I read a lot of blogs. Too many blogs. I read so many blogs that I’ve cut out most mainstream media in favour of blogs. Because I read so many blogs, I am very ruthless about what other information sources I consume. As a result, until recently, I had a strict “no newsletter” policy. I tried to keep my inbox pristine.
I’m not alone in this kind of thinking. Many people have a hard time digesting e-mail newsletters. it’s one thing to visit someone’s blog daily, it’s another to give them permission to deliver something into your personal inbox. Besides, what’s the point? If you have a blog, why would you need a newsletter? Why can’t you just say everything on your blog?
Before blogs, there were…
Before blogs became one of the biggest forms of publishing on the web, the web was rampant with ezines. Ezines served a similar purpose to blogs in that they were a medium to convey content, but they had more in common with their offline counterparts. They were more editorialized, often organized around set publishing schedules, and were generally collaborative, as opposed to individual, endeavours.
One of the earliest books I read on freelance copywriting as a business advised leveraging the internet to find clients. A website was the main focus of the internet marketing campaign, but more important was the newsletter. The newsletter was a regularly scheduled release of information that would be given away for free to anyone who wanted to sign up for it.
When blogging became all the rage, I decided that blogging combined the best of ezines and newsletters, and could probably replace both media.
I was wrong.
The purpose of a blog
There are any number of reasons to start a blog, but for a small business owner, the primary reasons to start a blog are to create content that will attract visitors to your site, whether through search rankings, or through social channels. Blogs also help to build trust, and they demonstrate a level of expertise.
The purpose of a newsletter
At first, I thought the purpose of a newsletter was identical to that of a blog. That’s where I was wrong.
If you create a newsletter with the same goals as a blog, you can probably have a relatively successful newsletter, based on readership and subscriber base. However, that’s a waste of a newsletter, because a newsletter is first and foremost a prospecting and lead generation tool.
Because of the more personal nature of a newsletter, the reader invites you into his inbox, the relationship between the creator of a newsletter and the creator of a blog is generally much closer. These are the publisher’s biggest fans, his tribe.
Running a blog and a newsletter
The fine line that needs to be walked of course, is for those who have both blogs and newsletters. It is easy for the two to become redundant. After all, to the reader, in the end, what you’re doing is creating free content.
The best way to avoid this is to create each with the knowledge in mind of who the audience is. A blog’s audience is large and wide. Anyone should be able to stop by your blog, read and browse. The content should appeal to all, and should be written for all. Meanwhile, subscribers to your newsletter already know who you are, and they like you enough that they’ve decided to let you into their inboxes. As such, this is a place where you should be writing to a smaller, closer audience, an audience that you should be engaging in a dialogue with. This is your inner circle, and they should be treated with the respected that that commands.
Oftentimes, I point to Chris Brogan as an example of a guy who does a lot well on the web, and I learned about Chris through his blog. I became an avid reader, and devoured everything he wrote. One day, he came straight out on his blog and asked me (okay, everyone) to subscribe to his newsletter if they felt so inclined. He promised different content, and a different feel. And y’know what? Chris delivers in his newsletter. He gives subscribers to his newsletters unique content, addresses them colloquially and even gives them early heads up on his upcoming projects. Sometimes he encourages them to share the word, other times he asks that they keep the news their little secret.
If you want an example of how to run a blog and a newsletter properly, visit Chris’ blog, and then subscribe to his newsletter.
Getting the most out of your newsletter
Now that you’ve decided to create a newsletter, and have an idea of how to differentiate it from your blog, how do you actually pull a benefit from it?
First, and foremost, never forget that your number one goal is to provide valuable content. If your newsletter degenerates into pointless rants, or constant sales pitches, you’ll lose subscribers faster than you sucker in new ones (and yes, if that’s all the content you offer, you are suckering them in).
The next thing to remember about a newsletter is that it is a leads generation tool, as such, there is a certain amount of selling that you should be doing, and that’s okay, because newsletter subscribers, when they subscribe are expecting a certain amount of sales pitch. People don’t necessarily mind being sold to, as long as they know it’s coming, and it’s something they’re interested in. So, in addition to your content, sprinkle in some offers, or news about upcoming projects, or products.
Use your newsletter as a prospecting tool. These are the people most likely to purchase from you, but at the same time, be careful how you position this. Remember, these people have trusted you with their contact information, and trust is easily lost when you oversell.
The true secret to a great newsletter is managing the balance between offering great value, and earning trust, and also prospecting for leads in a way that’s acceptable and unobtrusive.
Do you have a newsletter? Do you have a blog? How do you balance the two?
