How Social Selling Can Grow Your Business

welcome to the ecommerce podcast with matt edmondson a show that brings you regular
interviews tips and tools for building your business online
[Music] well hello and good evening welcome to
the ecommerce podcast with me your host made events and it's great to have you it's great you're here
uh great that you're listening to the show or indeed watching the show on facebook live or however you're joining
us um it's great to see you great you're here happy monday everyone i hope you're having a good start to the week
already uh we're we're actually recording this on a monday if that wasn't clear uh it is monday it
is monday evening here in the uk and this is the ecommerce podcast with me uh matt edmondson
and in tonight's show we are going to be chatting to the amazing and wonderful tim hughes and
we are going to be getting getting into social selling uh what that means for us as people what it means for us uh in
e-commerce i'm gonna grill him about sales and all kinds of stuff because he has got fascinating background let me tell you
and all that is gonna come up and more in this show so welcome welcome welcome now if you are
yet to subscribe to the show make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcast from because why would you not right we put
out regular content free good stuff for you to listen to all about e-commerce how to set up
run and grow your own e-commerce business this stuff is great and i love doing the
interviews because i always learn stuff as well so grab your notebooks grab your pens and if you are joining us on facebook live
as we recording you can throw your questions or thoughts into the comments and we will respond to those at
some points during the show maybe during the recording it may be at the end we don't know it depends what your
questions are but make sure you throw those in and say hi on the facebook live let us know where you're from it'll be great
and if you don't know if you're listening to this in your car or wherever you get your podcast from
when we record the interviews when i do these interviews we stream it live on facebook at the same time which is just
it's just fantastic and so regulars to the show will know this uh we've been doing this now for uh well
season two we're now on season three so we've been doing this a little while and i really really like how this is working
so you can just go and connect with us on facebook live sign up to the notifications so whenever we do go live
that little little bell pings on your facebook feed and you will get notifications that we
are indeed live and you can come in and join the conversation with the guests which is always fab
so you can do that so welcome to the show uh great to see you here and uh if you
are listening to us in a car make sure you're safe because you know you should right so as
i said this show is for all the e-commerce entrepreneurs out there looking to set up to grow
to develop to understand e-commerce a whole lot more because at the moment
especially at the moment digital and online businesses seem to be the way forward uh and let me tell you i don't
know how your business is doing mine is killing it right now it is doing so well and it's great
um you know i i was saying to tim before the show this is not a strategy i would have
written down it's not a strategy i would have planned but um as a result of the pandemic as a
result of the lockdown uh there seems to be a lot more interest in what we're doing online which is fantastic
so um it's great to see that now before we pull into the show the
wonderful tim and get into this whole conversation around social selling is it just a buzzword um or is it the next thing in
marketing has it actually been around for a while what does it mean for all of us in e-commerce
all these things we're going to get into in a little bit more and before i bring tim on let me just take a few
minutes to thank uh the show's sponsors the first sponsor being curious digital
let me give a big shout out to one of our show sponsors curious digital you know what i love
its flexibility it's such a great platform you know how when you start out you
might typically use an online platform because they're cheap they're easy to use super accessible but
you know what they aren't that flexible and as your business grows you end up moving to an agency right
because that's just what you do and at some point you're gonna have this nightmare to deal with and it can be incredibly expensive
and the thing for me that i love about kd is it will grow with you you can start out on the
platform easily and as your business grows then kd will adapt with you now i don't
know of any other platform that does all of that so if you're in the market for a new e-commerce platform
make sure you follow the links from mattedmanson.com take advantage of the offers that
they've got for you and let me know what you think [Music]
a big shout out to another show sponsor the light bulb agency these guys basically do those
bits of e-commerce that you either don't want to do or don't have the skills or expertise to
do right it's a great service let me tell you these guys do fulfillment e-commerce marketing
content creation customer service product research i mean the list goes on so if you need help with your
own online business you're looking for ways to grow and you need some help to get there do get in touch with them and again just
follow the links from today's show notes head on over to mattedmanson.com and you can follow the links to the
lightbulb agency we'd love to put you in touch with those guys so there there are two show sponsors
they're amazing people and of course if you want any of the links that i talk to you about in tonight's show if you want
the links to the sponsors if you want the links to all the things that tim's going to share about and want to get in
touch with tim and all that sort of stuff we will make sure all of that and the notes from tonight's show
are in the show notes on the website so head on over to matt edmondson.com and you will be able to
see those search out the podcast download the podcast notes and and check out those links everything
will be on there for you in one easy and convenient place okay all that aside
let's talk to our guest now tim is the co-founder uh and ceo of
dla digital dla ignite sorry and uh it says here in my notes and from
my conversation with tim which i really enjoyed uh he is an expert in social selling his
business is all about this idea of social selling so i wanted to get into it i wanted to
understand it i wanted to i wanted to figure it out what does it mean for me what does it mean for my e-commerce
business and this is what we're going to get into right now so without further ado let me
turn up tim's microphone and let me press this magic button tim hello welcome to the show it's great
to have you on can you hear me okay hello matt yeah yeah no problem at all
really excited to be here that's great i appreciate you being here now one of the things i should have said
right at the start um in the intro which i didn't is you actually um host your own podcast tim talks is that
right i do yeah i do yeah it's it's uh yeah it's exciting i mean it's nice to be on the other side of the
table so to speak i was going to say i i i felt slightly
nervous doing the intros i'm thinking oh there's a professional here in the background listening to me
so uh so welcome to the show thanks for coming on i really appreciate you being here and i
guess the podcast you do tim talks what's your podcast about what's the show about
um well we started talking about social selling and i got various interesting people on um to talk about
various aspects of that but over the recent three months i've actually been doing two things one is
helping people i know um giving them some visibility and getting to talk about specialist
subjects that they have but also covering subject matter that would help people um
in today's economic conditions so for example last week on friday i interviewed
someone who's a headhunter so we went through about how to get a job oh well
um which is very relevant right now absolutely yeah um and you know there's there's a whole
bunch of people out in the market that um either may have not have lost their job before or
um have not seen a recession yeah um and not seen the sort of impact that it can
have so you know it's a just like this podcast it's a free resource and um we hope that um you know if it
helps one person then um it's it's time well spent fantastic and and that
uh show tim talks you can people can find it anywhere if someone's listening you know what i really need help finding
a job right now it's on youtube um the the best we get most of our
traffic from social um so either my twitter you'll find this stuff on my twitter feed
um or on my linkedin okay um yeah okay that's fantastic and we'll link to
those in the show notes and we'll come back to that later at the end of the show you can explain to people how they get in touch with you yeah um so do check out tim's
podcast tim talks and listen to that especially you know with some of the stuff he's just talked
about very good timing so tim that's kind of what you do
now well we're going to get into what you do a little bit more later but um where did it all start for you um well
my background is sales i've been in sales for um years
and um it was um my background has always been new
business sales okay and um i was working at a very large u.s
software house uh back in um and um we were used to
we're on premise company um trying to get towards the to move towards cloud and sas we were
