Giving yourself a title sort of defeats the purpose, especially when it is one of validation/trust. For instance I can read ‘Trust Agents‘ and the tell everyone I am a trust agent. Or I can sell services as a Social Media ‘Guru’ without really earning that title.
This is where your social media footprint steps in.
If you are something you don’t need a title to let everyone else know. This is the core concept behind what used to be known as ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing only recently been bumped by ‘Social Networking’.
For instance, every week I get at least 10 emails from my website Contact Us form from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies wanting to get me on the first page of Google using ‘White Hat’ methods.
First of all, I hate white hats. They get dirty too fast.
Here are the real issues as to why this bothers me:
- Someone came to my site, didn’t bother to actually get to know me or what we do, and now they want to sell me something without knowing my needs/pain points.
- Had they spent 1 second on my home page they would have known I actually sell SEO .
- Had they spent 2 minutes looking around they would have known a name to refer to rather than saying ‘To the webmaster’ in their email.
- If they were a legitimate company, they wouldn’t use a gmail email address.
You want to sell me SEO, fine, but consider this other approach:
- I was able to meet said company, go to their office, talk with them on the phone, see their site and some of their customers.
- They are now not only my SEO advisers but the partner we use for SEO.
The difference? The personal touch.
Maybe you don’t sell SEO (and if you do, please don’t email me – I’m good!) but regardless, this practice works way better for folks like me.
Be what you want to sell, then you’ll sell the crap out of it. And the best part? It sells for you.
