7 Online Selling Tips During Social Distancing For Network Marketers
The year 2020 has brought about some unique challenges for the network marketing profession. After all, network marketing is an industry built upon networking and for those of us who are more extroverted, who thrive on networking events, wine social hours, coffee meet-ups and luncheons who now find ourselves spending way more time at home, it’s been interesting to say the least. Now, I know for all you introverted types you are thinking to yourself “Not me! I was created for such a time as this!” If that’s you, be sure to check on your extroverted friends. Most of us are NOT okay. LOL.
While I will admit that this time of social distancing has brought about challenges I also believe this is a time to take advantage of the opportunities working from home can provide. I believe times of pressure can change our perspective and pivot our lives and businesses. I believe this season is one that can promote and propel us IF we are open to change and willing to embrace the pros over the cons.
1. Clean Up How You Show Up
Moving your business more online means you have to really think about how you are showing up. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If you were applying for a new job, you wouldn’t submit a resume with a list of your pet peeves or a rant about where you stand on political issues, right? Nor would you interview for a new job with just rolled out of bed head in your pj’s?
No, you would submit a polished resume with your qualifications, your experience, what makes you a great person to work with, maybe even a mission statement so your potential employer can get a sense about who you are and what you believe. The day of your interview, you would get up early and spend time getting ready so you could look your best.
So if all of that makes sense, then why is it reasonable to show up on social media any differently? Every day we are essentially interviewing in front of potential customers and business partners. It makes zero sense to throw up a post on a Monday about how bad your weekend sucked, your ranting two cents about political or world events and then on Tuesday post about why people should work with you because I can promise you, they haven’t forgotten about your negative vibes the day before.
The leaders in our company spend an incredible amount of time teaching our team online marketing strategies and we see first hand how doing things the right way impacts our team member’s businesses so if there is one thing you take away from this entire post it’s this: how you show up in the world and show up in the lives of others matters. You are either working to attract people or you are working to turn them off.
It’s never too late to start cleaning up your online act.
2. Be A Source Of Inspiration
Make inspiration part of your daily social media routine. Life is not all rainbows and unicorns all that time so you don’t want to be over the top and make people feel like your life is perfect because that’s not real but you don’t want to be a Debbie Downer either. Be real and talk about real life but do it in a way that inspires others. When people feel inspired they feel secure and when they feel secure they are more open to other information like your business or the products you sell.
3. Be A Valuable Resource
Make value a part of your online marketing content. For example, I have been building a business the last 5 years with an amazing anti-aging hair and skin care company. I market to mature women who deserve to look and feel their best. I understand the issues these women face because I am her so I take them along with my personal journey of how I keep my hair and skin looking and feeling younger. I provide hair care tips, skin care fun facts, best practices for proper hair and skin care. I view my online space as a powerful teaching tool.
When women in my circle have questions about how to care for their hair and skin I want them to think of me. Being a valuable resource earns me their trust and in turn earns me their business. So think about the value you have to offer your online network. How can you show up for them every day and be a problem solving resource?
4. Be Personable
There is nothing worse than to reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in 8 months to pitch a product or business opportunity. You can’t rush selling without being icky. Selling requires nurturing. When you reach out to people to have conversations, always put connection over closing a sale. Have genuine conversations, ask questions so you can in turn learn more about their needs and if you can meet those needs with your product or service.
Think of it like this, if you walk into a shoe store and the salesman walks up to you with a pair of tap dancing shoes, he is wasting his time trying to sell them to you if you have absolutely no use for tap dancing shoes, right? Unless the salesman spends the time to have a conversation with you to find out what kind of shoes you are looking for he looks like a smuck and causing you a lot of frustration. That is how your prospect feels when you jump the gun and start spouting off about what you do without learning anything about what their needs are.
Someone shared with me one time how someone inboxed her this long message about how amazing their new mascara product was, how it was the most incredible lash lengthening mascara on the market. This person had just finished a very difficult chemo treatment and had no lashes to speak of. Had the person who was trying to sell mascara taken the time to have a genuine conversation, it probably would have come up and the over zealous salesperson would have been spared a very embarrassing situation. I mean can you imagine how mortified the person was when they got a message back saying “thanks but I just finished chemo and don’t have any lashes.” EEEEKKKKK!
We teach our team members how to have meaningful and powerful conversations with their prospects. When you have tools in place to nurture relationships, your business can do a complete 180!
5. Make A List Of People Impacted During This Time
There are a lot of people out there who have been personally affected professionally during this time. We teach our team to make a list of people they know who are hard working and would be open to taking a look at our business opportunity in a fast growing billion dollar anti-aging hair and skin care company. Here are some tips straight from our team trainings:
• Ask to meet people for a virtual coffee chats over Zoom to check on them.
• Ask questions and listen.
• Is there an opportunity for you to be a resource for them?
• Can you help by writing a letter of recommendation or be a referral source for them?
• Share your story and let them know that your business could help during this time as an additional stream of income if they are open to hearing more.
Not everyone you talk to will be ready to say yes right away so be sure you have a good follow up system in place that will allow you to keep moving these conversations into possible leads for your business. We developed one for our team and have seen great growth with conversions so it’s important to ensure you have a good system for follow-ups.
6. Diversify
If there is one thing this season has taught us, it’s not to get too comfortable. Going back to the beginning of my post, if your business was built heavily on the ability to market face to face, you realize now how important it is to diversify your marketing efforts. Maybe you found yourself feeling quite comfortable getting leads off your personal Facebook page until the pandemic and politics took over your feed and people’s attention spans.
This is why we teach our team how to use funnels, Facebook pages, how to build an email list and influencer tools on Instagram because it’s so important not to put our business building eggs all in one basket. There are millions of people out to work with and you can’t reach them just at your local networking group (especially if they aren’t even meeting right now) or on your personal Facebook page.
7. Ramp It Up
So friend, in times like this you can either sit and keep struggling or you can ramp it up and decide you are going to not only pull through this season but you are in it to win it! To ramp something up means to “increase the level or amount of something sharply.”
Come up with 1-2 ways you can break out in your business. Here are some examples:
• Start building an email list so you aren’t subjected to the censoring and algorithms of social media.
• Start doing lives on your Facebook or Instagram accounts and blow your network away with value.
• Grow and monetize a Facebook page so you aren’t relying on your personal page.
• Start a YouTube channel
• Start a blog and tap into more organic Google traffic.
• Start leveraging the power of Pinterest for your business
So friend, if this has been a frustrating season in your business and you have found yourself struggling to move your business forward during this time of social distancing start using this time of spending more time at home to your advantage! I pray you found these tips helpful. If you did I would greatly appreciate you sharing them with another fearless womanpreneur in your circle!
Together we are going to get through this and come out on the other side stronger and wiser because of it it.
