At the recent Elevate conference in Copenhagen Gary Vee talked about that we are all trading attention.
He goes onto say, “before you tell somebody how great your SaaS product is, your trampoline business, your poster company, we are all trading attention ..”
His point is that attention is the currency of business, it always comes first.
You are also competing with any other business that is going to take the attention of your target audience.
He talks about beer companies that are competing with “share of throat” so they see the competition as Coke or water. A trampoline company has competition with any other activity you can do on a Saturday afternoon.
So how do you get somebody’s attention?
It’s very simple, you give someday something you want.
On a recent interview I did on my Youtube channel, we talked about how you can sell a baby massage service .
Rather than getting in somebody’s face and going sell, sell, sell, why not offer something all new parents want? A good night’s sleep!
There must be a parent searching on Google in the wee small hours in the morning, “how can I get a good night’s sleep” and they come across your article on the top three ways to get your baby asleep.
By reading the article they begin to trust you. Then they will probably phone you up and ask more about your baby massage services. Through content you have made a sale.
Gary Vee calls it 51:49 – Every relationship he has, every business dealing, he gives more than he asks for in return.
Don’t forget you are competing with not only your competitors but other people in the space. If as a salesperson you have ever been told that your product isn’t a priority right now it’s because other sales people have done a better job at creating desire for their products.
In 2018 nobody likes being sold to and I’m sorry to say that nobody is bothered about your product. Yes, I know that you think it’s the best product in the world. But there is the next problem. Every marketer in the world agrees with me and then sits at their desk and says “yes but, my product is the best product in the world and if only”. So, we end up, getting every marketer telling us the same thing and it just becomes noise.
Related: Social Media Has Been Sent to Us to Save Marketing
If you want my attention, and your prospect’s attention then you have to give them something they want. This is the importance of content marketing. Not just any content but content I will read.
You can’t buy trust but you can earn it
Educate me, tell me something that will make me look good when I’m in the next meeting, and I will remember you! If you present this in a way that shows you have a trusted network, then I might even start trusting you. Without even meeting you.
All of us have purchased a book off Amazon because of the number of 5-star reviews. We haven’t met any of these people. But it must be good. As I write, my book “Social Selling – Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers” has 34 – 5-star reviews. None of these people you have probably ever met, but you are more likely to buy my book.
So back to your product. You have my attention. This can go one of two ways: