How to Close Deals Faster with Social Media

Hello and welcome to the show today. The question that we're going to tackle is, well, we're going to look at the benefits of social selling and how we can use that to accelerate the sales cycle and speed up the sales cycle. Now, the reason why I'm tackling this today is because in working with individuals and with companies, small businesses, I run into people who, you know, for them, they think hasn't clicked in their head yet.

You know, they think you're either doing this online thing or you're in real life, you know, or you're doing this real life thing and online thing is crap. But the reality is our sales people, you know, are supposed to be like assassins, are supposed to be like ninjas, you know, use whatever it is that's at our disposal to get the job done. So I would strongly recommend that you should be running both online, offline, you know,

whatever it is that you need to close the deal to find customers to move the relationship forward. So stop thinking either or, you know, like, oh, I'm a real life person. I don't do online or me, I'm an only an online person. I don't like talking to human beings face to face. I don't like going to offices, you know, just like run everything together sharp. Of course. Yeah, we can be better at one thing than another or have a preference for one thing over another.

Like clearly I have the skill set for content and I also like talking to people, you know, when people's offices, taking meetings, phone calls, those sorts of things. So yes, we can have, well, I'd say things that come easier to us. Bashar, we should be running everything. So yeah, definitions, benefits of social selling and how do we speed up? How do we use that to speed up the sales cycle? So let's start off with this whole social selling thing.

Now it's something that people have stopped talking about because maybe two years ago, a year ago, maybe two years ago, because the date of this recording is in where are we? We are in September of 2024 as at the date of this recording. So if you skip back like 2 years, everybody was talking social selling, social selling, social selling, you know, just one of those things. Some topics become trendy and then after a while they stop being trendy.

And that's the reason why I tell business people, especially sales people, just ignore whatever the main trends are. There's fundamental attitudes and fundamental principles to business. Just make sure you learn them. Some things will come around and be trending and then they'll go away. So the fact that people are no more talking about social selling does not mean that social selling is not a value thing to do and it's not a useful thing to do to grow your business.

It is and it has always been. I mean since gosh, when I say Internet open up in Niger and you catch my drift. I mean for people who are my age anyway, you're in business now. It's something that is valid to do and it has been for a very long time, even though people are no longer talking about it. So that's why I say ignore the trends, just learn the fundamentals. You'll be fine regardless of whatever the trends are and you find that you can always take trendy topics and relate it to the business fundamentals that you've learnt anyway.

So what is social selling? Social selling is just using social media to build relationships or to engage with people, engage with potential customers, more or less. So that's what social selling is. And when we say social media, really what we're talking about is social networks. So we're talking Facebook, we're talking LinkedIn, we're talking Instagram or talking TikTok, although TikTok is a really wild animal for me.

So yeah, I have a bunch of videos there, maybe 100 and something, but I never really went back, never conquered it. So yes, TikTok and let's see what else. If I've left anything out, you, you know, Sha, some people like to say WhatsApp is social media. I'm not quite convinced, but you know, since we have access to people one-on-one and then there's channels popping off on social media and then there are people who watch other people's,

what's it called, WhatsApp status and things like that. I can see how you can argue that it's social media, but for the purposes of this podcast, I'm not going to put it there. Well, by the way, I'm looking at this in the uniquely Nigerian context. So yes, I am aware that in India, there's some social networks that those of us that you know, that are popping up for you guys. But in Niger, we haven't heard PIM, we don't know anything about it.

And the same thing with those of you guys in China, a few people listening in China, very, very few, 0 point something percent. Yeah, you guys have social networks that we haven't heard anything about in this part of the world. So if you're going to use social networks, your Facebooking, your Instagramming, and you're using that to build relationships, you're using that to engage with people. And you're engaging not just with anyone.