used to months sales cycles um and we took on a sales guy from a competitor financial
force and he said in a meeting we closed on the first meeting we're used to months sales cycles and
we find out that our competition are basically closing on the first meeting wow it is a big difference and there's a
gap there yeah um so um i went to my sales vp and said you know we've got a problem um
and we decided to take the sales force through a complete um business
transformation so we did things like we tried to get you know you never get everybody doing it but we
tried to get people to to give to give up on powerpoint because there's so many sales people turning up
and they do a pitch on on powerpoint and so what we've got and there's a story flow through it and
one of the things that we did is we taught them storytelling okay rather than um um
coming up and just coming up with facts which is quite often what and and something is product related um
and we also talked a very rudimentary social selling which back in you
know is more about you know connecting with people and and that rather than doing some of the cool things that you
could do today yeah so um um and off the back of that um as i found with the power of network
in fact i'm talking to you today through the power network um was that what happened was that somebody um
my co-author from my first book came to me we had a cup of coffee and within three months i
got a book deal wow okay so um um in my first book social selling
techniques to influence bars and change makers came out um yeah and it still
sells today well um and you know it's designed as a um what we decided was that we we
weren't going to write about a journey or write about how to write your personal brand or write about the
technology it was going to be a a framework that sales people can use to get into social
selling okay um and last time i looked there was star reviews on on on amazon
all people generally saying it's changed my life and that's how we we designed it and
it's designed for sales people not marketers um i was in a meeting we matt and i we
brainstormed every chapter and the first brainstorming session was in the evening and i've been to a meeting with the same
sales vp that i talked about earlier on and he leaned across the desk at me and pointed a finger and he said
and i'm going to take out words beginning with f um he said this social selling is all about
it very well but where's the leads um and um i was telling matt this
and he thought that was funny he said what we need so and what we did was we used that as the the the point that whenever we did a
brainstorm if we thought it was getting too fluffy to marketing um we said that saying to
each other um and therefore we were able to say right how is a salesperson going to use this
information to prospect and get leads and that's that's how we wrote that that's why we wrote the book
okay it's there as a handbook for salespeople to give them that that base to enable them to prospect and
get leads and so um you wrote the book in
yes and it's still relevant for today because everything moves on at a fast pace yeah yeah yeah so so um what we did is
that we um uh we we we we didn't put anything in about the technology so there's a lot of books
out there like linkedin books and as soon as linkedin changed the the algorithm which they kind of do nearly
every month now it means that they're out of um uh they're now no longer of any use yeah
but what we did is that you know we wrote this being very basic so the people that are listening in today
um obviously i'm biased about buying a copy but obviously i recommend they do um and i would hope so yeah and it's
available on amazon worldwide um and um but it's it's still
i mean i've got people coming to me even today and saying i've just got read your book um fantastic um
so the managing director of bmw parklane ready and gave me a reference
last november and and it just goes on and on and on and on and it's a fantastic feeling
seeing people getting something from it yeah so you went from this place of sort of a traditional sales person taking eight months to
close a sale understanding that your competitors actually needed something a little bit different well they did something a
little bit different to them leaving that company and writing your own book on social selling which it was
all the stuff that you kind of discussed uh discovered along the way yeah um that's
quite a fascinating sort of leap from one thing to the next isn't it i was that planned was that thought
through or was that just happenstance um well i decided back
around about then that i had enough of i was selling accounting systems um and um while the people were
were interesting i decided i wanted to do something else um and i was trying to work out what it was and then uh i was actually in a
blogging um uh on a blogging course and the person said you need to when
you're when you're writing things you need to have a you know superpower something that you want to be famous for and i suddenly sat
there and i thought social selling okay and i realized at that point that i what i wanted to do with my life was um
become famous for social selling and i was going to leave the company i was in and set up my own company
and i've done all of those things oh wow it's amazing the power of a vision like that isn't it just to
you know have this sort of it's a great question what are you going to be known for
what was the question you asked what's your superpower yes yeah and that's and it's again it's about what is it that you want to be
known for um and and usually what happens is that people talk about
so for example i remember saying this um saying this at my previous company and and and the people that sold the
human resources software said well i want to be famous for human resources software it's like well not really because that just means that
you're just another salesperson yeah so so what what they started doing was that you know there would be
they'd be they wanted to be famous for work-life balance or mental health or things like that
because what that enables them to do is to get into conversations
with people senior people um in the areas that they want to sell to
and and we all know that conversations make sales okay so so so you know
um you know an advert um a cold call and um an email don't make a sale
what happens is that they they are there to drive a conversation and it's the conversation that makes a
sale yeah and and and so what we're doing is that we're using socialism means or a mechanism to create that
conversation okay um and and so all salespeople ultimately
need to be in a situation where they know what they not necessarily what they want to be famous for but they're they're super
power and it needs to be authentic as well so what when you were sat there in the meeting and the guy said to you
um what do you want your superpower to be and in your head you went yeah social selling what
why i mean what was it about it that kind of drew you in well i was i was
involved with it because um we you know we rolled out social selling across
uh ultimately people across europe um and you know it was part of my daily
daily life um and and there was all the things that you know we did all the things wrong
that everybody who tries to implement it internally does you know even to the point where my vp
stood up and said um i've only got followers i might as well just walk down the office and shout the tweet out
and i said well yeah actually mark i think you should because i said you'll get a better response yeah um and um and so all of the things that
that that could go wrong did go wrong and we were able to you know when we started the company we obviously
were able to put all those things right but you know i was involved in that and it was it was new and social was
i was i was interested in social and by then on twitter i got probably i think about followers
oh wow um and so you know there was clear momentum that something that some i was doing something right and it was
and that something was happening so um you know i decided to to move that way and
um there's a lot of people um there's a lot of people who don't understand networks and the power of the
network they don't seem to realize the magic of it and the way that you can use them and a
network to place your ideas and get people to basically take those
things and and and and share them out and the way that a network
also brings things to you so for the first um three years of our company dla night
we didn't have a business plan and we didn't have one on purpose yeah yeah that's quite that's good
but yeah yeah that's good that's good yeah yeah yeah i'm a big fan of the business plan i have to because because things would turn up you know so
you know a good example was i was on a podcast last night like this in the april
um with um a guy called doyle beulah who's currently he's a canadian breeds in australia um and i was just you know
talking to the guy and you know you do these things and they go out and you never know kind of what happens to them
in july basically a guy came to me uh thomas ross uh he said i run i run a sales team i
run a sales training company in he was in canada at the time um i run a training company and i want to
convert the whole of the training company to social selling can i resell your programs wow um and
me and my business partner adam went we never thought about that in fact if we got resellers all around
the world that would be a really good idea because we wouldn't need to open up the open up offices if i opened up an office
in um in new york i've got to pay for the office i've got to recruit the people yeah
