Buyers Are Not Demanding You Social Sell Them

No one is waiting for your cold call. No one has ever said to themselves upon awakening, “Man, I hope some salesperson calls me out of the blue today.” The chances of the words being uttered at any time in the future are precisely 0.0%.

Nor is there anyone demanding that you social sell them, either.

Buyers are not hoping that you to send them an invitation on LinkedIn and follow it up by hammering them with an appointment request a half millisecond later. They don’t hope for a completely self-oriented email that creates no value for them. There isn’t anything here that makes this approach inherently better than a phone call.

No buyer is waiting for you to tweet them, nor are they waiting for a direct message. No one is waiting to engage with you on Twitter. No one is begging for you to share links with them, or hoping that you be patient while they come to realize that all of your sharing on social media means that you are someone who can help them with their challenges or opportunities.

If you’re going to be a thought leader, you are going to need compelling content. If you are going to use social tools to build your personal brand and create new opportunities, you are going to have to go deep, creating content that distinguishes you within your space. If you are going to curate or synthesize other people’s content, you are going to have to add something meaningful, some point of view that is valuable, something that makes your thought leadership stand out.

No one is demanding that you social sell them, because no is demanding that you sell them at all.

Because social selling doesn’t actually happen. Customers won’t discover you via your social efforts and sign up. Your social activity can create awareness of you and what you represent, but it doesn’t change what actually must occur for you to sell.