George Kao argues that salespeople and marketers should build audiences that already respect them, making selling effortless. Create authentic content consistently, show your values and quirks, then learn distribution through ads and collaborations. Respect beats persuasion.
I received a career advice years ago at the beginning of my career that really changed things for me and it's really informed the foundation of my marketing knowledge ever since. And the advice was this. Go where you're respected. And this is such simple and profound advice that could be applied to relationships as well, but certainly careers and certainly marketing and sales. So let me explain. Imagine you are in front of somebody that really respects you and trusts you, and they're leaning in because they're eager for whatever you're going to tell them. Now imagine how much easier it is to sell something to them or to share a message. And. And they probably are nodding, so. Oh, yes. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Oh, the product looks really interesting. Oh, the, the service that sounds really necessary, you know, and this is the kind of experience that I want you to have more often in your marketing and your sales versus the typical marketing and sales training expects that you are in front of an audience who is more like this, this. They're. They're folding their arms and they're already doubting you and they already have no attention span for you. They just only going to watch you for three seconds before they move on. And so you have to get their attention and you have to be charming and then you have to be persuasive. When you're selling, you're not going where you're respected. You're going where you are doubted, where you have to prove yourself, where you have to, you know, be the most charming one in the room before they are willing to buy from you. See, this is what sets me apart from all most. Much of the marketing stuff you're going to see out there is I go where I'm respected. Meaning, well, those of you who are still watching, still watching. At this point, I am imagining that I have your respect to some degree. But so you might say, well, George, that's all fine and good, but what if nobody knows who I am or not enough people respect me yet? This is where we need to create the conditions where you can go where you're respected every day in your content and your marketing. And how do we create those conditions? We create authentic content consistently and we learn to distribute that content. Let me explain. So creating authentic content means that you show up on a consistent basis, whether it's on video, which I think is the best, best for nurturing an audience, or you show up in writing, which is actually the best for reaching cool audiences. That's, that's a separate conversation. But you show up consistently, whatever format you don't mind showing up. And you are always exploring your values and your views and the things that you believe is helpful for those who are watching or reading. You're always exploring and that's what makes it authentic. It's not like you have, you always have all the answers and you're performing and trying to be perfect. No, you mean, of course you share the answers that you do know. But you also show up saying, hey, and I am learning too, you know, and I don't mind making mistakes in front of you, and I'm going to share with you what I believe to be true right now. And I'm going to keep updating you on what I learned. You see, that's authentic. And authentic is also showing up with who you are, even if you think that's weird. No such thing as weird online, really. You know, there are, there are audiences for every weirdness online. So be whoever your weird self is that's authentic. So if you show up with authentic content consistently, number one and number two, you learn how to distribute that content. Meaning you learn how to run Instagram ads like I do all the time. Or Facebook ads, I do that as well. Or LinkedIn ads or whatever other ads you don't mind running to distribute that content to more people, then of course you're going to build a bigger audience over time. Otherwise, the other way to distribute content is through collaborations. So maybe you do an Instagram Live with some other Instagrammer who has a similar sized audience as you. You have 300 followers and they have about 300 followers. Will do Instagram Live with each other so that you can each, you know, do two lives. One where they interview you and then one where you interview them. And you, you, you post these interviews and they post them too, so that you grow your audience bit by bit by doing these kinds of collaborations. So essentially, if you show up authentically, consistently, and then learn to distribute that content, you end up creating the conditions where you have this audience that respects you. So that whenever you create content, you get more engagement. Whenever you sell your program and your services, it's much easier because they already like you, they already respect you, and they're much more likely to buy as a result. I hope this is helpful. Just remember that marketing and selling and building your business doesn't have to be so hard. And you're trying to convince people to do something that they don't trust you about yet. No, you create the conditions where there's already respect. And so that when you sell you just all you have to do is whisper. You don't have to persuade. You don't have to be charm people. You don't have to attract. You don't have to, you know, scare them into buying or whatever. You just whisper your authentic caring and honesty about what the service is and who it's for, and they'll buy. So I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for joining me and thank you for your time for watching this.