they're probably the wrong people um and etc you know it's so so i'll get other people to take the risk
so that's what we did we basically um we spent the summer july and august of with a franchise
expert and a lawyer uh ip lawyer and what we did was we built
um a platform to allow people to resell our programs we now have um seven resellers
around the world oh wow um and um and yeah so they and it and it generates business while you're asleep
which is um a beautiful thing as i said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's what he comments is it generates business while you're using it
absolutely and and this is something where um it enables enabled us to scale
it's enabled us to scale with um without having to give away um any of
our equity in the business and a lot and and it's actually got over a problem because
we were getting we were getting our clients coming to us and saying what we want you to do is that we want
you to implement your social selling methodology around the world but what we want in
mexico if we want it delivered in in spanish by a mexican in in peru we
want it delivered in in you know in brazil it's got to be in in portuguese but in a private brazilian
and it's like we just don't have that capability and they say well we're not going to have we don't want a uk or a
u.s centric um uh way of of of working um so that's
what we've done is that we've actually built a global team you know we've got um two people in singapore one person in
hong kong one person in peru i've got three resellers in the states so that's how you've built your global
team you've built yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah network yeah that was a strategy that you guys
sort of went down yes and and the whole point was that um we got that through uh thomas seeing
me on a podcast um and him basically um saying i want to do this yeah
and that's the power of network which is that um it doesn't if you're out there and
you're having conversations and you're creating content this is a great example i'm not
i'm not sitting on this podcast telling you dla ignite is a great company and we're market leaders and stuff like that
because you're not interested in that you're here to actually listen to insight and be educated and and all of that stuff if you think
that's interesting you'll go and look all that stuff up um so um you know creating
creating this content and creating and putting out on your network um in an authentic educational
insightful way is so powerful is that how you that's why it brings stuff to us
is that how you would then define social selling so if someone's listening and going this is great but what what
what exactly is social selling so so i would i always define social selling as um the
reaction to as us as salespeople to the the way that the buying process has changed
okay so uh so um i mean before covert um even before then we all have mobile
phones and you know we sit down and we get our mobile phone out if we want to buy something you know you know you sit in a well we
used to sit in cafes on a saturday and you go let's go to
iceland next week okay you look at the airbnbs i'll look at the flights now you may not make a decision and and
decide to do that but the fact of the matter is you're looking for stuff yeah and if you're buying a million
outsourcing um deal um you're still going to go online and search for stuff because if i'm
going to the board of g of glaxosmithkline and and for an outsourcing deal and i'm
going to stand in front of the board and say this is what we ought to buy i will have gone online and i would have searched
for every single article about every single question that board could have asked me sure
so it doesn't matter whether you're b to b or b to c yeah um but um
uh so you know so bmw uh in the uk just to give you an an example
in november um through linkedin they got pieces of inbound
uh and they converted of those so if you say they got pieces of inbound what
do you what does that mean that's basically people on linkedin looking at the content that they've
created and coming to them saying that's really interesting i'm interested in buying a car okay so they put content out on linkedin
yes um and as a result of putting that content out there they got leads
leads and they were quite they would have been qualified leads in some respects yes so constantly yeah yeah so if you're
if i mean i use bans as in budget authority need and time scale
if someone makes an inbound to you and says i'm interested they probably have a budget um
they they will probably have authority or will get you to the person that has authority
they definitely have a need and they probably have time scale so you're yeah what yes so what you're
doing is that you know that if you get inbound they're probably fully banned qualified
opportunities um and of those they they converted
so actually purchase cards yes so whether it's pounds euros
it doesn't really matter they generated um units of money um
uh based on zero marketing spend which is awesome
which is awesome so so what so your question was what is social selling well social selling
part of social selling is the fact that we've got people out there that are looking for stuff
and we can generate desire in those people by using content as a way of um uh
getting you know so bmw you put a picture of the new mthat's just coming out um and uh
it's got a nice grille on it you go okay i'm really interested in those when you get one in i'd like to you know
put the deposit down um and that's what you're doing what you're you're not the mistake that
people make is that they think is that what we've done is that we've sold and marketed in the same way for
the last well advertising has been around since um cold calling has been around since
and email marketing has been around since um so for the last years
we've used the same marketing technique which is buy my stuff it's great yeah and of course no one believes you
and no one cares and nobody cares nobody cares about your product nobody cares about your service you know buy my product because you're
great it doesn't work um and the problem with it is that we're
now so we're now empowered um to go online and check it out so if i tell you i'm using an iphone and
if i say to you this iphone is the best mobile phone there is in the world you'll go well okay tim but i'm going to
go on google and actually look and see what else there is yeah and you may go to you know um uh you may ask your friends
on facebook um i've got some chips in my car so um on the paintwork so i actually asked on
facebook the other day does anybody know a good company that sorts chips on cars um so you'll ask
your your friends you may even go into discussion groups and think the thing is what you'll do
now is that you'll make your own decision based on the information of those people
so if you're using advertising cold calling or sending me spammy emails what you're
doing is that you're driving your buyers to buy from your competition because those buyers
and now it's a really interesting way of looking at it let's just say that again so if you're selling with traditional
methods so yeah with cold calling with us we'll call it spam just cold emails
whatever you want to call it yes then you're forcing those people to check out your competition
yeah because because that's what we do and even and and you know before covert people kind of said yeah tim that's
that's kind of interesting but yeah but yeah but yeah but yeah but now
everybody is online what what you know if we said if we'd said right we're gonna have a weekend
where everybody has to use zoom uh it would have all been very interesting and half the people would have said no i'm not doing it yeah
and monday would have been you know we would have gone back to what we did before uh but now even my you know scouts are
online the church is online um you know everything's online even my books online aren't they yeah even
though there was some statistics in the guardian um you mentioned church there's some stat in the guardian which says
percent of people in the uk are now watching live stream services yes percent
yeah it's a population of that went to church when it was so the the live things check anyway i
mean we could get into that although yeah yeah even fascinating even my mom's wine group and she's is online
and they've they've been your mum's blind group yeah my mom's one group i want to join that that sounds amazing
she's got a wine group yeah and they have a they've even got a little supply chain of uh there's a there's a man
that basically drives around and drops bottles off from the doorstep oh my goodness so they're able to drink the same glass of wine yeah and so someone does a
presentation about the wine so it will be about a particular um um
[Music] uh winery in portugal or something and they're drinking the wine and the ones
giving the presentation and she was told no no we can't do that no there's no way we everybody's online
so the facts of the matter with covert we now all have those um those attributes to go online
we've got those skills we've we've gained them if we didn't have them and we go online and we will check
things out yeah so if you come to me as i say and try and sell me something i will go online and you're going to do
and check it out yeah we're going to figure that out and and so what we what companies have to do
so to go back to your question what is social selling what they have to do now is be active on social because
that's where their customers are so instead of going to them with a direct cold call you're now going to
