Just this week, I sat down to chat with Profiling & Communications Specialist Alan Stevens as a guest on his broadcast. For the next 35 minutes or so we discussed a few different subjects and one of the things we covered was how people build relationships in business. Because right now, how you do this is going to be massively important looking ahead…

As it stands, people everywhere are re-thinking their business strategy. Re-thinking how they market themselves- and rightly so, if you ask me! To be blunt, it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic and mass shut-downs for it to happen but hey, people were busy going about their daily lives- and I get that. The reason betting is such a lucrative industry is because we can’t predict exactly how the future is going to go at the best of times! In my case, around this moment in time I’d expected to be up in Queensland attending several of our thriving bX groups while catching up with colleagues and old friends. Yet instead, here I am-

In place of being more or less grounded, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a tonne of online meetings, with plenty more on the way. Referrals are coming in left and right and (if I may say so) I’ve been giving plenty out as well. I can spend more time just going through my referrals list and connecting people then I do in the actual meetings. I’ve been feeling like Santa Claus!

“Ho-ho-ho…Who wants a referral?”

What this has all made clear to me, however, has been quite positive: whatever else is going on in the world, there are hundreds (thousands? Tens of thousands….millions?) of people out there who are keen to talk, keen to keep the wheels moving, keen to drum up new business, plan, act and succeed.

Going back to my catch-up with Alan, it’s reminded me that (for many of us) now is not a time to be panicking. Now is the time to be planning.

So if you’re going to do this, you want to make sure you have a solid plan and one that’s going to pay off in the long-term. Now is the time to set yourself up for the next 12 months- 5 years- the rest of this decade even!

I’m not saying that only planning for the next 3 or 6 months is a fatal mistake, but any gains you enjoy will be short-lived. When you strategise under the premise of getting sales ASAP rather than attracting top value customers, testimonials and referrals, you’re selling yourself short- and you risk attracting the wrong kind of people into your business. Let me explain it this way:

Years ago, I read a friends’ copy of ‘The Game‘. Written by music journalist Neil Strauss, it was his first-hand account of delving into the community of pickup artists (P.U.A’s). Essentially, the pickup community is (was?) a bunch of guys who had made seduction into a fine art. Something they regularly studied, practised, discussed in person and shared reports of their success online. I learned about terms like “sarging”, “negging”, “peacocking” and to be fair, Strauss wrote a genuinely engrossing account start to finish.

Now for a lot of younger, more introverted or ‘dorky’ men, the ability to attract most girls you desire would (at first) seem like an ultimate superpower, wouldn’t it? Surely by the end of this book, Strauss and his colleagues were happily living the life of a celebrity, without needing to learn an instrument or appear in a single film. Living the dream, you might say?

But instead, this wasn’t the case. Here’s why:

The problem with P.U.A (at least as it’s presented in Strauss’s account) is that there’s so many false premises involved: memorised lines, ridiculous outfits (seriously, image search ‘pickup artist’ and take a look. You want to dress like THAT?), routined interactions, in many cases sidelining the rest of your life’s ambitions and pursuits and all for what? What is the holy grail of doing all this?

One-night stands.

Short-term relationships.

Maybe long-term relationships that began like a dream yet soon wear you down as you’re torn between trying to maintain the facade you snared them with, or letting your guard down only for her to realise she fell for an image. And who’s the bigger fool, then?

The thing is, I read ‘The Game‘ 5 years before I first went into business. Yet I’m guessing that (like me) you’ve seen the same approach in business, too:

– People pushing for the quick sell

– People whipping up a buying frenzy with their big, audacious promises but then failing to deliver once the sale is done

– People basing their entire selling premise on that one thing they do but not giving you the complete picture

The thing with these operators is that while (usually) they deliver on their selling premise to some degree, the job is far from done- or done properly at the very least. Because it’s not enough just to rank #1 on search engines if you aren’t managing the rest of your online presence so you continue ranking well and attracting new leads. Picking up new leads and customers counts for little if they’re here today, gone tomorrow and you’re left looking for the next one.

A truly successful long-term business strategy is built upon valuable relationships, communication, ongoing engagement and trust.

Read that back again- and slowly. Let that guide every marketing decision you make, because it always stands true.

See, you might sell to a lead straight away, or it might take a year before they buy from you. But regardless, you want to keep them in your loop. You want to maintain an ongoing connection with them. Do that, and you’ll unlock true value in your business. The better you do this, the more valuable your business brand perception is, and the less time you need to spend chasing up new leads.

Your most valuable customers, best referrals and strongest testimonials usually come from the people who know you well. The people who’ve gone the distance with you. And it’s much harder to find these people if you approach your online communications like a P.U.A.

Like I said at the start, right now is the opportune time to be planning and adjusting your existing online marketing strategy. However, now is not the time to go chasing a “quick fix”. Instead, this is your chance to produce something people begin to value more and more as time goes on. The beauty of doing this is, as you establish this sort of connection with your leads, customers and referral partners, the workload required to attract new customers becomes easier.

Because nothing sells you like word of mouth and your professional reputation.

This is why at Scribe, when we sit down with clients to implement a strategy, we’re always thinking about what’s going to get the best results for them on a long-term basis. We understand the job doesn’t end with the name of our client being ranked #1 on Google this week, or a hit-once marketing campaign. It’s about what comes afterwards- it’s about setting your business up to thrive in the coming 6 months- and beyond. It’s about playing the long-term game.

On top of that- everything we do is backed by our Big 3 Guarantee

So if you’re keen to develop a new strategy that sets you up to enjoy long-term results and reap the benefits when our economy rights itself once more (as it will), then let’s talk about how we can make it happen.