Google+ for Business Part 9

Attention is a gift. People choose to circle you and pay attention to your posts on Google+. It's completely opt-in. That means that if you spam them with sales offers all the time, they will tune you out. They will either uncircle you or click the Ignore b.u.t.ton, thus blocking any further chances to build a relations.h.i.+p.

With that in mind, you should post a mix of business-specific information and information that's helpful to the community. Don't flood the stream with dozens of posts a day. (This often earns you a transfer to circles that people name things such as Noisy or Blabbermouths.) Instead, think strategically about the mix of posts that might help convey your interest in empowering your potential buyer, plus a call to action here and there.

Make It About Them.

The more you post information that empowers or highlights your prospective buyers, the more likely people will respond and react to your information. The more it's about you, the easier it is to tune you out. Remember, those amazing new products you create aren't amazing until your customers find that your products changed their lives. Even if you sell toilet lids, you need to make your interactions on Google+ about how these toilet lids can make your buyers' lives amazing.

Turn Self-Promotion into Appreciation.

If you win an award, make the thanks point toward your buyers. Any time you brag, it turns people off. It doesn't matter that you're so proud of making The New York Times Bestseller list. If you don't write your post about that to read "Thank YOU for making this book successful," people tune you out. Attention is a gift. Appreciate the h.e.l.l out of your community.

Don't Waste Chances to Sell.

On the other side of the coin, realize that you're on Google+ for a reason, and if that reason is business, business is based on converting prospects into buyers, and turning buyers into loyal members of the community. Even if someone has purchased, love them as a loyal customer. If someone's on the fence, give them all the help you can. If they're not yet even a prospect, educate them about the s.p.a.ce, and include the occasional pointer back to what you're doing.

Think in terms of how you might add value to the other person's interactions with you. That's where the sales come from-more about that in a moment. Just realize that you're here to sell, but that selling doesn't mean every sentence you write on Google+ is about driving someone to buy.

The Warm Sell-Warming Up a Sale.

Say I want to sell a webinar about how to use Google+. (I've done that a few times, you should know.) I would do a series of posts something like the following.

* Post interesting free information about Google+.

* Post a few off-topic posts that also point to how Google+ is interesting.

* Post starter guides that people can run with.

* Post video screencasts showing off some tricks and tips (all free).

* Acc.u.mulate a bunch of these free posts.

* Write a post offering a paid webinar for a deeper dive, including a list of skills people can learn from the experience, and end with a link to the buying page.

In the post offering the paid webinar, write copy that speaks entirely from the buyer's perspective. It might be something like this: "You've been using Google+ for a little while now, and you've heard that people are having success with using it for business, but you haven't exactly hit it out of the park yet. You've figured out some of the basics, but nothing seems to be moving the needle for you. If you're interested in learning how to use Google+ to build business relations.h.i.+ps and improve your sales and marketing efforts, reserve your seat for this informative tutorial on how to build business using Google+."

Something like this that includes bullet points about specific takeaways works. Also, end with a Reserve Your Seat link that takes people to a sales page.

This is how I would do it, and I should be clear that I have a reputation in the s.p.a.ce that I wrote about here and that people know me for this kind of information. What if you're a lot less known, and what if the people who have opted to circle you don't yet know you enough to trust you as a business leader? And what if your product is a little more difficult to sell? Now look at those premises, too.

Getting to Know You.

If you join Google+ and somehow convince a bunch of people to circle you to follow your posts, and the first thing you do is offer them products or services to buy, you'll quickly be uncircled. A little bit of warming up is necessary.

Take the community-minded approach. If you sell special soaps, your buyers are primarily women, primarily people who like to pamper themselves, and people with some discretionary income. To build community around that, share other items that would be of interest to that demographic. For instance, share posts about inspiring books, posts about new trends in beauty, and other topics not directly related to the soap you sell, but related to the buyers you're courting.

Make sure your About page on your profile is complete. Tell people exactly who you are. Give them pictures of you. Make sure they have ample ways to contact you. The more people can feel that they understand who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in, the more they can identify with you.

Another point about helping people get to know you is that the more you comment on your prospects' posts (and never in a way that's selling your stuff-unless it's exactly what they're asking about), the more they will feel a connection to you that can help you help them in the future.

The Difficult Sell.

I bought my car on the Internet. The story is useful to explain how social networks can help you build a sale. I'll talk you through the story to see if there are nuggets of information that can help you, should you be selling something a little more complex than books, energy bars, or software.

Aaron Manley Smith runs a virtual car dealers.h.i.+p called Motorphilia. He used to sell quite heavily through eBay but has since expanded to building business on Facebook and now also Google+. I met him once at an event in Austin, Texas, and found his story interesting, but I also filed it in the "But I'm not looking for a car, and Aaron seems to sell mostly exotic cars" file.

Then, one day, I thought I'd search around to find a new Chevy Camaro SS. I looked at my local car dealers.h.i.+p websites and found them terribly lacking. They basically are all built to have you come in for a test drive. There's not enough information on the site. The pricing wasn't posted. It was just a mess.