them on social and you're giving them content which helps them to learn and understand is that the model now
uh yes so um so you need to be part of conversations so you know this is a great this is a
piece of content which people will watch and they'll go i'll never thought about that yeah i'll give i'll i'll
i'll looked him up um no it's great i mean we actually a few
years ago we started our own i mean one of my websites sell skincare products and so we decided you know what we'll do
our own skincare brand because why would you not right um and one of the things that we did uh
we had one of our customer service girls she was awesome she basically spent the
day on twitter um and people would tweet you know my skin's feeling a bit dry today
and so she would just respond to them on twitter should just using the search function find these people who were
complaining about dry skin our ideal target customer say listen join me send you some samples see how you get on
and the fit the it was the easiest way to connect with people that had never never heard of us yeah and i mean
what if you're doing that what you shouldn't do is go to them and say we're the best in the world or anything like that what you do is you're connected to them
and and actually say you know i'll send you some samples yeah um you know i know um you know there's
companies that uh you know search for things like you know i've got a puncher and that's that
you know that's i'm gonna have a bad day and someone will basically say well we've we fixed
punches can we you know can we help you out um and it's about having a conversation
just as we're having today having we're having you know free free flowing rather than hey have i got a product for you so
if i if i can bring this back to the world of e-commerce um someone's just they're they're out
there listening to the show right now and they're just about to start their e-commerce business and they they've got
their head around the facts that maybe they should do google adwords they've got their head around the fact that maybe they should do facebook ads
or not as a case may be but how would what would your advice be to someone who
is just starting out they're doing this side hustle um they're going to build this online
business how how would you have them how would social selling work for them
so you've got to remember that people are on social they're not in adverts and um
people nowadays generally don't like advertising if you look at all of the the research um and the problem that we
have the problem they we all have is that we are hit by about a thousand different messages every day
yeah so um your your message you can go you can pay for the best photography the
best um uh copy you can go and get um supermodels and you know you could hire the
um um you could hire all of the people from love island or whatever and you're still and and you'll still
um just one of a thousand messages yeah um and um what you're what you'll find
certainly with google ads ads and facebook ads is that um it's a very s quick transaction
in effect you've got to get someone's desire in about seconds wow so it's quite difficult to you know
it is you know if you look at something like instagram you know it is yours if you're selling like stoppers to make
your chair um uh not great or along the floor or something to stop the draft
coming under a door which is a low price um make a decision put in your credit card yeah um
then that's generally okay if you're if you're outside of that you may find it very difficult to get
traction yeah but but so so as a business we do no advertising at all um we do no call calling at all and we
do know and we don't send any we don't have an email list we deleted it as part of gdpr okay uh everything that
we do through social um and so that's just you on social media
um on various platforms joining in conversations yeah yeah all of the people in the business um on social
and um and um uh you've got to remember with
advertising that the i'm trying to remember the saying which is that um uh advertising is a tax on the
unremarkable and um i like that
you've got to remember that um what where your clients are now is on social
media because we we've moved to um the fact that we're we're now social as
a as um as people there's now billion people
active on social so you're um uh your clients are on social and what
they're looking for is a we all hate sales people so what we're looking for
is a um people coming to us and talking to us in a non-salesy way so a bit like your
example of um uh you know you're you know i've got dry skin today well i'll send
you some samples yeah uh or um just you know if we take linkedin for example
just liking someone's post or saying um i read your article and i really liked these three things
you know everybody likes a bit of flattery yeah um and having uh uh or you know bmw's case they have some
great photography and just putting that up and and going you know here's the new m
um so um those are the things that you you need to look at now and you can do
that i think i'm just listening to you talk to him though i think you can do that without actually it seems going back to your
original chat that said he only had followers on twitter should he go shout down the street it sounds like what you're saying is you don't need
that many followers in the first instance you just need to go and find these people and start engaging with them
yeah social and that's that has that that's not driven by how many followers you have
no it's not not at all so um um may i tell a joke of course as long as
it's clean yeah okay good right um you've probably heard it before but there's two explorers going through the jungle
and they come across a clearing and there's a tiger and the first explorer starts backing
out and the second one takes off his rucksack and puts on um running shoes or sneakers if
you're in the us the first one says you can't outrun a tiger and the second one says i don't need to
i just need to outrun you and and the mistake that people make is that they think they need to be kim
kardashian yeah and have millions of followers um and and well i'm never going to do that well no
you're not but the the that that is the point that the thing is is that um percent of the people
on social so all you need to be is a little bit better than everybody
else and actually it doesn't take a lot to be a little bit better than everybody
else and and and um you know people are looking for
um people buy from people um and if you listen to um um
the pundits today is that after covert and especially during covert we're looking for human contact we're
looking for something more human we're not interested in the brand
because even if you take nike they use michael jordan to sell their product yeah so you know nike which is one of
the best brands known brands in the world you may like it or you may hate it but they still get michael jordan to sell it
yeah they still have a huge achievement there so what we're looking for is a human
connection and what you need to be doing as a as an e-commerce vendor is being on social and creating that
human connection um so for example um you call this podcast you know it's matt's podcast
it's it's if you call it your company name no one would tune in because they don't care well there's we changed it we changed
the name tim it used to be a curiosity podcast and then everyone was like what's all that about what's weird too why have you spelled
with the cake so it's like yeah let's just change the name call it the ecommerce podcast from edmonton kind of
says what it is on the tin yeah yeah yeah and what people what people want what we we want are relationships
with people and uh you know i i work in the world of
business to business and um the way i we generally see it is
in most cases what what happens is you know the salesperson that you're going to buy from
yeah if you buy a pair of shoes you probably don't if you're going to buy a bmw you will
know this the name of the salesperson because it's a considered purchase but people want to to build those
relationships with people so i mean in some respects this is just
old-fashioned common sense isn't it in their sense you build relationships with people people
buy from people um and you know get on well with people and you'll do well in life but
it's sort of i guess it's the location is there for you is there a platform that you prefer
and essentially or is there is it all six or one half a dozen of the either the the in terms of platform the answer
is always to go where your clients are um if you're bb then it would be start
off on linkedin um if you sell it then you need to be on twitter
and then you need to be on instagram um if you're bc then it's um um instagram
um facebook and probably tick tock now um so um they're the kind of the places
that you would need to look at obviously it depends on your your demographic um but there there's all the places but
um it is common sense but as we quite often find that it that with common sense it's not common and it's not sense
and and um so for example um if you take if you take my linkedin
profile a lot of the mistake that people make is that they they think that social is actually about interruption so
when i mean talk about interruption um advertising cold calling and email is all about interruption you interrupt me
and you broadcast your message yeah um and that's we all dislike that um and so a lot of
people think that social selling or social is basically i come onto um social i will interrupt me and then they
broadcast a message so this is where you get um people are sending you connection quests and then saying hey have i got a