What people you think can be potential customers, then what you are engaged in is social selling. Now, how do you do that? Well, you do that first of all by connecting with folks. You remember the story. Now for those of you been listening for a while, remember the story about I told you guys about the wedding planner who scolded me seriously when she noticed that I had taken my Instagram. That was back when I was a wedding photographer and I

started deleting people left, right and centre. Now, the reason why I was deleting people is because I was tired of seeing people's crap in my timeline. I want my Instagram to be sane. But as she scolded me, rightfully so. Now look, it's business, you know, you meet customers, you meet clients, meet potential customers. You follow as many people as possible because a bunch of them will follow you back. When a bunch of them follow you back and you keep posting your stuff, your photographs from the weddings and the events that you do, a bunch of them get the chance to see it.

And when a bunch of them sees, you remain top of mind with a couple of people. And that's how you use social media to grow your business. So that was the scolding that she gave me back then. So part of social selling is connecting with folks on these things. So you should be connecting with people who could be potential customers on your Instagram. So Mr. Wedding Photographer or Madam Wedding Photographer like me currently, you don't like people messing up your timeline.

Still follow those brides and grooms. This is what you do if you don't like people messing up your timelines because they're always, you know, tweeting or posting or whatever about the economy and you know, you don't want to hear about the economy, you don't want to hear about fuel queues. What you do is still leave the person in your network as per you follow the person and you know, you guys are mutual contacts. What you just do is when you see that post come up about fuel scarcity or about Ghanaian Jolof and Nigerian Jolof, which one is better or Ghanaian bom bom and Nigerian Bom bom, which one is bigger?

Just, you know, click the three buttons and then you select not interested or show less of this or something. I can't remember what it's called on Instagram. So you do that and then eventually your timeline is going to be cleaner. But then you don't actually have to delete the brides and grooms that you've been following in the past. You know, they should still be there. Let them get a chance to see some of your stuff.

So you should be connecting with people on Instagram, on Twitter. Sorry, it's X nowadays, at least at the time of this recording anyway. So be connecting with everyone who can be a potential customer. The next thing is you should be sharing value on your social media or you should be sharing some people say entertaining content, but you know where my opinions are on this whole entertainment thing. So let me just leave out the entertainment.

Well, I think entertainment is a waste of time. Well, let me leave that out. But yes, it is a valid strategy. There are people who do that. But let's face it, you and I, chances are we are not brain jotter. So trying to put up entertaining content, you know, we're not bring just our not Mr. Macaron, we're not Brother Shaggy, we're not those kind of people. So trying to put up entertaining content, I mean, like, how is it going to help your business?

Like, I have no idea. Like I saw this guy on Facebook, he did this challenge and he put the thing that yeah, it was funny. The whole point of the video was he I think he wanted to meet his ex-girlfriend, but maybe she broke his heart and so she dodged him and then they started doing the dance and then he was chasing her around and everything and it was funny and I laughed and I now thought, OK, how are you going to use this to build your business now?

You didn't want to challenge the thing trended. You got, you know, 10,000 views. OK, so how you grow your business? Anyway, that's a podcast, episode 4, another day. So you'll be putting out content, valuable stuff, insightful stuff. We're trying to build thought leadership. We're trying to use content marketing, trying to put it all out there. Then the reason why we should be doing that actually is this is stuff that your people, the potential customers that you followed should be able to consume around the problems that you solve and then, you know,

things like that. So back to the wedding photography example, you'll be connected with a bunch of brides and grooms. Let's say you attend. OK, Yeah, in Lagos are still doing wedding fairs. You know, Abuja has dried up, so no more wedding fairs over here. So in Lagos are still doing wedding fairs. So there's Web Expo Lagos. So let's say 2024 edition Web Expo Lagos, you go there and you get a booth, maybe like 200 people come by a booth.

Yeah, 200 brides and grooms come by a booth out of that 200, maybe 180 on Instagram you follow 180 and maybe out of that 180, I don't know, let me see, let's say maybe 120 follow you back. OK, So potentially now those people should be able to see stuff that you put up on your put up on the gram. So if you're putting up valuable stuff, I remember value is always in the eye of the beholder, or I'll be the eye of the beholder, I'll be the ear of the beholder or whatever.

