Relationships Before Transactions

Take Your Business To The Next Level

Let me start with a question.

Where would you go to get your morning coffee?

A cafe where you feel welcomed and know the staff, or a random cafe where you know no one?

Would you recommend that cafe to a stranger if they asked for directions to a good cafe?

If you answer yes, congratulations!

You now understand why it’s essential to prioritise relationships over transactions.

Long Game Or Short Game?

Let’s look at this from another angle.

There are two types of people online: those who strive for short-term rewards and those who are happy to play the long game, knowing that better rewards will come in the future.

Imagine walking into a dinner party and you meet someone you’ve never met before. Would you walk up to them and say

“Hi, My name is <name> nice to meet you, are you a friend of <host>?

Or would you say

“Hi, my name is <name>. Do you want to skyrocket your income? If so buy this”

That’s a bit of an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: Building relationships is important. If your audience is interested in going further after seeing what you have to offer, show them your offers. If they fail to show interest, build a stronger relationship before selling.

Not everyone buys on the same schedule so you have to be flexible and look for the clues that someone is ready to buy.

They visit a sales page … tag them.

They click a link you post … tag them.

You tell them, “If you would like to know more about my upcoming cohort, click here.”

This click triggers a new email sequence. The interested people get more information and those that weren’t continue to get your normal emails.

Even if you can’t tag people, instead of selling in every article or email, give them everything they need and then, later, offer to help them implement what you’ve taught.

Helping your audience with Implementation and not just selling courses is the key to genuine success

Respect your audience and build a relationship with them, and good things can happen.

Example: $9366 from a list of 82

Apologies if you’ve heard me talk about this before, but it illustrates the point I am making.

The date is: March 17th 2018, it’s 7:30 am.

The Location: An exclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico.

It’s the day after my daughter got married there, and I am on the beach watching the sun come up, drinking coffee, and listening to Bob Marley.

I have an idea and fire up my laptop

24 hours later, a list of 82 people has converted at 42% and I’ve made $9366

The Idea

I was running a $47-a-month community at that time. I opened my email service provider’s account and searched for people who had visited the sales page more than twice and had also purchased something from me in the past six months.

That search got me a list of 82 people.

I created a no-brainer offer: lifetime access for just $297.

I wrote and sent the email.

The offer was so good someone accidentally bought it twice!

This sold because I didn’t try to sell in every email. I did try to give good, helpful advice, I helped where I could and answered any questions I was asked, and the audience knew me from my emails and the products they had bought.

I had built a relationship

Final Thoughts

Here on Substack, you have the perfect platform to build relationships; in my first five weeks here, I’ve had very inspiring conversations and seen so many people share amazing knowledge and advice.

Follow their lead.

Share, engage, and help where you can… Everything else will follow without you having to sell at every opportunity.

Have a great week.