great um set of tires for you or something um or they even do it now in connection um
requests um because they're probably even that lazy um and that isn't what social
selling about social selling is actually about a permission and a relationship so when you can it's not interruption
it's permission yeah in in effect what you're doing when you connect to somebody is you're giving them permission to end
up having a conversation with you now obviously if they you connect to them and they pitch to you
you're quite um uh you're quite in your rights to basically disconnect or even block them yeah um so
anybody who comes to me who pitches to me will always get blocked um and um because that's not
in my view the way that we should be using social what we do is that we need to be we use it to build a conversation with
people and have a relationship with somebody because of the the human connection but the other thing about
linkedin or any particular um uh social platform is that people see it
as a in effect a one-dimensional screen which is i post something and i
then sit down and pray that something happens rather than actually um and that's
usually fair is everybody's strategy i you know the common sense thing and it's not common is it i come across it and it just feels
like everyone's just put stuff out there because they feel like they need to put stuff on social it's not been thought through there's no
strategy or thinking behind it it's just like it's out there and hopefully it'll work yeah uh
yes i've had salespeople come to me and say oh yeah we we we do cold calling and we do emailing
and we do uh social essentially he said oh yeah yeah i come in the morning uh at and i put
something on social um and then i make some calls and it's like so would you why did you put something on social
i don't know i've just been told to super helpful yeah yeah marketing gave me about it's
like yeah but it's oh yeah but marketing told me to put it on there so it's you know it's official
yeah it's still um and um so you know it's it's the thing about
your social profiles if you're in a sales capacity or even a marketing capacity is that your it's you should see it as a
three-dimensional way of you getting business so your
your linkedin profile shouldn't be about your cv it shouldn't be about your company and
your products it should be about you as a person what's your belief systems yeah
what what is it you do in your spare time because what that does is that that brings you
closer to me if i know that you are a big film buff
and these are your your films i've got something or a reason to have a conversation with you yeah um and so um uh
your summary title for example is the most visible piece of um real estate about you anywhere in
the world it is now one of the things that um i mean i know we talked about it in the pre-show and it
it seems like a natural place to bring it up one of the things that stood out about you tim when we were looking for guests for the show
was your linkedin title now yes what it doesn't say is co-founder
and ceo no which is just super boring um yes
do you want to tell people what your title says because it it actually when i read it the first time i
thought i wasn't reading it right do you mean it just kind of stopped showing your tracks a little bit yeah it does yeah uh so my my summary
title so so your summary title is the most visible thing about you in the in in in the world because if you google
yourself on because google loves linkedin you'll see your uh picture photo if you have one yeah uh it will show um
and it will show your summary title yeah and your name um and so uh my summary title is
should have played quidditch for england which i just thought was fantastic now i've closed business on the back of
that now there's not very many people that can actually say their summary title has enabled them to
close business you know i'm sitting on this show probably because of it um and um uh it's
it's something that creates curiosity in people uh so the the piece of business i closed
i i asked the person you know so how did you find me said well actually you made a comment on something on linkedin and i saw that your title
was should have played quidditch for england um so i had to come across and look at your profile i just had to go and look
and see who this person was and then he said i read your summary and my summary is in effect a story
um uh of of par partly of my life and why i've got
that um and um he said after saw that he said i needed to contact you
and we've got um you know we've got sales people who um people basically go and and say you
know i want to connect um now how many you know most sales forces spend their lives running around trying
to have conversations with people and trying to get people to like them um usually failing and there's this all
this activity that goes top of the funnel which is which is basically happening um and they're trying to go around and have
these conversations we have a process that actually gets people to come and talk to salespeople
so they get this so so this person said i needed i wanted to have a conversation with you and talk
and they said it sounds really interesting what you're doing he said you know immediately he connected to me and i said well let's go
on a call yeah and then we went through the process and then actually that that closed yeah um but having you know moving from
uh a an environment where you have sales people trying to go out and have conversations to people
and and people are not interested to having a situation where people are actually going to sales
people and saying i want to talk to you that's transformation and that's
and that's the difference from just saying i'm just going to post something on social and hope something
happens to actually being in a situation where you're able to drive sales because people want to talk to you
so when you post content on social is the the id the reasoning the the idea behind
posting that content then it's not just putting it out there for just putting it out there say you have a
purpose behind it you have a reason yes and that is to drive conversation yes
so so the reason why sorry the reason why you do this podcast the reason why i do my
podcast is because the um people when they're buying things they're looking for an expert
yeah so if you sit in you know we've done some work with a waste management company and it's fascinating because you talk to
sales people and and they'll sit sit in front of you and they say uh there's nothing this i know
everything about waste management uh in fact i'm my speciality is waste management from hospitals syringes stuff
like that i'm brilliant at it there's nobody in the country that knows more than me about that
well that's really interesting you go to the linkedin profile and it says nothing okay so it's like so how where's the
evidence to so you know when you talk to a salesperson they go i don't know what to put in my linkedin profile
and they go tell me about your journey well yeah you know i've done this and i've done waste management for years
and i love it and i know it's kind of but you know i like to talk to people and it's like we're doing people a service getting
with the syringes and stuff like that i said you've just told me what should be on your summary profile oh what did i say well you just told me
your story of your life about why you love this and and what what you get from it and the fact that you you
actually like helping people and stuff oh yeah i supposed to do rather than i work for this company and
they are great um and we are market leaders which is if you look at the competition they all say that as well oh yeah well
yeah yeah i always joke actually with um it's a common thing around liverpool where i'm based at the moment you'd see
all the developments all the property developments every single one of them are luxury flats they're all luxury
they've all every single one luxury and i just smile i'm like
sure somewhere is going to come up with a better word than you know super deluxe super super dark that'll be
the next evolution what comes up and if i don't use the word luxury is it i do i mean but you're right it's not
standing out it's not making you know everybody's using it no one's no one's standing out with you
yeah and what what what you know we don't like sales people we we the whole great the great thing
about social and the internet is we're able to and the great thing about e-commerce is we're able to go on
and buy stuff without talking to sales people um and and so what we so anything to do
with sales it pushes us away but anything that you start doing about yourself your beliefs
um then then that brings you to closer now what i would say also is that um
there may be people that listening to this and saying well i i to be honest i think that um should have
played quidditch for england is childish i think it's stupid and that and and that's brilliant i'm
really pleased if they do that because if they met me they wouldn't like me and they'd never buy anything from me yeah it's a qualifying statement
so so i've basically so so we have all these sales people running around trying to talk to people that basically
will never like them yeah but i've already qualified out all of the people that went by from me so i
know if someone comes to me they probably think yeah it's a bit of fun i quite enjoyed that
yeah i bet he's all right i think you know it's a bit of a you know he even tells jokes on podcast so he's going to be okay
yeah so um um you know you you it's about your personality now you
may not like that particular title but you create a title that's that suits you yeah um and suits your beliefs and suits