So you're putting up valuable stuff. Then potentially these brides and grooms are going to be on your timelines and then they'll be seeing stuff, the wonderful photographs that you put out, or maybe tips and tricks about how to select a wedding photographer or tips and tricks about how to handle lighting at your events. Let's see what else you know, all those kinds of things. Forgive me, I've been out of the space for a while.

So if you're putting up this sort of content that they find valuable, then they're going to engage in this sort of thing. And then if you monitor your social media handles, then these are where opportunities for conversations start, start coming up. You notice that over the last two weeks, you put out 20 posts out of the 20, maybe two or three particular brides seem to like half of them these opportunities to slide into the DM.

So you see, this is how all these things work. And then, you know, for monitoring, you also get a sense of what the what your audience, what the market needs, you know, based on what people are liking, you know, things like that. It gives you a sense of, OK, this style of photography is popping off or this style of editing is popping off, or these are the kind of portraits that babes like nowadays. So that when you're covering their weddings, you know, that's how you do it and all those sorts of things.

So this is how social selling works, pretty much. So take these social networks, get on there and connect with, connect with folks, share valuable content, people, engage, monitor, see what's going on with the engagement. We'll give you a sense of where the market is heading. Now, the goal of doing all these activities is not just to feel good. It's not to feel all right, to feel like, oh, I have 10,000 followers on Instagram, so 10,000.

By the way, I don't, I just have maybe 1000 something, but that's not the point. So the point is not to feel all right. The point is not to feel good. The point is lead generation. Now, if you've been following the podcast for any length of time, you know my definition of a lead. My definition of a lead is anybody that has done something to show that they might be interested in your product or your service. So you've been putting up this thing.

Like I said, you put up to any posts. You notice that 3 brides in particular who happen to come for Lagos, Lagos Wedding Expo, I've been liking them. So does that make them a lead? I don't think so. But this has an opportunity there to slide into the DM or at the very least, if you now put out one of those things, one of those kind of posts like are you getting married in between November and December of 2024? Retreat this or do this or take advantage of this.

You know how to get 10% off, You know something, 10% of wedding photography or 10% of your video. You know all those challenges that I don't know if they do them now, but back when I was still in the game in wedding photography, people used to do things like that. Like, OK, share this post on your timeline. Tag 20 of your friends. Tag at least twenty of your friends. If you do this, you'll be entitled to a lucky draw to see who is going to get 10% off my wedding photography if you're getting married between the month of October and December of 2024.

So people used to do stuff like that. The whole point was to get your videos or your photos or whatever to be seen by a bunch of a bunch of more people. But I'm not sure if people do that thing nowadays because I hardly spend time on Instagram anyway. So anyway, any movie on that? So what did I say? OK, so the goal is lead generation. So in doing that, I had like this example that I gave, you know, you're getting somebody to share 20 times and enter themselves into a draw.

So you see that these are things that people are doing that might indicate that they could be interested in your product or your service. So that's the goal when we're thinking about these sorts of things. Then, of course, brand awareness, you know, no one is always there because you want people to see you. You want people to know you. And where were we? OK, yes, The main topic that we've been talking about self accelerating the sales cycle.

Yeah. So the whole thing, this is how it shortens the sales cycle because if you're able to achieve brand awareness, then it means that a whole bunch of people already trust you before you guys start yawning deeply. So remember the example that I gave you go to wedding web Expo, you catch up, two 100 people come by, you follow 180 out of the 180 and what did I say? Maybe 120 follow you back out of the 120. You notice that three of the brides seem to be liking and doing a lot of what it is that you, you know, you put up.

So in theory, and you'll find that it also happens in practice. Those 3 brides in particular, you guys might have achieved a certain level of trust because they've been seeing, they've been liking, they've been whatever. They can tell that you're legit. They see the photos, they see your behind the scenes, they see your reels, they see your everything. So if an element of trust has now been built up, when you start yawning with those three babes in particular, you now have to trust is almost like a done deal.

You now have to move to the other 3 stages in the framework when it comes to closing the deal. Now for those of you who are listening for the first time, what I'm referring to is the framework by Tom Hopkins. Tom Hopkins, American sales trainer, although he started off in the was it automobile? No, not automobile real estate in the real estate space. Now some of you say real estate. What does real estate have to do with wedding photography?

