Social And Selling Without Shame

There are some people who believe that selling has no place on social media. They believe that to sell would be unholy, profane, impure. They believe that social is for connecting with other people, for communicating, and for sharing the richness of our lives.

But there is no more shame in selling over the social channels as there is selling anywhere else.

Throughout all of human history, wherever people have come together to meet, they have shared the value they create. From the first marketplaces, to the first bazaars, to the first shopping malls, and the first strip malls, we have traded, bought, and sold the things we want and need in the places we come together.

What social has done has expanded the marketplace to cover the entire wired world. And those wires will soon extend to the few remaining parts of the Earth still unwired. In fact, the marketplace won’t even require wires—we are already connecting to all the world has to offer on a device that fits in our pocket. Or on our wrists. Or in our glasses.

Social connects us with the people who can create value for us (and for whom we can create value) regardless of where they live and regardless of distance. It’s the great leveler. The size of your company no longer matters. Your marketing budget doesn’t matter that much either. We can find the people who need to buy what we sell—and the people who sell what we need.

If it is okay for you to buy over the Internet without any bad feelings or misgivings, then it’s okay for you to sell over the Internet, too.

The social tools are merely amplifiers. If you are a smarmy, self-oriented, dirtbag who only cares about himself, you are those things in real life as well as on the social channels. If you are a thoughtful, caring, trust-worthy value creator in real life, you’re that on the social channels, too.

Here are some thoughts I published today over at Owner Magazine.