your and this is about your why not your your what yeah so about your values isn't it it's
a yeah yeah yeah it is yeah so you know we've had people and said you know i'm a solo i'm i'm a serial entrepreneur so we went
on um linkedin and found that there was there was a million people without a title
so she was in fact one in a million there's um two in fact a title would have been better one in a million yeah yeah
there's um best-selling authors um there's uh sorry
best-selling authors and and um thought leaders
[Laughter] and do they all have the word creative somewhere in their title oh banter yeah
well the classic sales person is i'm a i'm an energetic tenacious salesperson we're all energetic
tenacious you are just the same as everybody else yeah and this is the problem since time since
time since time since uh you know beginning of time the problem that we have in sales is that
we're just another salesperson just another face not standard just another sales person
or we're just another website and you know we need to there has to be something that differentiates us um
and having it there is there is something that differentiates you it's just that that information has not been presented in a
way that brings that out yeah yes people yeah yeah we we often
we we often use an example of um there's a an insurance broker in um
in ipswich i think which if any if you're not from the uk it's in the middle of nowhere yeah yeah right
and insurance broking is not the the most um interesting of subjects um and you know
you could have things like you know insurance broker you know fall asleep you know so he has
a title um uh managing director of what i think is the best insurance brokers
in ipswich now it's not the best title but what it does yeah but what it
does you go actually i'm going to go and have a look at that yeah because i'm actually looking for an insurance broker in ipswich and
he may be the right person for me now all he needs to do is get one person
um uh because that's one person he's got over above you
yeah it's interesting isn't it and so
so if i'm if i'm sort of thinking about this and i'm thinking this is great
i like the idea of being active on social i like the idea of starting conversations i like the idea of
social selling social marketing um because why would you not right and um
what's joe put here someone's put in the comments i'm changing my title on linkedin and insta too should have done
princess diana's wedding makeup fantastic so let me tell you about joe
look at that plea please connect to me uh please connect with me yeah yeah i'm sure she will joe's lovely joe and i are just about to launch a website
together and um joe is fantastic love the bones off joe she's awesome oh wow
yeah she's she's a makeup artist and she specializes in doing makeup for ladies in their s and s and s and
great story great background did the makeup for princess diana did the makeup you know as to make up for who's who you
know all the celebrities is kind of on our list um and so i like this joey uh i'm changing my title on linkedin an
institute should have done princess diana's wedding makeup that's brilliant fantastic
very very good okay so um
kind of lost my train of thought with joe and princess done anyway it's um so what do we if we if this is something
that we want to do right if this is something that we we sort of want to get more active and more involved with when we talked in the prequel i asked
you the same question really and you came up with these sort of three pillars i said i was going to tell you that this was that's what you need to
ask me yeah yeah yeah i was going to i was going to start asking you questions actually you know yeah yeah so so the three
things that you need to do um you need to have um you need to have a shop window
um so some people call it a personal brand but it sounds a bit grand um at the moment i think as well
personal brand is what say an overused word it it is yeah um so um you need a
personal brand you need a network and you need content so your
your personal brand is is kind of what i've described already which is your summary title which is not about
your job title or something it's about your why yeah um your summary again it's about
your it's about your why not your company this this if you talk about linkedin there's room already
down in linkedin to talk about your company and what they do but again one of the things that we
teach people to do is is basically tell a story so on my linkedin profile if you go and
look at it there is a story from where i worked doing washing up at the royal oath royal oak
and and there is a village called upton snodsbury um and i and i worked there and and um
got promoted to uh doing bar snacks it's good it's amazing isn't it um and promotion yes from
from from peeling sprouts to doing bar snacks well the world was my lobster and um
and so um uh you know and you tell a story of all the things now
it's not about what you're um it's not what your objectives were it's not what you're um you know don't
write i went to this company and they're a bunch of idiots we've all done jobs where we probably
didn't work out but you must have learned something yeah so what is it that you learned in during that
during that job okay um and um and then also you know you've got things like recommendations get people to
recommend you um and don't write it for them i mean i wrote a recommendation for a mate of
mine and he said i can't he says is that what you think of me and i said yes you he he is like red adair of it projects
i mean you know they they parachute him in and he sorts them out um and he said he said he's and i said
yeah you know if anyone if anyone has a an i.t project that's going down the tubes they need to hire you um so um
yeah and you would be amazed what people write about you um and and that that is your profile
and uh it's your shop window and as i say if you're walking down the shops and there's nothing in the window or it
looks boring or it's salesy people just walk past and but if you've got something like a nice title people will come and
look at your profile and what you're trying to do is get them your profile is like your
website and get them to look at your profile and spend time there so a lot of people go well i only want
to write a paragraph because i can't be bothered to write more than paragraphs that's not about you it's about the person that's coming to read
it yeah think of it as a short window yeah yeah yeah and and the longer that they're spending time on your profile
they're not looking at your competitors yeah the next thing you need is a network so most people for example
on linkedin have their network is ex-colleagues and recruitment consultants
which is kind of interesting but it doesn't really get you much yeah so what you need to do is you need to put all of your
in effect put your territory online so all the people that you're trying to sell to all of your customers
all of the people that might influence uh your customers um people that um you respect
um and all people that um the great thing about network is that
those people know and love you and what they will do is that they hopefully
will propagate your content yeah so there's a lot of people so i may post content which gets
engagement but i get people
where you need to be okay so uh what happens is that you're
what you're doing is at your networks network and then you bring that in have i gone
quiet yeah sorry that uh you you're back now it it's sort of i don't know it's just been
a bit weird um okay you're jumping in and out you're doing that kind of thing okay right so let's start
so we've done our personal brands and you talked about building your network and having people who would
share and promote your content out on your network yes so so you're in effect selling into your network's network
okay and that's what you need to do what you're going to do is start pulling your networks network into your own network okay
um and um i'm looking at your face in terms of whether that um you're still hearing me yeah you know
i'm i'm very focused about right now this is my focus face yeah yeah okay okay right okay fine so so so for example um
again with the power of networks what happens is you know people will find that and um then you
have a conversation with them so for example um i someone shared it a piece of content recently i wasn't
even connected to her she's from mexico and we just had a conversation um and don't forget because just because
somebody is in your network you're not necessarily selling to them they may refer you one yeah because i
had someone basically coming to me some sales expert coming to me yesterday basically gave me a list of their products now i
actually had someone i was going to refer to her but because she gave me a list of products i thought you obviously don't
know what selling's about so you obviously don't know what relationship's about and what network's about so i'm not going to refer you
so she lost this out wow um so um so your your your network is you you
know they're saying is your network is your net worth it says you need to connect with people so
your network's network um i like that that's in think about your network's network um that's
that's sort of where you're reaching out to which is great um and they're going to refer you and sort of and i like to comment you know not
everybody in your network is ready to buy but maybe they are ready to refer um and i assume bringing it back to you
and your business you said you don't do any cold calling or any of that sort of advertising or your business is word of mouth