What does real estate have to do with whatever my business is, and I'm going to repeat it here, that sales, selling, business development, the principles are universal, so they apply to all businesses. All that changes is the order that we apply them and the context in which we apply them. So yes, you can listen to a podcast that is made by someone who teaches other people how to sell more and more. Even if you're an insurance salesperson, you can hear some principles about how to sell more and more that you can apply to selling insurance.

And then of course, the other way round, you can listen to a podcast that is about how to sell insurance and you will hear some principles there about selling insurance that you can use to improve your my mind business or your catfish business or whatever business it is that you that you run. So my own opinion, don't just say some, oh, this thing is real estate. I won't listen. It's all sales. Listen 1st and see what can I

apply. If you're listening 23456 episodes, I'm like this guy, The torrent, she is too much, the grammar is too much. I don't know how I'll be able to apply it. Oh yeah. Then by no means by by all means, yeah. Then drop the podcast and then move on. But listen first with a listening ear to see what you can apply. Then do some creativity and see how you can apply it. And then you'll be all right. You'll be fine. So the stages here, Tom Hopkins,

he likes to say that sales, that sales just has 2 main stages. Basically. There's sales resistance and then there's sales acceptance. So sales resistance is in the beginning where people are skeptical, they don't want to trust, they don't want to talk to you, they don't want you to bother them. You know that sort of thing. So that is sales resistant. Everybody have their guard up, you know the lock up, they don't want to say anything.

You know those of us in the wedding space, you remember now you know how how I used to be back, back in those days. They don't want to say anything at all. They just want to come in and get the price and then leave. They don't want to say anything. They don't want to drop phone number, they don't want to drop e-mail address. Even their name gone, they don't want to tell you that is sales resistance. So Tom Hopkins says once you handle the dynamics well and you overcome sales resistance, you move to the next stage using sales acceptance.

That's when people are calm. When people are calm and they trust you, you guys cannot have a conversation. That's when they relax. People are now on their first name basis and you know you're talking, you're flowing. You know they let you know when the wedding date is. You can have one tease out maybe what their sense of budget is, you know, when things calm down and conversation is flowing smoothly. So that's how Tom Hopkins like to look look at things.

And in the beginning, when you're face to face with someone, be ready to overcome sales resistance. It's only when you can overcome sales resistance and move to the next stage of sales acceptance that you now have a chance of closing this deal. So for Tom Hopkins, there are four elements. There's trust, there's need, there's help, there's hurry. Let me repeat again, trust need help, hurry. By the way, this is one that you don't need to write down because Tom Hopkins material is available on YouTube.

I'm not saying you should go and pirate the guy, but you know, some people have put up his audio book and stuff like that on YouTube. So I'm not saying be a pirate. I am. OK, well, let me keep quiet before I implicate myself. So Tom Hopkins available on YouTube, so trust need help and hurry. So if you're able to get people to trust you and you're able to get a sense of what they need, you should be able to overcome the sales resistance part of the equation.

And then sales acceptance, that's where you worry about help and hurry. So I'm not going to go into any more details about this, but you can check my own channel on YouTube. Just type in Tavishima and then type Tom Hopkins episodes where I've spoken about Tom Hopkins and this framework, it'll come up. Or you can type in Tavishima trust. Everything I've said about trust will come up. So excuse me or Tara Shima need or help or hurry and all the stuff will come up where most likely I've spoken about those topics either in isolation or in reference to Tom Hopkins framework.

So what I'm just trying to say is all this activity, all this paros that we're doing on social media now, you know, the posting, the connecting, the valuable, whatever, the monitoring, the conversations, all that, all that takes care of trust. So you do a good job there. Eventually when the Bay picks up the phone and say, are you available for November 1st, the conversation should flow smoothly because she kind of trust you a bit.