So, I did what any blogger would do: I wrote a blog post complaining about it. I wrote "Dear Car Dealers.h.i.+ps: Your Website Sucks." In the post, I explained how buyers have changed how they buy, and that most of the websites I visited were old school and that it was dissuading me from making a purchase.

The blog post found its way onto Facebook, and within 4 minutes of seeing it, Aaron Manley Smith sent me a message via Facebook saying that he'd located exactly the car I had mentioned in the blog post, and that if I sent him $1,000 via PayPal, he'd acquire it for me. (Yes, this is a Facebook story, but this was a year before Google+ had come out. The same details translate handsomely to G+).

I did it. I sent Aaron the money. A handful of days later, I had a brand new Camaro that cost me about $5,000 less than the dealers.h.i.+p up the street, with no haggling, no fuss, and I did it completely over the Internet.

But what goes into performing a complex sale like that? Here's where there might be some learning from how Aaron does what he does that you can take into your sales methods. Again, your mileage may vary, but realize that these nuggets can be adapted for your interests. Now go behind the scenes on the details I didn't explain by considering the following: * Social proof: First, Aaron mastered the art of social proof. If you look at the Motorphilia fan page on Facebook, it is post after post of interesting cars (for enthusiasts), plus it's a bunch of photos and posts congratulating recent customers on their cars. Aaron makes the buyer the star, but at the same time, he is subtly pointing out every sale he makes with photos and videos.

* Behind the scenes: Aaron sends photos from car auctions he and his team attend, plus he shares interesting car pictures that keep his audience happy. He also shares bits of himself on Google+ that have nothing to do with cars and Motorphilia. The more you get to know him, the more you feel like you trust him (without having ever shaken his hand across a table).

* Referrals: Because of how Aaron does his work, and because he uses social networks extensively to promote and show off the sales he's made, the people who he sells cars to do a great job of referring business to him by talking and posting about the experience. I've written blog posts about Aaron. I bring him up in speeches. And now, I've written about him in this book. Referrals are gold for most complex sales. (You in the real estate profession just nodded, right?) * Presence: Aaron is active on more than a few social networks. It's serving him well in lieu of advertising because people get to know him in between their needs, plus his buyers are mostly on social networks. Because Aaron has tuned his sales methods specifically to social network users, maintaining a presence here makes sense. (Before you start saying, "But my buyers aren't on social networks," the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in August 2011 that half of U.S. adults regularly use social networking sites. I don't have stats for other countries, but it varies per country, obviously.) There's a lot to digest in this segment, but I think it bears consideration. Building trust to accomplish a big sale takes time, but if you're doing difficult sales, you already have a sense of the duration of the sales cycle. If I told you that social networks are just another tool like the phone and face-to-face visits to try and land a sale, you'll think more about how that slots into your other methods, and you'll allot time accordingly.

If you want some further reading to complement what Aaron has accomplished, check out John Jantsch's The Referral Engine. It's packed with information that can benefit your attempts to emulate some of the best of what Aaron has done.

Affiliate Marketing and Google+.

I've seen some early examples of people using Google+ for affiliate marketing (selling other people's products for a financial reward). Most of the early examples have been the terrible spammy variety. Luckily, Google+ has lots of good tools to enable people to report spam and to block people who take this approach. But those are the "bad guys." How can you use Google+ for affiliate marketing if you sell to a community that actually is interested in the products you sell. Consider these ideas: * Content sells: If you promote travel gear, share good travel videos, and maybe add links to products you think would help out such a trip. In every case, be sure to disclose that what you promote is an affiliate link. (This is the law in the United States, but it's good practice everywhere.) You can just post the link and then put the affiliate link right after the link. That makes it simple.

* Add something: My friend and PodCamp co-founder, Christopher S. Penn, used to help his company sell student loans, and the way he did it was to create the Financial Aid Podcast. Every episode (and there were hundreds of them) had a mix of interesting links for college students, including free music, ideas on how to build a good resume, and all kinds of things that had nothing to directly do with financial aid. And yet, that information built trust, kept people listening, and gave Chris multiple opportunities to promote student loans. He made his company millions from this effort.

* Don't sell 100% of the time: Post content that relates to your community in between sales. To skip that step risks you being uncircled or ignored.

* Help others sell: If you want a magic trick in affiliate marketing, help others sell. Some programs actually offer two-tiered affiliate relations.h.i.+ps, which means that you can recruit people and also make a cut off their sales. However, do it just because it can help your sales. This might mean resharing someone else's affiliate promotion. It might mean teaching people your best tips for selling. When you're helpful to others, they tend to reciprocate.

* Try a hangout: What if you did a live hangout showing off the product or service you're thinking of selling. Think QVC for the social network crowd. And before you poo-poo that idea as terrible, realize that QVC and related platforms get millions and millions of unit sales a week from doing simple promotional video coverage. A hangout would be a more intimate version of this-and definitely worth considering.

It's early to know whether Google+ will be useful for affiliate marketers, but anywhere that millions of people gather, there will be people testing whether it's of value. I think that making sure you sell in a human, relations.h.i.+p-minded way is always useful, and the platform certainly offers many ways to augment the methods you might use to sell.