marketing this is your network referring you to their networks well there's there's various different ways
that we prospect so we will go out we will use social and um we will target certain
people um and um it may be that what we do is that we connect with them
and we do that in a non-spammy way so we don't connect with them and say i want to sell these because obviously they'll just block you
so we build a conversation with people or it may be that what we do is we go out and they're posting on social
what we do is we may like their stuff yeah um or what we do is that we um uh will say that's a really
interesting article and get them into a conversation yeah because what you're trying to do is uh
all with all this is start a conversation yeah and using social as a um as a way of of starting
that conversation and to be fair i i'm thinking about my linkedin profile there's um
out of all the hundreds of people that have connected with me over the last two months only one of them has actually tried to do that
just started okay everybody else was like um by my yeah but pretty much or
just you know they wanted another number on their follower account or whatever there was no there's not that real engagement and i
think it's quite fascinating um you know what you're sort of talking about there's a there's a there's a
there's a there's a problem at the moment there's a number of people that will go that will say oh yeah i can get you an additional connections are not
what you want what you need is a network and and the thing the next thing is content
and the thing about content is that there's two things one is that people will find you because of content
they're looking for an expert that they can that can help them um they're looking for um a person not a
corporate robot um and the the content also
enables you to keep your network warm because what you're you're you never
know when you might say do you know i i was on a podcast with that guy from matt in liverpool
he's connected to to somebody at um glaxosmithkline who i want to talk to
so i could go to matt say matt do you remember that podcast i did well i told a joke
um and you go yeah i said do you know brian at glacial smith car actually i went to school with him did
you do you mind having a conversation with him can you set up a call with oh yeah of course yeah i have no
problem and and that's the difference between you know if you go to somebody and go oh yeah i'm i'm tim hughes and they go i
don't know who you are so but we're connected on linkedin don't know who you are and that's the difference it you know the network and
the contact yeah um and again the the content is about inspiring and educating people
not necessarily saying um how great your company is so we did a an
experiment recently um with one of our clients um and we got the sales people to
to um uh to post their corporate content of which they got no engagement
um we then talked the salespeople to blog and we got them to post blogs yeah so this one guys posted a blog
about give you an example just words um and it's about
how in covert he's got an extra minutes a day because it takes him minutes to
commute um and he's able to see his children um he's got one baby i think you know one on three and one's
like it's in the cart and stuff um and um he said that's it's really great and he
last time we looked he'd got like likes so the average person on linkedin has
connections um that's times because it would have gone through their network
yeah um that's you know if you send that out through an email that that would be a big email list
yeah you know there's a lot of people that will have seen that content um and then what we've done is we've taught him to go through and say right
all of those people that have um uh made a comment um some will be in your network some
will be out of your network what that will do is that you've actually now got a reason to go and talk to them yeah so all the people that are not in
your network you've got a reason to go to them and say thanks for liking my article hope you enjoyed it
we obviously have something in common can we connect not salesy um and um
you'll probably get connection rate you've pulled them into your network
um all the people that have um uh that were already in your network have
liked it said we obviously have something in common why don't we go on the phone and have a chat
and and and immediately you're able to go through that and because they they've read something about you they
already think they know something about you and the content you're putting out there then is is is personal content it's
it's not salesy content it's just kind of it's content that you think your
network or your network's network's going to connect with so the guy that wrote the blog post about an extra you know hour and a half with
his kids well that's going to resonate with everyone that's got kids isn't it really absolutely yeah so one
of my team put something out on saturday um he's in aberdeen who's on the beach with his year old son
and he kind of said i'm with my year old son and we're we're talking about what's the future what is the future and
put that out and it's going combolistic um and um yeah so so if you put
corporate stuff out buy my stuff we're number one um no one's interested yeah um put stuff
about um about yourself uh put stuff you know i write about how to social sell so if
you you you you follow me on on twitter you come to my or connect with me on linkedin i i've i mean we've posted um over a
thousand blogs since we've been going in the last uh
nearly four years you know i've done over uh podcasts and it's all educational stuff
and you can learn stuff um i don't you don't need to buy anything from me it's all for free exactly the same with
this podcast this isn't about um selling your stuff if people are interested they're gonna look you up yeah they'll get in touch um
yeah yeah yeah yeah and and so uh and that's the power of content um we had a guy on it we did we we teach
people how to blog uh salespeople had a blog and we had this guy and he said i'm not doing it and we said why not he said i think it's
a waste of time we said we said um we'll give it a go and the thing is you can't clip him around
the ear because he's a um a black belt three down oh okay yeah yeah so
um you know by the time you you you get to slap him he's broken your arm and um and he sat down and he wrote this
thing and he said um um he said for christmas my wife bought me a um an apple watch
and he said um he said i didn't actually think i really wanted one but um i then started setting it up and i
kept all kinds of data you know i collect my heart rate and i collect my number of steps and uh i've actually come become pretty
um uh obsessed with the amount of data that i i clapped and he said and then i realized that
actually this is all about big data and how um big data can actually
transform the way that you you work but also transport the way that i i
i live my life anyway i really love my apple watch and i'm really glad that my wife bought it for me
now that's a very simple blog now he sells big data systems for an i.t company and what he's done is
he's weaved that into the the conversation the narrative yeah into the narrative so it's not salesy it's not an advert
it's something if you've got an apple watch i don't have one but if you've got one or a fitbit you know my um my partner she's always going on
about how many steps we've walked and stuff like that and all of a sudden we're going along and she's like we've done ten thousand steps
and and so you know if you you write about that something that that you um that you you that you understand
yeah um and it's kind of like um uh you know it's just simple way of
um of writing um and in fact all salespeople are some of the best communicators in the world
um i like it okay thank you it no it's good because i mean
one of the questions that you again just bring it back to e-commerce one of the things that i've noticed amongst
e-commerce startups is they try and be like the corporates they want their website to look like
you know amazon or they want it to look like ikea or whatever and they but their website looks bleak and cold
because of a lack of content and because of a lack of information and there's nothing about them and the thing that distinguishes i think
if you're doing an e-commerce business if you're starting up an e-commerce business the thing that i think you need to plaster all over that site apart from
the product is you and your values and what you stand for and your
beliefs and why you're doing what you're doing and how you plan on changing the world through this particular website and people will
connect with that and you can you know the there's a lady in our office who
buys um lights from a website a small business small family business
and michelle she's lovely and the reason she chose that company to buy stuff from was she followed
she followed someone on instagram uh who who worked there who kept posting pictures of their dog
yeah and it's and and now they have a and now whenever i buy that kind of
product i have to buy it from that website because you know that's what michelle insists i do
yeah absolutely it's fascinating isn't it and you and you can do this with e-commerce um
you can build your personal brand you can grow your network and you can share content about the products about what
you're passionate about joe um who wants to be you know princess diana's makeup artist she is brilliant at that and just
sharing that passion and that content and this is something you should definitely be doing right
not just the sales people but if anybody should be doing this sort of stuff people people by people and