So that's the whole idea about how social selling can shorten the sales cycle. Now let's define the sales cycle for those of you who are listening for the first time, because I'm sure those of you who've been listening to the last two or three episodes, you're tired of hearing the definition of sales cycle. But don't worry, they're new comments here, so let's define it for them. Now. A sales cycle is just steps that you, you who are listening now,

the business owner steps that you guide the customer through that takes them from initial contact, that time when they say good morning, hello, how are you? Are you available? All that early conversation all the way to when the sale closes. Can I have your account number? Is it OP, is it POS, you know, blah, blah, blah. That conversation, excuse me? So the space in between initial contacts and when they give you money, that is what we call the sales cycle.

So it runs through a couple of stages. So you're the business owner, you're the self-employed person you should be. This is the stages. There's a prospecting stage where you're looking for people who might be interested in your product or service and then you approach them, you start having conversations with them. That's where the hello, the talking stage, that's where it all starts. Then all through needs analysis because you need to figure out what it is that they need.

This is one thing that a bunch of you are not doing. You just meet somebody and then you just start telling them we have 3 packages, gold, silver and whatever. Like why are you Golding and silver and you don't know what it is that they need first of all. So going to needs analysis first. You might discover that, yeah, you have gold, silver and platinum package, but neither of your packages matches exactly what it is that they need and that you have to come up with a custom package or maybe you refer them to someone else who can sort them out.

So you need to do need analysis. What do they want? Who is this person? How bad is the problem? What kind of vision is it? Can I solve that if I? Let's stick with the wedding photography example. This is where wedding photographers, a lot of us run into problems. You're not doing need analysis, you're not doing discovery. So you don't know what the problem is. You don't know what vision it is that they're trying to solve.

Somebody might have an understated sense of elegance, but every single time you're showing her wedding albums, you're showing her the grand thing, the excessively photoshopped thing, the wonderfully posed photos and blah, blah, blah. I don't know that you are killing yourself. You're showing her the wrong thing. If you have a conversation with her, you engage with her. You might not figure out that, oh, Keichi is this person that has quiet, refined elegance and a subtle sophistication about her.

I think you should be showing her the simplest of the things that more blends with her own personality. So for wedding photographers, video people, fashion designers, you know, those of us who have a much more artistic bent, you can see now this is where everything starts to fall apart. You didn't do needs analysis. You don't know who you're talking to. You don't know what vision it is that they're trying to solve. And so you're showing them the wrong thing.

So you might have somebody like me who has the fashion sense of a Ghanaian school teacher. That's what my wife says. For those of you who are Ghanaian school teachers, no offense how big, I don't even know how Ghanaian school teachers dress, but that's just what my wife says. So if you're talking with someone as a fashion designer, the person has the fashion sense of a Ghanaian school teacher and they are showing him the kinds of thing that Ramsey Noah will wear.

Of course the person will be saying like hi, this thing is too loud, this thing is too flashy. This thing is too this, this thing is too that. But then on the other hand, if you're talking to somebody who is kind of like Ramsey Noah and then you're showing him stuff that, you know, a Ghanaian school teacher will wear or the kind of suits that I will Logan by will wear, you know, the person will be offended. The person might be thinking,

you know, so is this how you rate me? Is this how you see me? So wedding photographers, fashion people, are we artistic, artistic type people? We need to be paying attention to these sorts of things. Now, people who come from technical businesses, technical backgrounds, they know this sort of thing like people who sell, let's say people who sell tractors, they won't just say, oh, we have three different kinds of tractors.

We have golden tractors, premium tractors, lower range tractors. They don't start the conversation like that. They'll start by asking, what are you farming? Are you farming and, or rice or, or sheer butter, you know, because do you need sheer butter for tractors? I mean, do you need tractors for share? But well, you catch my drift. You know what it is that the kind of thing the person is planting will determine the kind of tractor that the person will buy.

