Here’s a good post from my new media guru Seth Godin. He’s basically saying don’t try to sell the customer “on the first date”, build some trust first. This speaks to the need for Company sales approaches, including websites, to be more about giving than getting. The getting (sales) will come after we start a conversation, establish a relationship and build some measure of trust.
This sounds like the kind of mushy stuff you would hear at a religious retreat. Yet people want to be treated as more than a commodity that coughs up dollars. So Company websites and its entire sales philosophy need to embrace this both in form and substance. Or people will see right through us straight to another company doing it right.
Do you really expect that the first time we transact, it will involve me giving you money in exchange for a product or service?
Perhaps this is a good strategy for a pretzel vendor on the street, but is that the best you can hope for?
Digital transactions are essentially free for you to provide. I can give you permission to teach me something. I can watch a video. I can engage in a conversation. We can connect, transfer knowledge, engage in a way that builds trust… all of these things make it more likely that I’ll trust you enough to send you some money one day. I can contribute to a project you’re building, ask you a difficult question, discover what others have already learned.
But send you money on the first date? No way.
The question then, is how much time and effort does your non-profit/consulting firm/widget factory spend on pre-purchase transactions and how much do you spend on trying to simply close the sale?
– Seth Godin, The First Transaction
