How relatable are you to the visitors that come to your blog, email or paid campaigns? There’s a lot of people that go straight into the sale and features instead of how they can really connect with their market of people. In this post I will talk about some ways on how you can relate more to people so that they will like and trust you much more, resulting in making the sales process much smoother.
“My vision of a real humanity is of pure individuals relating to each other, but not tied in any relationship. They will be loving to each other, but not being possessive of each other. They will be sharing with each other all their joys and all their blessings, but never even in their dreams thinking of dominating, thinking of enslaving the other person.” ~ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
What’s really the truth when it comes to your blog and your online business?
If you’re not trying to relate to your audience then you’re going to have a challenging time trying to grow your online business!
It’s one thing if you’re a big time, well known and respected celebrity, but it’s another thing if you’re just another person within your niche.
The one mistake that I have seen a lot of bloggers do is claiming how successful they are and showing that they never make mistakes. What really is happening is that they’re regurgitating what someone else said but yet they’re not getting great results for themselves.
You’re audience wants you to be “real” and transparent. They are intelligent and can definitely see through you.
So why not show them who you are and talk about your true journey?
You want your audience to be able to relate to you. With this connection, it make’s it a lot easier for sales to start cropping up through your blog!
I can remember when I was in MLM, most of the training was on self help and building relationships with others. At first I didn’t really get it. I thought, “isn’t this sales?”
What I didn’t realize is the majority of the sale is the relationship and connection you build with people (in MLM terms the people are prospects).
What are these connections the sales are made frin when you’re able to draw people into you? It’s the genuine interest you have in them and this creates the magnetic energy to draw them in and conjure up their interest in you.
We all can tell if someone really wants to help us versus those that just want to make money from us.
My Experience With The Sales People During My Las VegasVacation
A month ago, I was looking forward to going to Las Vegas for vacation.
A couple of months prior to this, I had gotten some great deals on rooms through Groupon.com (This is definitely a great site to find deals on just about anything).
I had gotten a great deal on the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino which sits one block east of the main Las Vegas strip where all the action takes place. $21/night for 4 nights! You can’t beat that. Plus the rooms were large and nice!
Even though I went to Las Vegas to relax, it came with a price unfortunately.
As soon as we sat foot in the hotel, the sales people came rushing towards us. The most common line they asked us was “Have you received your free gift yet”.
When I first heard this, this was a great indicator that they had something else they want us to purchase.
How did I prove this?
They actually called me on my personal cell phone. They had a package for staying at the hotel for 2 nights with 2 show tickets for $300. I didn’t think it was a great deal since I got the rooms for $21/night for 4 nights and we really didn’t have an interest in going to any shows.
But the salesman insisted that I would like the package and kept telling me about their features. When this happened, the salesman started to sound like the adults in the Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoons which showed I lost interest!
After a while, we started exchanging a couple of words and we hung up.
Why am I telling you this story?
He would’ve had a better chance in selling me a package if he actually made an effort to relate to me and actually try to get to know what I like by asking genuine questions.
Then he can go into telling me about himself, what he likes, and if he purchased the package or if he knew of people that purchased the package. The conversation would’ve been more reciprocal instead of being one way.
There are a lot of blogs that are like this, but yours and mines don’t have to be. We can actually create a reciprocal relationship via our blogs to build strong connections with our audience.
8 Ways To Relate To Your Audience More
The post you’re on now takes it a step further. If you want to keep and grow your audience, then what better way then to try to make that reciprocal relationship. You definitely want to start on relating to them so they can relate back to you. Here are 8 ways I came up with on how you can build a great connection with your audience:
Share Your Failures
Someone on facebook post this quote a few times: “If you never failed, you’ve never tried anything new” …
To be honest with you, I really don’t trust anyone that doesn’t share some of their failures. To me, it’s just not being human. No one that I know of has ever taken up a new task and became an instant success at it without making any mistakes.