what people want in the sales and marketing processes is is a human it's humanity that we buy
um and and i totally agree with you we we did we found some research recently where there was a um they analyzed websites
and the conclusion was they were all the same and none of them stood out and this
comes back to everyone's got the same type everyone's a best-selling author everyone's in there yeah yeah they're also using the same wordpress
um um shopify template yeah and um and
you know as an individual i've built up a following on on social uh from a corporate perspective we can't
get above followers because it's a company account um but people are interested in you
um and i quite often get people asking well should i share personal stuff well absolutely um you know
um you know i i you know if i share um pictures about where we're going and
what we're doing and and because it it's you know in amongst all of that stuff about social selling
you need to have something else you know here's a picture of me and bushy park these are me but you know we went
cycling last week we took the day off and we cycled into london to see if it was still there and um um and you know here's a picture
of me outside the parliament building and stuff and and it it may sound boring in
on a podcast but actually what it does it shows that you're a human being and it shows that you do
stuff and it shows that you've got interests people like it and as we know
they will do yeah yeah and and um back to the you know if they don't like um if you don't like dogs then you would
probably never you know you you the website's not for you yeah um company yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah so
um you know social is about about being yourself and being um and you'll find that that
will generate um that will generate business for you yeah that's great that's great listen
tim i'm aware of time um and i could carry this conversation on because i'm sure i could pick your brains and find out all kinds of good
stuff my last question for you um or
is there in sort of closing any any final wisdom or thoughts you have for someone who's in
e-commerce around this whole idea that maybe we've not covered yet um
uh i i i don't think so i i you know the the the the you know
they've got to be on social media and they've got to be themselves and they've not got to worry
that okay that if you think as soon as you try and make money from
social you've got the wrong mentality it's it's one of those things
in life where if you go on and be yourself the money will come
yeah and um i've seen a lot of people that you know
go on and say i'm going to be the next guru about this and then they disappear yeah um after about six months because
they're just not able to keep up with that um level of consistency and you just need
to be yourself and be consistent uh so be yourself be consistent show up yes
yeah show up yeah be where your customers are that's how you choose your social network yeah absolutely yeah
that's wonderful very good very practical stuff and actually i think i've come away from it just even
thinking about my own social media just kind of thinking yeah i can do this in a different way and do it better and i and i should crack on with it
how many um i guess for one of my questions for you tim is how many hours a day do you spend on social media i'm
just kind of curious um i spend all day in social media because that's that's that's what you do yeah we often get
this is a question um and um so there's two answers to this one is
um to make a success of it i reckon you need to spend minutes a day um
and remember that social media is free it's only your time that you're going to put in and you know we often get well i don't
have time for that well it's a bit like um new year's resolutions
we're all busy people and what we do every new year is we add things to the new to our business and what happens is we
don't do those things because we're already busy so you've got to take something off yeah
so you know this will only work if you stop doing something if you take something on and tony robbins and all of those people
will tell you that's that's what you need to be doing yeah um so um and you can't outsource it i've
tried that in the past no no it doesn't work it's not authentic and in fact that goes against the linkedin rules
um so um you can end up with with with nothing that's against everything that you've pretty much talked about tonight isn't
it in terms of being you and being authentic you never outsource that people buying people rather than a version of you
yes um so um uh but but the thing is that you know we
i don't have time for this which is you know this is the way this is modern selling this is the way
that we sell in in in you know we i remember going talking to a guy came on our course and said what'd you
do this morning he said i spent the morning cold calling i said how did that go he says well i didn't get any anything i
just left some um voicemails and i said what happened the voicemail she said they'll never ring me back i said so
you know maybe you need to drop something and maybe you need to drop that yeah and and wasting your time doing
that and actually concentrate on something which actually will work for you yeah you know so you know this is the way
sometimes social selling is called modern selling this is the way that people um buy now and this is where you need to
be from a selling perspective this is in in this is what you need to be doing from a selling perspective
yeah no that's great that's wonderful tim listen how do people get hold of you if they do want to reach out if they do
want to connect what's the best way to sort of touch base with you um so i'm i'm on linkedin um so i'm
timothy hughes um so timothy's t-i-m-o-t-h-y and hughes is h-u-g-h-e-s
um i'm also on twitter which is timothy under scroll hughes and um i'm on instagram as well
but my email is tim dlagnite.com
wonderful thank you so much jose's put a message here saying thank you tim she's on it thank you chad thank you
connect with me please and and anybody out there don't think that um you can't connect with me or
um you know but please send a message when you send a connection request saying you you saw me on matt's podcast
um thought i was amazing um and that's what we all did you can say if i was i don't mind
um but connect with me and say where you just put some context about where you you saw me it just helps because if i
get an awful lot of people connecting with me um and it just helps to sort through the
the week from the chaff but please connect with me yeah twitter linkedin you know happy great and don't forget my
book um so yeah we'll link to that actually social selling techniques to influence
buyers and change makers uh available worldwide can you show us i do actually it's funny i should say
that yeah yeah yeah yeah right next to me brilliant good plug definitely check out
tim's book i will link to that on amazon and i will link to all of the social profiles
uh that you've mentioned in the show notes so you can check those out on the website tim i just want to say a big thank you
really really appreciate you being here thanks taking the time to talk to us it's been great having you on the show
um and uh in closing joe has just popped up with another
comment she says i would never say the word i don't swear ask matt she swears a lot
anyway great to talk to you thanks so much really appreciate it thanks matt cheers
bye so there you go that was my interview with tim wasn't he great
uh and i like the banter between him and joe knowing them both they will get on very well let me tell you uh but yes it was great great uh insight
into social selling and so i hope you've got a lot out of it i've got a few things in my head that i need to do now to my social media
um and and get on that a little bit better uh and you know when i suggested that to
him he was nodding his head yes you do met i feel like there is things that i should be doing so if you're like me
and you've not quite done it because you you know what you've dabbled at it and you've not you've just kind of done what everybody
else is doing and it's not really work just listen again to the show go download the show notes get in touch
with tim and do it differently and start to stand out and connect with people and build those
relationships and let us know what happens we would love to hear your stories so all that's left for
me to say is thanks for listening make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast from the content is
free and we deliver it on a weekly basis direct to you so you can learn more and more about
e-commerce about how to grow and develop your own successful online business which is just
fabulous and fantastic make sure you also subscribe to us on facebook live because like joe you can join in the
conversation and connect with people which is always great uh just hit the notification button and
you will get that whenever it comes up it's been great chatting with tim uh i love this i love
uh chatting with people about ecommerce people who know an awful lot more about this whole topic than i do it's always
great i always learned something and i'm sure you did too make sure you stay tuned i'll be back very soon
uh with another ecommerce podcast got some great guests lined up uh do come and join us as we carry on
our journey into learning more and more about e-commerce all of that said goodbye for
now we will see you again very soon
you've been listening to the e-commerce podcast with matt edmondson join us next time for more interviews
tips and tools for building your business online