A friend was blogging about social selling. He was getting fed up with the way people seek to establish contact with him, to then immediately move into selling mode.

Selling wasn’t his problem. It was how the effort is being entertained. (Sorry the article is in German).

People are reinventing networking in the hope to establish a shortcut for their business. Social distancing is making people’s social media inboxes attractive. Once it is opened, people start to use outdated selling techniques. They continue to use the same methods people used with printed mass mailing. Bots make it easier to invade inboxes and thus people come back to the methods that seemed to work in the past. At a lower cost than in the past. A few clicks open the door.

They hoping that having a direct connection into an inbox will create attention for their messages. To immediately abuse it.

The way this works is based on the assumption that selling is about manipulating the customer into buying. Or persuading as they would say. The idea behind such relationships is, that the other person doesn’t know well enough how to decide and that it is ok to have an opinion for them. While both may factually be true, the idea that one can act on it isn’t.

That’s where trust is lost. That’s where commitment is lost.

Whenever someone decides for others it is one-sided. It is letting people off the hook to decide for themselves. And someone who doesn’t actively decide for himself will need much more support to engage if he engages at all.

Mass mailing may have worked for products, that is when the point was to get the customers money.

It doesn’t serve well when the work to be done requires a relationship.

That “everybody” does it should not be understood as proof that it works or is adequate.