Many of us receive direct messages from people we don’t know (or just met) on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other social media sites. I receive A LOT of these. One thing that I notice with them is that their messages sound salesy or like a pitch, especially with new connections. If you’re wanting to DM people, I will answer two questions in this blog:
There are a few kinds of questions that I receive on my DMs: 1. Open-Ended Questions Have you received any of these messages:
I hate these kinds of questions because it puts the pressure on me to get things going. I’m then entering into a full conversation with someone who I don't know and I don't know why they're trying to reach out to me. These questions are so open-ended, and I don’t know how to reply. I can reply “Good” or “Great” then they’d ask “What do you do?” Well, if this person looked at my profile, they would know what I do. Don't make me work because you want to talk to me. If you're going to reach out to someone, say more. 2. Unsolicited Offers Have you received messages like:
Who doesn't want good things for their business? Who doesn't want these things? But it doesn't mean that I'm ready to enter into a sales conversation with you about it because I don't know you. So you have to ask yourself, “What are you leading with when you're messaging people?” Because when people lead with optimizing my website, increasing my Google ranking, or whatever, I am not shopping for that. Your first message should not be a solicitation. You should not be offering to help me for a fee in that first message. I did not request solicitation in my inbox. I also receive messages like:
Well, how do you know that my community wants it? Right, you're leading with your own offer. You're not leading with anything that I should care about. This is something you have to think about. What are you leading with? Are you leading with your own agenda? Or are you leading with something that would actually be for them? 3. “I love… The other thing that I often see is people saying:
That type of message could be almost for anyone in the world. But if you’re going to say such things, be specific! For instance, if you want to be on the Dynamic Women Podcast, send me an email that says something like, “Hey, I love what you're doing. I listened to Episode 34 about changes for the new year! I love the five things that you shared! I totally resonate with this piece.” If you message me something along these lines, it would show me that you actually took the time to consume some of my content and get to know me. 4. No “No Big Deal” Sometimes, people send things like:
This is okay because I have permission to not answer her. However, sometimes what'll happen is people will send that but not the “no big deal.” And then they'll come in again and like, “Hey, you didn't reply to my message” or “Hey, I'm sending this again because you haven't replied.” If that's through my business page on Facebook and I don’t reply to their spam, that messes up my response rates! You might ask, “If they want to friend request you and you don’t know them, then what's the point of accepting their friend request?” Good question. My response to this is as a business owner and speaker who is in the public eye quite a bit, I will say yes to their friend request if:
I’m trusting that they're good people and we should be connected. If you want to accept a friend request from someone, then you need to make the decision if that is a good decision for you or not. Have your own criteria for accepting friend requests. Your being salesy happens when you lead with your own agenda. You’ll come off as kind of awkward and weird in messages when you don't have a clear intention or you're not trying to connect with the person. So the keyword here is CONNECTION. Connect with the person. And so in order to connect with someone, you need to have a topic that is worthy of connecting about. If you want to connect with them, you've got something specific that you can say or to talk about THEM, not talk about YOU. I don't know how many times I've had someone email me and the email tells me how awesome they are. One of the easiest ways to connect is to acknowledge the person in a true way for something that you admire about them, that you like about them, or that you want to compliment them for. Acknowledge them for something and then speak about what's in it for them. Here’s the question recap...
Now here are some tips you can do to NOT sound salesy: 1. Get on people’s radar first. Go like some of their posts, comment on them and/or share some of their content. When people do this on my stuff, I do notice! If someone shares my content and I realize they've shared it, I will thank them. Then I’ll be more receptive when they DM me. 2. Find out what’s important to them. Not what you think is important, but actually what is important to them. You'll find out what's important to them by listening to some of their videos, their audios, and their podcasts. Or by reading stuff on their website and their bio. 3. Don’t make them do all the work. Don’t just say “How are you?” That's an annoying start to a conversation (unless I know them). Instead, tell me what you want to talk about. Acknowledge their work, and be detailed in the message. Refer to something that they have done and just come from a place of serving them first, and then they'll potentially reciprocate. These are the things you can do to not come across as salesy and pitchy in direct messenger. Now, how are you going to show up differently? Diane P.S. I have to take my own words of wisdom here. Sometimes I try to get straight to the point with people without connecting. That's my A-type. It’s a learning curve!
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There is ONE thing that a lot of women do that feels good but hurts them - it’s putting other people's agendas before their own. It's saying “yes” to others before they say “yes” to themselves. The sad thing is, I see women do this all the time.
