it breaks down the barriers and it provides inspiration. I’ll give you an example. My brother has got a running coaching business. He posted recently on social media about one of his clients who had done something crazy like 30 flights in the time he was training for a marathon and visited all these different countries and so on. Normally, we all come up with the excuse of well I can’t train for the marathon because I’m too busy at work and I’ve got a lot of travel and I won’t be able to fit it in, all those things that we all come up with as barriers.
Abbie White: By providing that testimonial, that case study, that story, it was able to give people inspiration of actually how you could fit in your running around your job, your travel, and the other things. It works on many different levels, but I think the biggest thing is we all want that credibility factor of knowing we’re not going to be your first guinea pig. You’ve done this before. This is the results you got and therefore I feel confident, coming back to the emotional factor, that it’s not a risk to work with you or to buy with you because I’m going to get that result that I’m looking for.
Paula O’Sullivan: Fantastic. In your work with your clients and in your sales expertise experience, are there particular channels that work better than others in supporting sales?
Abbie White: I get this question quite a bit. For me, it’s about starting with where do your target market hang out and then looking from there. If I was selling to a younger generation, I would probably be on SnapChat. If I’m talking to corporates, I’ll focus on LinkedIn. For small business owners, personally I find Facebook is fantastic. It all depends on where your target market hang out and again on your product and service. If you’ve got a very visual product, being on Instagram is going to be awesome. For other businesses, not so much.
Abbie White: That’s where I think you’ve got to look at the most appropriate strategy depending on your target market and your offering. I again think this comes back to one of my favourite quotes, “I can show you 100 ways to get one sale, but I can’t show you one way to get 100 sales.” What I love about that is that there is no silver bullet. There is no one size fits all. I think today, there is too much hype for me personally on Facebook in the likes that we can all turn on a Facebook ad, sit back and have a cocktail and we’ll be millionaires by next week.
Paula O’Sullivan: Fantastic. We’ve talked a lot so far about what to do. Good things, good tactics, good behaviour. Is there any bad behaviour or things that people should just not do if they want to make sure that they don’t impact their sales?
Abbie White: That’s a great question. How long have we got? The first one obviously we’ve talked about is mindset, making sure that we adjust that. If you say I’m not a salesperson, you never will be. It’s getting rid of that limiting belief and kicking that out the door.
Abbie White: The second one, which I think this is where you and I have a shared love, is around getting stuff done. We can all come up with a great sales strategy. We can all save the planet, we can do all of that but it’s about actually executing and taking action. For me, it’s about testing things, trying them out, putting it into action and giving it a go. If we don’t make time for sales, one of the bad habits is I don’t have time, we’re never going to get more time. It’s about how we prioritise our time.
Abbie White: To me, sales is the lifeline of all of our businesses. It’s that simple. No sales, no business. That’s the harsh reality. For me, it’s actually going okay if that’s the lifeline of my business, I need to prioritise time for sales. One of the best techniques I’ve seen for that is around time blocking. Every single day or whether it’s three times a week, something like that to go, I’m going to purely dedicate this time to sales activities. Whether that’s following up on all the quotes that I’ve put out there, whether it’s looking at who I need to provide proposals to, whether it’s doing proactive sales activities, whatever that might be in your world, It’s dedicating that time where no, this is only for sales activities.
Abbie White: It’s just about walking the talk and putting it into action.
Paula O’Sullivan: Awesome. Speaking of action, which is something both you and I absolutely love, just getting things done, What are your top three tips for taking action right now. Someone is listening to this podcast. They’re trying to take action. When they stop listening to this podcast, what are three things that they can do right now?
Abbie White: Immediately, kicking in the mindset piece like we’ve talked about. Go and print up your favourite testimonial and stick it all over your desk. Stick it all over your wall. Have it in multiple places. Have it as your screensaver, I don’t care. Have it in multiple places and that is the result you achieve for people. If you therefore do not take proactive activity and action on sales, you won’t be achieving that outcome for more people. You won’t be growing your business and getting the results that you really want. Number one is nip in the bud the mindset piece by really addressing any fear factors that you may there in mindset issues.
Abbie White: The second part of that mindset would be around clarity of where you are going. I struggled to get strong results with people when they can’t be clear of where we are driving the bus. What’s the direction. That doesn’t have to be 10 years, it doesn’t have to be five years, even just 12 months. Where is it that we want to be in 12 months. That clarity really then brings strong execution and action behind it. Number one is around mindset activities of clarity on where you are going and clarity on the outcomes you provide for people.
Abbie White: The second one is strong execution like we’ve talked about. Go and get your diary out right now and time block one hour a day. Morning tends to be better because we don’t get side tracked with the latest drama of the day that comes up. Time block one hour a day to just purely work on sales activities. You will be amazed at the momentum that that then builds. With momentum comes confidence. Within one week you would have spent five hours proactively on your sales. How awesome is that? Already you will start to see momentum building, opportunities building, things bubbling and then you just get a great confidence which comes that and that then comes across to your clients.
Abbie White: The third thing is don’t give up too soon. What I typically hear from people is I tried that and it’s not working. Statistically, only three percent of our target market are ready to buy right this second. Therefore, we have to nurture our clients. Social media obviously as you know is a great way to nurture, keep in touch and engage with our audience and our prospects.
Abbie White: It’s about not giving up too soon and saying it’s not working. Maybe it just needs tweaking. If you follow Russell Brunson, who I love and founder of ClickFunnels, he talks about the fact that he had to do over 100 interactions of is webinar before it went nuts and become a multimillion dollar revenue stream for his business. I saw the singer Sam Smith interviewed recently. He talked about the fact that he would write 10 songs, but out of the 10 he would only get one great one.
Abbie White: We’re all expecting to do something and it just works perfectly. When it doesn’t, we often then go, it’s not working and we give up too soon. It’s about tweaking, tweaking, tweaking. I had an E-Book that I used as a lead magnet. The first time I did one I got zero downloads. Very heartbreaking. I went and looked back at what were the questions I was being asked most often, what did my audience really want to know about, how can I really provide value? I tweaked it, changed the title, changed the topic of it and relaunched it and I got 114 downloads in 24 hours. It’s awesome. If I had just said E-Books don’t work, then I would have missed that whole entire opportunity.
Abbie White: To my final point on this, statically 80 percent of sales take five follow ups or more. If we just go they’re not interested and give up, we are missing the most enormous amount of opportunity so continue to follow up. Follow up respectfully and don’t give up. It’s address mindset, focus on strong execution and time block and don’t give up too soon. Keep trying, keep tweaking, keep following up.
Paula O’Sullivan: Wow, that is amazing. Thank you so much for your time today Abbie. There is some absolute gems in what you’ve just told us today. Thank you for giving your time so freely. Hopefully everyone listening gets lots and lots of inspiration from this because I can tell you I’ve certainly got some out of this as well. Now where can our listeners find out more about you?
Abbie White: If you want to visit my Facebook page its Facebook/salesredefined. You can always feel free to contact us for our task ID which is just ask@salesredefined.com.au
Paula O’Sullivan: Fantastic, and to our listeners, thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard in this podcast, please subscribe and share it with your friends. Make sure to visit our website, possumdigital.com.au, where you can listen to more podcasts and also read some of our latest blogs and even watch some videos. Thank you so much and we’ll catch you in the next episode.
