287 Be The Expert

<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">“You are who Google says you are” is a quote from Timbo Reid, the host of the “Small Business Big Marketing” podcast which I follow.  His point is people check us out before they meet us, using search engines like Google.  In sales, buyers will also peruse our company website, search us out on Google and probably look us up on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  What are they going to find there?  Are we in photos on Facebook, doing something stupid or embarassing, fully fueled by copious amounts of alcohol?  Are we conscious enough of how our personal brand is being perceived?  Have we got business enemies who are posting damming claims about how we didn’t pay them or how we ripped them off.</span><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">Our lives in sales today are open books.  We can’t miss the point that we need to control what gets written in the pages of that book.  If you have Facebook posts that are not consistent with the professional image you want to portray, then delete them all.  If it is really bad, delete the whole thing and start again.  When we look at the photos of you in your profile page, is it you with a straw hat and a cocktail in hand, in some sand and surf setting, rather than you in a suit?  Is your LinkedIn profile some pathetic, indulgent job resume?  Are you raging against the other political party on Twitter, upsetting the other fifty percent of the population, including half of your buyers?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">Personal branding in sales is gold.  Before we even get to have the meeting with the client, we want to create an image in their mind of someone who is serious, trustworthy, reliable, expert, credible, friendly and easy to work with.  Unfortunately, today, this can create itself and morph into something we don’t want to project to clients, unless we step in and take control of our public image.