In the summer of my sixteenth year, I took a job with a company that painted houses. Their schtick was that they would paint people’s houses for cheaper because they employed students to do the job. I took the job because it paid a lot better than what I was making working part-time at Burger King, and I could think of worse ways to spend a summer than outdoors. I didn’t realize at the time of sign up that at least half the job was going to door to door selling the company’s services.
That is how I accidentally landed a job as a door-to-door salesman. While my career was extremely short lived, I learned a lot from that early experience that I’ve carried over into various jobs and careers since then.
1. There’s no such thing as a natural salesperson
Up until that point in my life, I had always believed that some people could sell, and others couldn’t. I also believed that I fell in the latter camp. I was not a big talker. I didn’t like misleading people. I didn’t like annoying people. I didn’t like being rejected. These were all things that I thought a salesperson had to be able to do.
The first night we canvassed a neighborhood, we went out in a team of five, plus a team leader. I was the youngest, the smallest and the least likely to be a natural salesperson. A funny thing happened that night, though. I made more sales than anyone in my team. Not only that, at the end of the night, when our team leader called in our sales to the regional coordinator, I found out that I’d sold more than anyone in the region. How could that have happened?
2. Talk slowly
The area we canvassed that night was a primarily French-speaking suburb of Montreal. I am fluent in French. However, most would agree that I speak more slowly than a native French speaker (note: only in Quebec could the speed at which I speak be considered slow). The result was that I was more deliberate and more expressive in delivering the sales pitch.
When you speak quickly, people assume that you’re trying to pull a fast one on them. When you speak slowly and deliberately, they have the time to fully grasp what you’re saying. If you’re delivering a good pitch, then you want people to pick up every nuance of it.
3. Don’t be over-confident
The typical image of a good salesperson is one of swaggering bravado. Many of colleagues that night did that image justice. I, on the other hand, was nervous. My first attempt at pitching came out more as a plea than a pitch (I didn’t make that sale). By the second pitch, I was more comfortable, but still not confident. The result was that I met the clients on an equal footing. I didn’t talk down to them. I calmly explained the benefits of the service I was selling without bragging about how great it was.
Just as people are suspicious of fast-talkers, they are suspicious of cockiness. Moreover, people don’t like cockiness. They like genuineness. Are you more likely to buy something from someone you like or someone you dislike?
4. Be personable
It only took me a few attempts before I was ad-libbing from the sales script. The script was a great script. It had obviously been refined through experience and by some savvy marketers. However, if I’d stuck to the script, the people answering their doors would have only known the company, and not me. Instead, I greeted them with a few details about myself.
By making the conversation personal, I made it harder for people to say no. It’s a lot easier to say no to a faceless corporation than to say no to a person whom you know something about. I didn’t tell these people my life story, but they learned enough about me to know who I was.
5. Listen
I spent longer at every single door than any one of my colleagues. This was not because they were getting doors slammed in their face or because I was talking that slowly. It was because I listened to every single person who opened the door. I figured that if I was interrupting these people at home, and expected them to listen to me, the least I could do was listen to them. I distinctly remember one gentleman who had had his house painted the previous summer by the company I was working for and had had a bad experience. He railed on about lack of craftsmanship, as well the general lack of pride that youth take in their work. I listened intently as he sermoned me.
The sale wasn’t going to happen, and I could have cut my losses and ended the conversation early, but instead I listened to every word. Amidst exaggerations over the moral decrepitude of my generation, there were legitimate points and concerns that I was more well-prepared to address with later clients.
6. Earn trust
The key things that set me apart from my colleagues that night was that I earned more trust than they had. I did this through all of the methods I mentioned above. In essence, everything that I thought would make me a bad salesperson made me more trustworthy in the eyes of potential clients. Building trust is the single best sales tool available. If you have a customer’s trust, you can sell him anything. The trick is to keep the customer’s trust, because if you really do sell him just anything, that trust won’t last long.
Other applications
Whether you run your own business, are an employee, work in sales, or work in any other field, sales skills are valuable. I didn’t realize all of the above lessons that night while breaking sales records. They became obvious to me years later as I pursued different careers and drew from these various skills.
So what happened to my illustrious door-to-door sales career? Unfortunately, this story has an anti-climactic ending. The night in question was a weeknight towards the end of the school semester. To celebrate my great night, my colleagues took me to a bar for a few drinks. So, at 2 am on a Wednesday night, an inebriated sixteen-year old rang his doorbell because he had lost his keys at the bar. Thus ended the briefest door-to-door sales career in history.
What sales lessons have you learned in the course of your life experiences? Do you find sales experience equally applicable to other aspects of business? Have you ever had to leave a job because someone made the decision for you?
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