Where Belonging & Social Selling Collide

I still think a lot of people think of the old-school "used car salesman" when they think of sales. Sneaky. Dishonest. Do whatever it takes to make a sale.

But in the digital day and age, it's a lot harder to peer pressure someone into a sale. They have infinite research resources at their finger tips. They can easily block messages, emails, even calls and texts. All the mechanisms people used to use to CONVINCE you to buy are mostly gone. So, where does that leave sales?

It leaves the entire industry in a place of digital transformation, that's where.

And as I've talked about in articles before, one of the biggest challenges of a social organization is to sift through all the "let's-convince-people-to-buy" tactics that moved from the in-person space into the digital space. Because they just don't work.

There are too many voices in the digital space. Each one is easy to ignore...

UNLESS...

Unless you give people a REASON to listen to you.

That's where creating belonging comes in.

A Reason to Listen

When people feel like they belong, it gives them a reason to listen to you. Not just because you see them and hear them. But because they become as invested in you as you are in them.

That's the difference between belonging and fitting in.

Fitting in means you actively adjust who you are to match the people around you. It's an ACTION that we take.

Belonging on the other hand, is a FEELING that we have. It happens when the actions we take are authentic to our personal brands, and are received by others in celebration. AND, it's a relationship that creates space for both parties to give to and receive from each other.

Whoa there Tracy, that doesn't happen in sales!

But what if it could?

In fact, what if that was the strategy? To create belonging IN your sales funnel?

Belonging as a Sales Strategy

One of the most interesting things the human brain does is take new information and try to fit it into a bucket of things it already knows. That won't work here.

Unfortunately, most people have never experienced what it might look like to create belonging intentionally, let alone doing that as part of a process like sales. So, we're entering the zone of exploration.

It's uncomfortable for many. But it's also where the most amount of personal GROWTH can be found.

Did you know? Personal growth is one of the greatest contributors to professional growth :)

So, what if?

What if you looked at your sales strategy today and asked yourself: where in this process could I create more belonging? And HOW could we do that?

You might just find some space to find a new competitive advantage in your industry 💡

If your sales process is ready for a digital transformation towards belonging, let's chat!