I constantly see women putting others ahead of themselves. Side note:
But I'm talking about this unbalance when these statements are true:
And when it gets to that extreme level, it means you take care of other people to honor their values before you honor your own values. So how does this look? Imagine yourself in these two true situations that I heard from my clients. True Story 1: I have a client who is a very loving Mom. The trouble was she wasn’t able to go away on the weekend because her daughter kept dropping her dog off at her house. It was happening a lot and for long periods of time and that meant that this client of mine wasn't able to have the freedom that she wanted. She missed out on so many invites for dinner dates, outings, and trips because the dog couldn’t be left alone. This made her resent her daughter. True Story 2: A client of mine is a very successful personal trainer who has clients in different areas of the city. My client said yes to serving a retired couple at 9am which was a time that worked best for them, which meant my client was travelling through the city during rush hour. Also, she was already serving people in that area later in the day and so it meant she was travelling there twice. This caused her to miss out on adding in another training hour. It took her a lot more time to travel and caused her much stress. If you give all day, there is nothing left for you. When you're busy fulfilling everyone else's agenda before your own, you’ll have nothing left to give. And then along with not focusing on your own agenda, you're also missing out on fulfilling your own dreams. Yes, we need to care for others. And yes, we need to help others, but not to the detriment of ourselves. If we have time for ourselves, our cup gets filled. If we can do the things we want to do, our cup gets filled. If we honor our own priorities, our cup gets full. When our cup is full and overflowing into the saucer that is under the cup, we have more than enough to give. By serving our own needs, wants, priorities, and goals, we then can bless others with the time, energy, and money that we have. When you make more money, you can give more money. When you have more time, you can give more time. I will leave you with a list of questions that you can ask yourself so you can fill your own cup:
In the past, I've been known to go out of my way to help others so much that I suffered. And I see it in women all the time. I hope it doesn’t happen to you so have a hard look at how you’re doing and answer those questions. Post your comments about what insights this gave you. We are taught to care. We are taught to give. We are taught to serve. We also need to be taught boundaries and making ourselves a priority. And we can help others once we are feeling enough… once we are filled up... once we have enough to be in a position to be able to give. Read my other blogs:
1. Overwhelmed with Overwhelm 2. Sometimes You Gotta Say No 3. 4 Crucial Questions About Your Life Path I’ve struggled in my business at different times. I thought I was making the right decisions based on what others had suggested, but the problem was they weren’t actually doing what they shared with me. I was constantly reviewing and making changes. Of course those mistakes were really learning opportunities. But the thing is, what if you just knew how to NOT make those mistakes? What I learnt is how quickly you decide to make a change and how fast you take action actually determines how successful you're going to be. If you can't make changes when problems come or you stay in the wrong decision for too long, then you're going to have more negative outcomes. As a coach, they don't teach us how to run a coaching business. So, I did these things: 1. I joined a networking group. Networking groups are great, but the problem was that the networking group I was in wasn't giving me a strong level of information that I needed on how to run a business that's in alignment with me. 2. I hired a good business coach. It was really great working with her. She helped me with business foundations, but I was missing that group interaction. I want a group of people, especially women, to come together and we can move our businesses forward together and I can get some information. 3. I joined a Mastermind. I joined a mastermind, but I wasn’t getting that high-level strategy that I needed from it. This mastermind was self-led wherein the participants were to lead it. I was the only coach and facilitator in the group. I ended up having to run it. That just felt weird. I started to feel like the coach, where I'm not able to chill and relax and just be part of this experience. And so I thought to myself, that's off. That's not right. 4. I had an accountability group. I thought maybe I just need a little accountability group to get things going and help me get things happening. But I realized, these people are not doing what they said they would do. And it was quite frustrating for me because at the time, I was pregnant. I was spending more of my time there coaching them how to reach their goals, and how to actually do what they were supposed to do. It was frustrating. That level of accountability wasn't there. I had a networking group, a coach, a mastermind group, and an accountability partner. They were all serving partial needs for me, but none of it was like fully encompassing all of my needs. It takes a lot of time to attend four different events. It was costing me time and brainpower. Each of them had its own set of requirements and expectations. I couldn't keep my head straight with all those things. It was also costing me money! What I wanted was ONE single track to put my business train on. To be able to just go to one group of people and have them serve all of my needs and get my business moving forward so that I am not wasting my time, energy, mind power, and money. Why isn't there something where a group of people can have the following aspects: 1. Networking - We get together and have networking opportunities. We start referring each other and can use each other's services. 2. Accountability - We can have accountability with someone in charge. Having an actual facilitator, coach, or someone in charge of that accountability can lead to better results so that the participants don't have to hold each other accountable. 3. Mastermind - In some groups, certain people take more time because the time isn’t being managed. When there’s a facilitator to facilitate the timing, everyone gets their time. It's not just the power of the group, but I want someone in charge that knows so many different things. 4. Coaching - Having someone in that group who can coach. The cool thing is, as they're coaching someone else in the group, you can learn so much, too. By being coached in front of others, you also have that feeling of we're in this together. Which of those four pieces do you like the most? You can have networking, accountability, mastermind, and a coach for your life as well in your business. In my next blog, I will share with you the ONE step I took that helped me achieve more, stay focused, and get new opportunities. You can also read my other blogs:
1. The Price We Pay for Our Decisions 2. Hire Help: 1 of 5 Tactics to get more done in life or business (Part 1) 3. 5 Tactics to get more done in life or business (Part 2) |
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