You’re Selling Yourself All the Time
Once you understand this, it’ll shape all your interactions
Once you understand this, it’ll shape all your interactions
Years ago, Daniel H. Pink published a book titled “To Sell is Human.” In it, he describes the emerging need to always be selling ourselves.
But the selling Pink discusses is not that of a used car salesman, rather, it’s about providing a beneficial service to someone that will impact their life. As he states early on:
“The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.” — Daniel H. Pink, “To Sell is Human”
The lessons taught in Pink’s book hold just as true today as they did when it was first published in 2012. I’d argue, even more so. As technology continues to improve, there is a continuous need to demonstrate our skills and abilities.
One of the more prominent ways to do this is through social media, finding an outlet that truly suits your skills and plays to the platform and their audience. Through this, one can grow a following, receive feedback from fans, and begin to tweak their product or service.
The problem is many people with talented skills don’t know how to properly market and sell themselves on these social media platforms. As someone with a dedicated following of 15K on Instagram, I’m frequently messaged by wonderful and talented individuals who’d like me to share their content and/or buy their services.
The problem?
They have no idea what they’re asking for and have not the slightest understanding of how best to sell themselves, not just in the immediate moment, but in the long-term play.
The Introduction — Know Who You’re Approaching
For the purposes of this article, I’ll be addressing the individual from the below example as “artist” because artists are the ones who I’m most in contact with.
I receive many messages from individuals attempting to pitch me their product or service. An average message exchange goes as follows.
Artist: I have a video I made that I think you’d like.
Me: Great! Send it over.
— Video is sent over, and I watch —
Me: Wow, that was awesome, great work!
Artist: Do you want to buy one?
Me: My budget is limited, but if you want to build a test one for my brand, I will share it with my audience.
Artist: These things take time to make. I don’t want to make one if I won’t get paid.
Me: How much for a video?
Artist: $1K
One of the biggest problems is that individuals attempting to sell their work to influencers don’t properly research who they’re approaching.
The majority of Instagram influencers in my area are making money from Instagram in one way: Affiliate marketing through Amazon with the sales of books. Anyone who is familiar with this understands that it brings in very little money from the sales.
Secondly, the majority of the influencers within my space are doing this because they love to share history, quotes, and advice from some of the wisest people who lived. These are not companies or New York Times bestselling authors, these are individuals who are doing it to simply help people learn and grow.
Understanding this from a conceptual stand-point is crucial to your pitch to an influencer. Asking an influencer who you’ve never met to shell out $1K without ever establishing a relationship or rapport is not just bad marketing, it shows bad business sense.
Understand What Content Sharing Means
Asking an influencer to share your content without anything in return is a one-sided deal in favor of only the artist. Most influencers have worked hard over the years to build trust and rapport with their audience. This means that if an influencer shares someone else’s content, it needs to have the same or similar, message, theme, and purpose as though they were sharing their own work.
It also means that an influencer is allowing you, the artist, into their hard-won circle of followers, something that can take years to build up. This isn’t something to take lightly.
Understanding the influencer’s brand and what you’re asking them to do is key to forming your pitch to them about sharing your content. If your pitch does not align with their brand, you’re wasting your time and theirs.
If you’re approaching someone about sharing your content or building a relationship with them, understand what you’re asking for and what is appropriate. One bad sell to an influencer and they may never respond to you again. Hint: Don’t spray and pray.
It Is Not All About the Money
Out of the hundreds of submissions I receive from individuals to share their content, not one has understood the following concept: Sharing boils down to more than immediate monetary gain.
Let’s look again at the example I used above. Had the artist approached me and looked at the opportunity I presented him with rather than looking for immediate cash, he could have used it as a great opportunity to grow his own brand.
Rather than turning down an offer to create a 30-second test video to share to 15K people, he could have seen this as an opportunity to do something he loved (create art) and publish it to a large audience (my brand).
From there, the artist would have been able to create brand recognition for themselves, showcase their talent and skills to an array of people, possibly develop leads for future business, and add to their portfolio of work.
While the work is done for free, what you receive out of it pays for itself in dividends.
And if nothing more than a few followers comes from the experiment? Well, you’ve broadened your reach, might receive feedback from the influencer’s followers, and now have work in your portfolio to present to future leads.
Free Is King Until You’ve Proven Yourself
I’m not trying to say one should always work for free, rather, one should do their research and understand:
Who they themselves are (what’s the brand I’m trying to build?),
What they’re trying to sell (why does the world need this product?),
How it could benefit the buyer (how will this product help the person I’m pitching?),
What “payment” could come from the purchase or exchange of your work.
Working for “free” is not always free, you’re compensated in other ways.
If you’re trying to grow a brand and you’re new, you need to understand what it means to work for free. The majority of people are not looking to take advantage of someone working for free. But there needs to be the understanding that there is a mutually beneficial agreement between the two parties that will help to foster a brand from nothing to something.
The notion of “I’m working for free” needs to vanish and needs to be replaced with “I’m working for opportunities.”
There’s a lot of talent out there, but if one does not know how to properly market themselves and their skills, that talent will not be discovered.
The days of “build it and they will come” is gone. You need to build something that will impact people’s lives and promote the shit out of it until it reaches the audience you want.
There is far too much great content out there nowadays to think you can build something and people will flock to it. One needs to build something and then sell themselves, their brand, and their product to those who can truly benefit from it.
Be Strategic in Your Approach
Understanding how to approach individuals with influence is key to selling yourself. Your pitch needs to express the mutual benefit of partnering with the influencer.
And if the influencer says no, isn’t interested, or doesn’t respond, that was one of a million doors. Keep knocking on doors until one opens. Just don’t close the door back on yourself because you didn’t know how to properly sell.
As Pink says,
“Anytime you’re tempted to upsell someone else, stop what you’re doing and upserve instead.” — Daniel H. Pink, “To Sell is Human”