Think about your audience. Everyone reading your blog are making mistakes or at least made quite a bit of mistakes in the past. This is something we all have in common and will bring us all closer. So why not talk about those struggles you went through. This opens up options for your audience that it’s possible to fail your way to the top.
Talk About Your Successes
I’m not saying to brag, but to impress upon your audience that you are getting the results that you want.
I myself had a lot of failure that I experience, and I learned from those failures which is key. I’ve read a lot of blogs, and not every advice from each blogger helps me, but that doesn’t me there are alternative answers.
Your audience wants to know if you’re failing, then are you finding any type of success at all? Once you find what works for you, then you can have the privilege of bragging rights and tell your audience what you discovered so they’ll know what’s possible for them.
Tell A Story About Personal Experiences
I just told you a story of my experience with the sales people at the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. I assumed that many of you have had the experience with a pushy salesperson trying to get you to purchase something you really don’t have an interest in.
Your audience love it that you are going through or have gone through some of the same experiences that they have. In fact this gives them a reason to come back for more content from you.
Make Analogies
There’s a lot of people that don’t understand certain terms within the blogosphere or the online marketing world.
So what’s great way to get them to understand?
Use Analogies!
I have used analogies in quite a few posts and I notice that analogies creates a bridge for understanding.
How many times have you tried to explain something to someone over and over again and yet they didn’t get it. But when you used an analogy that they can relate to, they have that “Aha” moment as a result. And you think to yourself “I wasted all that time trying to explain this and all I had to do was use this analogy!”
At least I think like this if you don’t 😉
But analogies will bridge the gap between you and your audience so the connection you have becomes stronger. And of course they’ll want to come back to your blog for more!
Talk About Some Simple, Common Strategies You’re Doing
When it comes to simplicity, a lot of your audience may look over it.
These are strategies that they would feel they can do without getting real technical. The one complaint I find with some of my friends and audience is that they join a system or get taught a strategy that is too complicated for them to understand and execute.
When you can do this consistently, then this is another reason why they will come back. As a matter of fact, if you can also talk about how you struggled with some complicated strategies and show them alternatives your audience will definitely appreciate you more!
Talk About Your Current Life
If you really want to be transparent, then be a little open about your current life.
Don’t tell them everything, but share some of what you do and experience on a normal day. I usually share something I did on the weekend with my email list before I share a valuable lesson regard blogging and online marketing.
With my blog, I sometimes share what I did on vacation like I just did here, or a current experience. Some people will be able to relate and some others won’t.
This is why it’s real important to write as though you’re having a conversation with each person on an individual basis. You want to make the effort to make each individual feel like you’re having a conversation at a coffee shop with them.
Add Them To Your Social Networks To Get To Know Them Better
Showing genuine interest is key as I’ve said before.
What better way to show genuine interest than to make an effort to get to know your audience on social media!
Lately I’ve been getting acquainted with people on twitter as opposed to the previous year on facebook. I installed the twitter app on my Android phone which works better for me to use twitter a bit more. It turns out that I can connect a lot better through twitter than with facebook.
But when your audience see’s that you’re genuine in character and you actually want to get to know them, then magic happens. Well maybe not magic, but the relationships you start tends to blossom.
As a result, you start to also help each other with each other’s business directly and indirectly! Better results is what we want, right?
Get Your Audiences’ Opinions
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Sometimes you know of it, but still don’t know about it.
This is where you can benefit from your audience. Your audience loves it when you respect their help and their opinions. They tend to feel important. They see that you’re not judging even if you’re at a level they want to be on.
I notice with great bloggers, they also ask the opinions of their audiences. They are always open to learn so that they can keep growing. They may be an expert and authority figure in their niche, but sometimes they don’t know everything!
Now It’s Your Turn!
What do you think about all of this? Do you try to relate to your audience? Do you feel that relating to them is also considered value to them? What do you define as value? Do you feel that the relationship you build would contribute immensely to the sales process? Please share your comments below and share this post with your friends. I look forward to read them!
