Tribeology

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” T. Paine

Have you ever found a product you’d like to buy… but you had a strange and sketchy feeling about it?

OR

It’s a big purchase and you need to know more…

It probably brought you to an online search.  The internet received a bad reputation in it’s early days for being a “black hole” so to speak or a “use at your own risk’ type of arrangement.  The thing is… many people still feel this way.

It probably has not been a long time since the last big credit card breech and that affects what your small business does.  I have customers that will not pay their bill via the internet because it’s “not safe” — OK, I respect that.  We can do it “old school”.  Ultimately, I just want to get paid.

But think about that.  I have customers that will not go online, to a secure site, but they will call and give their credit card number over a cell phone.  Both transactions have risks, but I’d say calling and giving someone the actual number is a little more risky.  But our customers do it and the reason is, trust.

How do you build trust online?

Every portion of your online entity either builds or takes away trust and creditably, the two components to character.  It’s hard to control an online review.  I mean, if someone wants to write nasty things, they can.  They don’t even have to be a customer that exchanged money.  I actually had someone write a blind online review, he called in… said he was going to write a bad review if i didn’t give him a discount.  Presto. Bad review.  But if you use Frankenstein as your avatar, I’m pretty people are pretty sophisticated to see though that B.S.

But back to my point.

A very vital component to the Infinity Marketing Machine is your character.  People regularly look up my Linked-In profile when they are making decisions about whether to store a boat at our marina or to join our boat club.  It’s part of their research.  I mean, I’m not looking for a job, the reason I built a strong profile is to build creditably in a format where I control the message.  I strongly recommend you do the same.

Writing a blog also builds creditably in a manner you control.  At the same time people research my profile, they can find every blog I’ve written.  Or if they search my name… they’ll come her.. (“hi” if you just found me) — but it’s true. Nothing is worse than my original example of trying to buy a product and getting a “sketchy” type of feeling.  People want to do business with people they know are real.  The internet has had a great way of “masking” authenticity.  You do not want to be an unknown entity.  You want to be real to your customers.

Being real is the importance of becoming a Subject Matter Expert.  You can learn more about positioning yourself as a Subject Matter Expert on my website.  But in general it’s controlling the message to show you are an expert in your area.  It makes you real.

And being real is super important to building trust and building trust will increase sales!  Take the time to control your message because like the quote says, it’s much easier to keep character (control your message) then to recover it…

Character + Content/Consistency + Goals/Motivation + Customers =
Infinity Marketing Machine

PS: thanks for reading!  I really appreciate you being here.  Make sure to “like” this post… and follow me! 

(and please do me a favor… if you want more great ideas like the one in this post, just fill out this form and I’ll send them to you…  start here

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Action Steps
1-  What awards have you won?  Do you have them listed on your Linked-In Profile?  ADD THEM NOW.
2- Install my free app! (SmallBusinessClubApp.com)

Podcast:
Listen to Episode #230 of the Two Minute Commute audio blog Podcast