Remember that the people who have joined Google+ haven't joined to buy things. They use this social network for many different purposes. Simply pus.h.i.+ng sales into their stream would be a less successful method, so think accordingly.

The Two-Tier Sale.

Another way to use Google+ to build sales is to not push for a sale right out of the gate. For instance, if you're a real estate professional, most people aren't actively seeking your services on any given day. However, when the time comes that they want to make a move or sell their place, you want to be top of mind. But nearly every business opportunity is like this. If you push directly for the sale and it's the wrong time, you risk falling under the waves and not being top of mind when the person is ready to buy. Therefore, you might encourage a sustained relations.h.i.+p before the sale in many ways.

Encourage subscriptions to your weekly email newsletter. Remember that Google+ is "rented" s.p.a.ce. If the rules change, if something catastrophic happens, if the trends s.h.i.+ft such that it's no longer the most amazing place to network, you'll lose all the work you've put into relations.h.i.+p building, if you have all your eggs in that basket. To that point, make efforts to invite people to get your weekly newsletter, where you control the mailing list, so that you have sustained access to those people. Ninety-three percent of people still prefer email to any other method to have a relations.h.i.+p with a brand, according to a study from Citi. Oh, and if you're not producing a useful, interesting, personable weekly email newsletter, you're missing a powerful part of your sales potential.

Another way to look at this is to consider Google+ as your warm networking in between sales calls. Sales people often look for ways to connect with their prospects in between pushes to move the sale along. For instance, if you sell something huge such as data center equipment, the cycle to buy might be 18 months or more.

While everything is coming together, another great way to use Google+ is to simply stay in touch and talk about whatever else is going on in your buyer's world. The more contact you have without pus.h.i.+ng hard on the sale, the more your buyers can see you as someone who cares and shares value. (A great resource for this is the book The Trusted Advisor by David Maister and Charles Green. Pick it up to get more ideas on how this concept works.)

A Power Move-Mention Your Compet.i.tor.

Following is one of those ideas that's a bit controversial, and that most bigger companies struggle to deal with. There might be times when your compet.i.tor's product or service is the better fit for someone. It takes a lot of guts to bring that up. However, ask yourself this: If the prospect is actually a better fit for the compet.i.tor's product, why not mention that product? You're not losing a sale. You are, however, building some trust.

A variation on this is to congratulate your compet.i.tor for wins from time to time. This runs counter to what most organizations want. However, think of it from the buyer's perspective. Every time you say something positive, it shows that you're a positive force, and it translates to goodwill.

You might be clear with the leaders.h.i.+p, however, if you decide to take this approach and you're not the owner of the company. It's a bit of a fine line kind of move and isn't necessarily condoned at most companies. (And yet, it's so powerful and worth mentioning.)

If You're Not Directly in Sales.

I have a little piece I do during some of my speeches to companies. I ask the audience, "How many of you are in sales?" Usually, a handful of people put up their hands. I then say, "Wrong. You're all in sales." And I believe this. No matter your role in the company, and no matter how large or small the company is, I believe that everyone is responsible for sales. If you're a customer service representative, your job is to sell the satisfaction of the buyer. If you're in public relations, your job is to sell people on the story of your company. If you're in finance, your job is to help improve margin as best as you can.

Sales is a big term. We all sell something every day-even if it's our opinion. I might sell you on going to see Transformers 8. You might sell me on checking out that new sus.h.i.+ restaurant. We sell ideas, thoughts, sentiments, and more, every day.

But related to actual sales-money-changing-hands sales-we all have a part to play in it. Scott Monty and Jennifer Cisney do not get measured on purchases made via their efforts, but those efforts most certainly keep the company in the better graces of their buyers. Greg Pak is measured as a writer by the success of his comic book sales (as one example), and his personable way to connect with people on Google+ turns people into buyers. That's the key-that's the value.

Quite a few people have a bit of a negative bias toward sales and salespeople. It's based on experiences with bad salespeople, however. Because the real trick is that the best salespeople make it seem like we wanted what we bought, and that we are smarter for knowing that.

For instance, the best servers in restaurants ask you whether you're a key lime pie fan or a chocolate molten lava cake fan. They don't ask you if you've "saved room for dessert." The difference is that they've already boxed you into an either-or decision that still has you thinking about selecting one of those two options, and when you do pick chocolate molten lava cake, you feel as if it were your own decision to make, and it was.

When you do it right, that's how sales feel to your buyer. You know what it feels like when you do it wrong. And again, if you're not directly in sales, you are still part of the sales process. There's more to consider here than an actual dollar-for-dollar interaction.

9. Growing an Audience.

The question I'm asked more than any other question is how did I get such a big following on Twitter (and then Google+). Most times, people ask this question expecting some kind of software involvement, or some tool, or some formula. The best I can offer is a kind of formula: * Share interesting and useful information.

* Share information that's more about your audience than it is about you.

* Share more about other people than you share about yourself.

* Promote others more than you promote yourself.

* Comment as often as you can on other people's posts.

* Comment as often as you can on people's comments on your posts.