Road rage and social selling

Have very little to do with each other except in one way.

Isn’t it easy to erupt with anger in a vehicle when someone cuts in front of us or commits some other misdemeanour? For some reason the fact we are safe in our vehicle and incubated from the world makes us act very differently to how we would act otherwise.

Imagine the equivalent situation but without the cocoon of a vehicle. You are walking on a street and someone steps out in front of you, not really paying attention, and you almost collide. What happens? Both of you say “Sorry, pal!” or something similar and go on your way with no residue of anger. The human interaction makes all the difference and we readily give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Being isolated in our vehicles seems to change all that and we can react badly to the slightest thing.

How is this related to selling? Well, face to face selling and social selling should utilise the same approaches. What works offline should be the case online even though the medium is different.

When we meet people in the real world, even in a B2B sales environment like a networking meeting, we do the human stuff first. We are friendly without being intrusive. Although we do not hide why we are there - to do business - we know not to jump in with a pitch, especially in a networking situation where we do not yet know if a person is right for our product or service. Instead we ask questions and build rapport, We mention what we do and how we help but then gauge the level of interest before explaining further. That way we don’t waste time pitching to those that are not going to be customers and we don’t burn bridges not yet built with those that might.

So why, when separated by cyber space and our office walls, do many people act differently? Why do they feel it’s ok to indiscriminately reach out to anyone, whether they fit the customer profile or not? And why do many start with the pitch that alienates even those that might be interested if the approach were better?

I think it’s the same reason we manage to behave much worse in our cars and vans than on the street. We forget that we are dealing with people who are just like us because we are not in close proximity to them.

It may always be a challenge when driving as we are acting in the heat of the moment but marketing ourselves isn’t an impulsive activity. It’s done with thought and planning, or at least it should be. Once the penny drops about who to reach out to and then how to approach them, there’s no excuse for premature sales pitches unlike the sudden rage in the car.

If you’d like to find out more about how to do this, we’d love to see you on one of our training workshops where you’ll find out how to find your ideal customers on LinkedIn and then how to start the conversation. Click here to register for details of future half day courses.

And if I accidentally pull in front of you on the road, please be nice!