You Can’t Build Relationships in 20 Minutes

13 | Posted In Marketing by David

This guest post is written by ZK. He blogs at WebTrafficROI . You can also follow him on Twitter.

The other day I was talking to someone who found me via Twitter, he wanted to add me to Skype – and I said, why not? So I gave him my username to Skype.

So we started to chat a bit, about our blogs and just showed each other our blogs. He had a quite nice blog internet marketing blog, definitely one I wanted to check.

We continued to chat and it went like that for some time (20 minutes or so.)

Then he showed me a product he had made. It was a Twitter product, literally a product that could give you more followers on Twitter. I thought this might be something that I wasn’t interested in but he kept talking about it. I asked him if he could explain, in a few words, how this tool could give me more followers.

He said: “The tool searches the Twitter timeline and follows a lot of tweeps that write about the keyword you choose.”

Then I responded: “Hmm, okay.. But what about all the spammers?”

He said: “We have a filter that sorts, and should filter all the spammers away.”

I responded “How is that done? How can I be sure that I won’t start following a spam account?”.
He said: “I don’t know. I’m not the coder.”

Damn. Isn’t it his product? He should know how it sorts the spammers away.

He could have responded in another way… telling that he didn’t know, but that he had tried it himself and it definitely works.

I think it’s ridiculous that you are trying to sell something, but literally you don’t treat your customers in the nicest way you could. Plus, just asking for a Skype username, chat a bit, then start selling?

Build Relationships & Trust

This is a thing you always should do. Build a relationship. It is really important to build a solid relationship and that can’t be done in 20 minutes. If you have a solid relationship the, other person wants to listen to what you have to say and trusts you.

Trust is important when selling something. If the potential customer doesn’t trust you, you will never make the sale.

When you have chatted and interacted a few more times, the person trusts you and if the product you have got is interesting the person might want to buy.

Don’t persuade too much. Don’t force the potential customer to buy. Tell him about this cool product you’ve got and that you think it’ll be a great thing for him to explore – maybe give him a free chapter if it’s an info-product.

Just treat potential customers as if they were customers.

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  • http://twitter.com/jamesdelong James Delong

    I agree with building a relationship first and foremost. Before I even remotely talk about what I do I like to know more about the other person and find out what they need before I tell them what I have. (I may not have anything for them and I am fine with that, building a relationship is worth more than a quick sale)

  • http://twitter.com/bluepop13 Eric

    You've got to build a good solid relationship if you ever want to “make it” in my opinion. You trust a store because you've bought quality products. You buy something from a friend because they are your friend and you trust their opinion and their ideas and such.

    I would think that you should do whatever it takes to make sure you answer every question the person has about your product or product you're promoting that helps them and not just tries to sell them. If they want it they'll buy it.

  • http://hotblogtips.com/ Keith Bloemendaal

    I am not sure I agree 100% with you on this one, while in this particular case I do agree because he is selling something that is social media based. But I sell products everyday from an ecommerce site, and rarely do I build a “relationship” with the customer. Usually I never speak to them again after they purchase (my products aren't repeat purchases).

    Is it important to build relationships in certain niches, absolutely. Unfortunately, those relationships sometimes become null as soon as you begin to charge for your product or services. Sometimes relationships can get in the way of business…

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Dude, been awhile. Hope things are well. Doing a meetup in Ybor next week, maybe you can come out?

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Yeah, that's a different business model. Price matters more than relationship at that point.

  • http://website-in-a-weekend.net/ Dave Doolin

    Keith, I'm paying really close attention to how you're adapting from B&M to online here.

    The big problem I see is that “Relationship” is assumed to mean a fully tit-for-tat interaction. And that ain't so. But I'm not inclined to argue about it.

  • kenharperii

    Hi David!
    I think that if your are using social media to find your potential customers, you need to build some sort of relationship in order to covert them from acquaintances to customers.
    I concede that for one-time sales, you need need less of a relationship, but you at least need to have their trust that the business will deliver what the advertisement said; that a product or service will work as stated.
    But, for businesses that want repeat visitors and customers, as you said, you need to build more of a relationship.
    Thank you for sharing your helpful insight.

  • http://hotblogtips.com/ Keith Bloemendaal

    I can agree with that, and I had a very detailed debate with a marketing professional I know about this and I understand that there are many different “relationships” in marketing. Maybe I took it literally :)

  • renelda01

    Indeed you cannot build relationship in 20 minutes. The world we live in is not the same. Some people have motives behind things in life. Unfortunately you can't trust anyone. The good thing is you call him out and he could not backed up his product. Your articles are concise and motivating to a newbie like me. I am interested to check out your meet up in Ybor next week.

  • renelda01

    Indeed you cannot build relationship in 20 minutes. The world we live in is not the same. Some people have motives behind things in life. Unfortunately you can't trust anyone. The good thing is you call him out and he could not backed up his product. Your articles are concise and motivating to a newbie like me. I am interested to check out your meet up in Ybor next week.

  • Kenton

    I’m usually right on page with you David, but since you’re busy with your daughter… I think relationship has more to do with intention than with time. I have met people in my life that I felt an instant deep connection with and others I have known for years and have no idea why we still speak. If the intention to connect is pure with no ulterior motive except to be of service, a relationship can grow very quickly.

    In your example it seemed pretty clear the motive was to sell you or gain your endorsement. That’s OK if it’s made clear – but if it is masked as an attempt at ‘relationship’, it’s penalty box material. I sense you have found a healthy balance – with the clear intention of helping other bloggers be successful and being clear when you are promoting.

  • http://www.junoblinds.co.uk/roman-blinds Roman Blinds

    Good pointers here David, thanks for describing a bit all these, sometimes building relationships takes more than we can estimate.

  • http://www.fashionblinds.ie/ venetian blinds

    Online relationships are no different to normal ones. They take time to establish, they are built on trust and each party must contribute something to it. Creating a media page and expecting relationships to build themselves is naive.