For Those Who Hate Selling Sh*t

Social Selling Simplified - Ashley Shaw

Recently I was talking with a great friend who works in the health & wellness space about social media, and how it’s a different playing field than it was 8-10 years ago. It’s SO much more saturated than it’s EVER been. Back in the day, we could post something and be confident that it would stand out and get plenty of engagement. Now, not so much. The goal of ANY social media platform is bring in ad dollars. What this means is even if you put out REALLY good content, sometimes it’s just not enough for people to see it. The easiest way to get it out there is to “pay to play.” Putting ad spend behind a reel or post is the surefire way to get people to see it without trying to figure out hashtags or how to go viral. (To me, that’s not a good use of time when I know I can pay just $5/day to boost a post!)With this in mind, we got talking about the OTHER things we can do besides constantly selling in our posts. It’s so easy to get trapped into thinking we have to sell in our posts, but once you understand the Customer Value Journey, you’ll see there are variables you can play with to eventually get more people to buy from you.

The three beginning steps of the CVJ are Awareness, Engagement, and Subscribe.

1st Stage

Awareness

Awareness is just getting in front of new eyeballs, and this is where ads can be helpful. Many new online businesses owners are successful because no one has seen their offering yet, but eventually it falls on deaf ears because they’ve gone through their warm audience.

2nd Stage

Engagement

The next stage is Engagement, which can be as simple as liking a post or dropping a comment.

3rd Stage

Subscribe

Next you want them to move to Subscribe, which can be an email list.

If you don’t have Awareness locked in, you’ll ALWAYS feel like you’re selling because you’re saturating your warm pool of people. Think of it like an aquarium with a certain number of fish, where you’re repeating the same thing in different ways. When you open up the pool to a pond with more fish, you won’t be repeating the same message to the same people over and over again.

Here are some of the ways you can increase awareness around what you have to offer at the top of your funnel:

One idea is starting a podcast.

There are no rules for episode frequency, but I do think consistency is important! You want your audience to rely on content you’re putting out. After I record the audio component, my team edits the audio a bit and it gets posted so there are some basic tech steps involved, but it’s easy to hire VA’s out there that can do that for you! (Or when you’re first starting out, you might not need to take those editing steps.)The cool thing about this is I’m literally recording this with my phone, using the voice recording app! I’ve used many different things and I honestly find my team prefers when I record on my phone! The quality is great. You can take SEO (Search Engine Optimization) into account when titling your podcast, to make it easier for people to find you. You can also put episodes and shownotes on your website, which will also help with SEO- but you don’t have to.If you’re a beginner, I’d tell you to just get out your phone and start recording some episodes. It’s easy to upload it to Apple podcasts or Spotify, and there ya go! You have a podcast. It’s an intimate space, and a great way for people to learn more about your thoughts. It allows them to see behind the scenes, just like Instagram stories. It’s also a great way to build more relationships with just one recording, because it can get listened to over and over again. You don’t have to feel like you’re selling shit all the time. Instead of constantly asking people to buy your stuff, you can lead them back to a podcast episode they might find helpful. Yes you can pitch something within your episode, but you do need to find something ELSE other than solely posting on social media.

The other thing to have is a Lead Magnet

Lead Magnet is a solid way to build trust and rapport with people. A lead magnet can be many things! It doesn’t have to be a PDF of recipes or something. It can be an audio training, a video training, a Facebook accountability group, etc. Now if you only have a lead magnet, you still need a way to get it front of people. Usually the answer would be an ad that’s built in to your “funnel” in the beginning stages. You can point people to the lead magnet on social media, but eventually you’ll want to get it in front of more eyeballs, and that’s where a great ad can really serve you.

The more traditional way you’ve probably heard before is to have a blog.

It can be really good, especially if you have a website… I just think a podcast is an auditory blog, and personally I prefer to listen to them while I do other things. The blog world is a bit different. If people have a burning problem, they’ll usually try to solve it using Google. You’ll want to take your post names into consideration when it comes to SEO on Google, so your material comes up in their searches and is relevant to what they’d be looking for. (I think blogs are more of a long-term play, but it’s an asset to add to your email list so you have something to direct people to for more information and relationship-building.)

You can also have a YouTube channel!

It’s the second largest search engine after Google, and it has a similar learning curve. (Titles matter for searches, etc.) If you have an email list, you can send links to the videos you’re creating. Ask yourself: Are you answering the questions your people are actually asking?

Some people utilize Pinterest, too.

(I think this is also more of a long term play.)Personally, I always consider where the least amount of effort is with the most results, and that’s always been in ads.

If you’re someone who hates feeling like you’re pitching something, you’ve got to turn the compass a bit. Instead, focus on how you can solve more problems, and give more value to your audience. The more value you can give them, the more they’ll look to you for solutions

Those questions will get answered authentically when you show up with the intention to provide solutions and value to your audience.

If you hate selling shit, start thinking about what you can do to give back to your audience and make it clear you’re here to help and to serve them. I hope you’re feeling super inspired to go out there and serve the people that love you!

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

• If you hate selling shit, start thinking about what you can do to make it clear you’re here to help and serve your audience.
• Using social media posts to sell isn’t where it’s at. There are other things you can and should be doing, too.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

My book, F*ck What Your Upline Said.

WHERE WE CAN CONNECT:

• www.ashleyshaw.ca
• Ashley Shaw – The Fitness Leader Institute
• @theashleyshaw
• Join the Facebook Group: Business Bootcamp for Fitness Coaches

Don’t forget….. If you loved this episode, screenshot it and share it to your IG stories and tag me @theashleyshaw. I would love to connect with you!