It's an old axiom in sales that "People buy from people they like."
This means that if you want to build a successful, fulfilling business, you need strong relationships with your current and future customers.
I used to believe it wasn't possible to create meaningful relationships—the kind where people feel seen and valued as individuals—with many people at once.
But I was wrong. You can create relationships with hundreds, if not thousands, of people so that they have a special place in their hearts and minds for you and your business.
It just requires a small shift in thinking and the ability to connect with the points that matter most to your audience. This post will show you how to do that.
The most important part of creating relationships at scale is that you're only ever talking to one person. No matter whether you're teaching a class, writing a post, or recording a podcast, your message will only ever be received by an individual. There's no such thing as "your audience," or "the public." It's just the next person, and the next, and the next.
This has power because no client or customer wants to feel like they’re part of a sea of people or that their presence is unimportant.
Even if what you sell is membership in a community, people don't sign up because they are sold to as a group. They will however sign up if they feel like being part of your community will make their life as an individual better .
So if you write, speak, or teach like you are connecting with only one person, that will take you a long way to creating relationships at scale.
Stop selling to a faceless group of people
You'll know you’re trying to sell to a faceless group and missing real connections with dream customers when you’re not picturing a single person in front of you.
Disconnection can also happen when you’re thinking about a sales goal of selling, say, 100 seats rather than connecting with the next right person for your offer.
And this does more than alienate potential customers: it makes your business less fulfilling and less effective.
Another red flag is feeling frustrated or burnt out by the sales process. It means you have likely lost the plot and are selling in hopes of "getting people and dollars" rather than helping the individuals who need what you have right now.
What to do instead
In our 3 Day Relationship-Based Sales workshop we teach you how to stop wasting time and energy and focus on just 4 things in your marketing and sales :
- Creating safety for your potential customer
- Making sure your offer is aligned with their needs and wants right now
- Showing why your product or service is lucrative for them, and
- Showing why working with you will be effective for them.
That's how you make the S.A.L.E. and build relationships at scale.
Let's break them down one by one:
Safety.
Does your customer know that you have their best interests in mind?
Do they know that they can trust you?
People fear losing something more than they crave getting something, so if your sales process hasn't calmed the fear of loss, people will not take action.
A potential customer will know you are on their side by the kinds of questions you ask them and through the insights and care you display about their situation. Showing up over and over again and demonstrating that your business is one they can trust goes a long way towards creating safety in a customer's mind.
Aligned.
If your potential customer doesn't need or want what you're offering, none of the rest will matter.
Sometimes this is just a matter of timing. We have clients who followed our work for years before hiring us to coach them or their team because they didn't need what we were providing at the time they found us.
In other cases, alignment is about connecting with what your customer truly wants. If you aren't building safety (see above) and listening deeply, you will never have people in your world who trust you enough to tell you want they really want.
Once that trust is established and there is a conversation happening between you and your people, you can then ensure that what your business provides is aligned with your customer's needs and wants.
Alignment isn't just about closing deals, it's about delivering on your promise. Alignment creates customer satisfaction, repeat business, and referrals because you understand what your customer needs and can deliver it.
Lucrative.
Your business offer has to be lucrative for your customer, first and foremost. Real success only comes when you are creating something that is so much more valuable than the price you charge for it.
If your customer can't make a simple analysis that shows them they will get something more valuable from your business than the dollars they paid, they just won't buy.
Make it an easy choice for your customer (we will help you in the workshop here). Describe all the ways that working with your business will result in the changes they want so they can feel confident in their investment.
Effective.
When you can show all the ways your offer is effective, it makes it more safe, aligned, and lucrative in the eyes of your future customer. This might include descriptions and details of the process or underlying technology, quotes from happy customers, social proof of how many others received the stated benefits, giving samples in advance to experience it before buying, and more.
But here is the thing. You can't do this without investing in the other three. Cold DM'ing someone a testimonial from another client doesn't work because there is no safety, it probably isn't aligned or lucrative for them because you didn't spend the time finding out what they want and need.
Showing your offer is effective will only land and translate into a sale when the other three areas of the S.A.L.E. framework are met.
If you are ready to learn:
- The 4 things that make or break a sale (and how to never skip a step again)
- How to scale your customer relationships in way that makes each person feel like its a personal conversation
- How to craft a sales process that feels easy and natural
