You’re in business, therefore you have something to sell. So everything you do is about the sell, right?
Wrong.
You might get to send a couple of sales pitches to customers, and get a bit of their attention. But when all they see from you are bits of content just pushing the hard sell, what happens?
You’ve become the timeshare sales guy
Do you remember these from holidays in the sun? How you could pick these people out from 100 yards? And how you’d hate yourself if you ever wasted precious holiday time being drawn into their conversation which you knew was going to end with you trying to work out how to get out of going to see their darned holiday apartments.
Well, constant sales content from you will just feel like that, and be about as big a turnoff.
So, what’s the secret?
In a world where there is ever more content being produced, you have to be looking at how you can create 5 star content, even if your budget is tiny/non-existent. It’s not about flash content, it’s about great content which, for me, is composed of three ingredients:
Useful + Inspiring + Gets Me = 5 star content
What makes content from your business useful? Well, think about the pain points in your customers’ lives that your business solves, and what lies behind that. Here’s an example for you, from my own life.
I love my lawn, in that I love the look of a lawn.
What I hate is that first cut of the year (and to be honest, most of those that follow) when I know it’s going to take me forever. Now imagine finding really good content around the 5 things I could do in 10 minutes over the winter to make that first cut easier.
Written in the right way, I could find that really useful. Particularly if it was written for people with not much gardening knowledge. So it could inspire me to get out there and do those things.
And maybe you’d follow it up with a piece about the countdown to the first cut of spring and what I should be doing now to be ready for it. And then a piece on what to do after the first cut.
Then go in for the sale
Perhaps by now I’ve done all those things, and yes, I’ve found it better than trying to cut it last year. But maybe I’ve also now remembered that I’d rather be looking at my lawn than working on it.
So maybe a well timed sales message from you now selling your lawn care services would be just the thing.
I know you know your stuff. I know that you get me, that I’m really not Chelsea Flower Show calibre. And I know that you’ve tried to help me to make my life a bit easier already.
So I might just be really ready to give you a shout to ask you to come and look at my lawn.
It’s a long game
But it also is one that has the best chance of creating a long term, loyal client. One that becomes a real advocate for your business. You might not have made a sale on day 1, but you might make one on day 90. And again on day 137. Or they might have sent you 3 other customers.
Because you helped them.
Because you inspired them.
Because you showed that you get them.
If you want to read more on this kind of theme, then I highly recommend Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuck. I love his books, just straight down the line advice, written in a really accessible way. In fact I’d go as far as to say order everything he’s written, you’ll take something you can really use in your business from each one.
So, what’s useful about your knowledge, not just about your business? Start thinking about how to turn that into 5 star content.
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