Is it the one that digs 10 inches into the ground and you know, 20 inches apart? Or, you know, so people from a technical background, they know that you have to do need analysis or as you tell somebody the wrong thing. So hope you guys can see how now why sales principles are universal. It's just the order in which we do it that is different. But everybody has to run people through a sales cycle. Everybody has to do prospecting,

that toasting stage, the approaching people. We all have to do needs analysis. We all have to do a presentation, the proposal, you know, deal with whatever questions they have, you know, objections. And then we try and close. So we all have to do the whole thing. But you can see how for a wedding photographer the emphasis will be different. For somebody who sells tractors, the emphasis will be different, but we all have to do it.

So what was, I forgive me, I got lost, OK, I was defining sales cycle. So yes, the sales cycle from early talking stage until they give you money and then these are the stages that people run through. So as a business owner, you should be cautiously trying to run people through this. If you do well on social media, you would have cut out most of the trust path. And then if the trust is there, you can see how needs analysis is going to flow very, very well.

So like I said, back to the wedding photography example, in the beginning, when they don't trust you, the bride won't say anything. She won't tell you where she's getting married because if you're in Abuja, she says Lagos, she might be thinking that OK, if I tell the people I'm getting married in Lagos, in their mind, they'll now start calculating airfare to add everything on top to build me. Seriously. So all those sorts of things, if I give them my real name and they go and check, they'll now see if they check on social media or if they check on LinkedIn, they'll now see that my father is local government chairman.

And then they automatically add 500 K to my wedding bill. You know, those sorts of things. So in the beginning, everybody's cagey. They just say just call me NECA. They'll just leave it like that. They won't tell you anything else. But after you have a certain level of trust, yeah, then she can be upfront, she can be open, and then she can start talking freely. So how is social selling going to make things move faster?

Basically, if you do all this online stuff very well, do your prospecting and approaching people online, putting content online, thought leadership online, doing small, small conversations online. Then when it gets to the offline stage, you know, that's the stage that I like the most, where you're now on the phone, you guys are now talking one-on-one or they have come to your office or your studio or you have gone to their house or their office or whatever and you are now talking.

The need analysis is going to flow very well. You need analysis flows well. You should be able to deliver your proposal that matches what it is that they're looking for. So if your proposal matches, you know, then the chances of closing the deal go up. Please, this is not a guarantee. I know sometimes it sounds as if if you follow all these all these things, then it's a guarantee. No, it's not a guarantee. You're not in charge of every single thing.

The best you can do is to follow your process and then let the things fall where they lie. So for those of you who've been listening for a while, remember when we're talking about what's it called closing rates to know other people are doing good closing rates. I'm sure you noticed that there was no industry where I said closing rate is 100%. It doesn't happen, it doesn't work, it's not going to happen. There's no way that if you're talking to 20 people, you collect money from all 20.

And like I told you, if you're talking to 20 people and you collect money from all 20, it's a sign that you are too cheap. What you do is the bomb. What you do is the best. Because of that, people say, eh, at this price, such a good deal. Let me take it while it lasts. So if it's if you're talking to 20 and you close 20, you're being too cheap. So there's no close rate will never be 100%. So according to the different industries that we looked at,

there were some industries where closing rate was 10%, where some was 20, some was 30. I don't know of anywhere they expect to close 50%. But what I'm just trying to say is have realistic expectations. Don't assume that because you follow this whole process, you're going to end up doing business with everybody who comes by your way. But the hope is if right now you talk to 10 people, you end up doing business with one.

The hope is if you follow this process after a while, a few weeks, a few months, months, you'll be able to go from doing one out of 10 to 2 out of 10. And we've time 3 out of 10, four out of 10, you know? So that's the whole idea. Yeah. So that's it. That's how it all works. Remember, we should not be thinking online, offline. It's a combination of both. And if you want to use social selling, then the scope is to do all that online stuff so that when we now switch, when we now get off of the online thing and we're now whatsapping and we're now phone calling and we're now seeing people back in the office and things like that would have made the ground smooth so that the video can flow a whole lot smoother.

So that's it pretty much. So connect with me on LinkedIn, the name to look for establishing my IED. You can get the correct spelling from the link. We're currently listening to this episode. You'll find my name there. If you're on the podcast, you'll find not just my name, but you'll also get my e-mail address. For those of you who prefer to do e-mail, then also connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140.

The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.