How To Sell Online Without Selling
Posted: Friday, January 22, 2010
by Alan Burrows
BM&I Enterprises LLC
In today's market they best way to make a sale is to not sell at all. From time to time all of us have had an unpleasant sales experience. We have been the victims of the hard sell from that overly ambitious sales person. There isn't any documentation to support that this brand of selling actually works. If anything, it leads to an overall negative experience as well as a "no sale" for the salesperson.
Part of being an effective online entrepreneur is the ability to communicate with the customer to makes sales. The entrepreneur, for all intensive purposes, is a nameless, faceless entity asking customers to hand over sensitive information (credit card numbers) in order to make a sale, consult for them or perform some kind of task in exchange for compensation. Before someone turns over their hard earned money to a total stranger, there has to be a high level of trust between the customer and seller. In essence, today's entrepreneurs have to resist the urge to sell. They have to build rapport and develop a "relationship" with their customer in order to gain their trust and ultimately sell to them.
There are three critical steps needed to develop this kind of trust/buying relationship.
Branding:
In order to build trust, a buyer needs to know who the face behind the business is. In order to do that you must first brand yourself appropriately in your niche market. The entrepreneur needs to establish an online personality and then promote that personality. Russell Brunson's Dot Com Secrets is a very good example of this type of branding. If you go to any of Russell Brunson's sites, you will learn that he is a family man, was an all American wrestler in college, and built his online empire in college by marketing a how-to DVD on his favorite hobby.
In a nutshell one seemingly knows who Russell is. He further reinforces his brand image through use of video where you actually get to see him promoting his products as well as exceptional content from his webinars.
Expertise:
Become the expert on your niche. Read everything you can on your niche and demonstrate your expansive knowledge through article marketing and forum contributions. By showing your expert knowledge you solidify your online reputation or brand thus making yourself to be trustworthy.
Give Give Give:
The final step in establishing trust is to demonstrate a willingness to help. This can be done most effectively through the use of forums. By giving away your expertise for free you establish yourself as someone who wants to help others as opposed to making a sale. This will endear yourself to your followers thus making them more susceptible to actually buying from you. At this point you have solidified your relationship with customers. This is the endpoint you have been striving for and now you can successfully promote your business to others.
As previously mentioned there are many critical elements needed for internet marketing. Converting leads, by far, is the most important. Failure to build rapport and trust with your customer base will nullify all the other aspects of traffic generation.
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