Social media serves as a vital tool in the realm of social selling. Still, it frequently raises questions among social sellers about the optimal strategies and how to navigate the constantly shifting terrain. Social selling is more than just offering products—it’s about constructing a sturdy bridge of trust.
Kristin explores the essential strategies and invaluable insights that can pave your way to success and ultimately impact your social selling business through the power of social media.
Let’s look at a few highlights:
- It’s not just about selling but building a relationship based on trust and credibility.
- One common mistake in social selling is focusing solely on your products. Trust goes beyond that. It’s about positioning yourself as a reliable source of information and assistance. Share your knowledge, experiences, and insights.
- Trust isn’t given; it’s earned. Multiple referrals are your path to building trust. One good referral sets the bar for your credibility. When customers have a positive experience, they return again and again.
- Offer solutions to problems, share valuable content, and engage in meaningful conversations.
Social selling is about more than products; it’s about building trust. By focusing on converting, engaging, and sharing valuable content, offering examples, and leveraging the power of referrals, you’ll build a bridge of consumer trust that strengthens your relationship with your audience. Trust is the currency of social selling, and with patience and authenticity, you can watch your social selling business thrive.
Introducing the Social Selling Leadership School: A 12-week Advanced Leadership Certification program for Network Marketers. This program was designed to give you everything you need to be a confident and transformational coach for the people you serve and help your team get massive results. This is the ONLY Coaching Certification program built specifically for the social selling market. Find out more and join the waitlist here!.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy:
Transcript for Episode #181: The Bridge of Consumer Trust
Kristen Boss (00:19): You are listening to the Kristen Bos podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Bos. As a bestselling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week, I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning.
Kristen Boss (00:56): Hey, bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This week I’m excited to talk to you about a topic I think is going to clear up some confusion you have around social media. A bunch of questions I often get and see in my dms or that people submit is they ask like, okay, how do I get people to better engage with my content, convert in the dms, buy from me. How do I go about this? When do I share about my product? How often do I share about my product to do that in my post? Do I do it in my stories? So today I want to share with you a concept I’m calling the bridge of trust, the bridge of consumer trust that you are always working to grow with every follower that comes across your platform and consumes your content. So a lot of times what I see people typically do when it comes to talking about their business or product is they talk about their, let’s say if you’re in wellness or beauty, they’re constantly sharing about their favorite shampoo, their favorite hairspray, their favorite weight loss products, whatever it is.
Kristen Boss (02:01): But what I notice is that they become incredibly myopic in the sense that they only talk about the products that they sell, and then they talk about other areas of their life. They might talk about, Hey, I’m enjoying cooking this meal, or I’m enjoying going and doing this thing. But when it comes to products they love, the only products that they rave about are the products that they make a commission off of. There is nothing wrong with you making a commission off a product, but here’s how that translates to your audience, that you only want to talk about a product that you make money off of. So they are less than likely to trust you off the bat. So this is what I call the bridge of trust. And how you do this is by becoming somebody who is great at multi referrals, talking about more than just the products you sell in order to earn their trust because somebody who doesn’t know you at all, because a lot of times we tend to think of when start your social selling business or your network marketing business, the first people that are consuming your content are people that know you On some levels.
Kristen Boss (03:06): They might have gone to school with you, your kids might be in sports together. You might have some things in common, but I’m talking about when somebody doesn’t know you at all and they are what we are going to call your true cold market, they don’t know you. They have no context about you, and so you have to earn their trust. And if all they see you talking about and the links you’re sharing is just about a product you sell, they’re less likely to buy from you unless you do something called the bridge of trust. And here’s how you do the bridge of trust. The bridge of trust is when you talk about more than just the products you sell. I’m going to give you an example from myself earlier this summer when I decided to just create a separate Instagram account for my health journey where all I was going to talk about, and I really just did it for fun for myself to just share, here’s what I’m doing, here’s what’s working.
Kristen Boss (03:57): And I really just did it as a form of accountability for myself. And I really liked it. And I wanted an account that was specifically and only about my fitness journey. So what I did was I would make posts that were very just helpful with like, Hey, here’s three things I’ve done that helped me lose my first five pounds. And people were like, Ooh, thank you. That was really helpful. And then in my stories, they would watch me go on my walks every day. They would watch me go to the gym, do my lifting routine, and then I would share like, Ooh. Then people started asking questions, what kind of shoes do you wear for walking? And be like, oh, these are the type of shoes I wear. And I would put the shoes in the stories and I would link them and share where they could buy them.
Kristen Boss (04:37): And then I would share why I chose those shoes over a different pair of shoes. And then I would share, okay, when I’m doing leg day or when I’m doing squats, I wear these shoes and here’s why I choose those shoes. Here’s the link. And if I would post an outfit of the day, I would just, and mind you, I make commission on none of these links. I was just like, Hey, this is where I bought this sports bra. This is where I bought these shorts. This is where I bought these socks. This is where I bought this fanny pack. And people just kept asking questions like, Ooh, what air fryer is that? Ooh, what protein powder are you using? And the more valuable I became to them was when I started sharing more and more resources. And because of that, I eventually did have some commissionable links.
Kristen Boss (05:21): And here’s the thing, because they would try, for example, I had several people come back to me. There was a specific sports bra I really liked. I shared about it, and I was like, oh, I got one in five colors. Here’s the link. It’s great. I had 10 people come back to me and say, seriously, those are the best sports bras. Thank you for referring them to me. They’re so great. And now what they have in their mind is they have evidence of my referral meaning something to them. They actually gained something valuable where they’re like, oh yeah, Kristen gave me that link for that sports bra. I loved it. Now there’s more trust in their piggy bank just through a referral that I don’t make money on. And then suddenly when they have one good experience, now they’re asking me for more referrals. Like, oh, hey, I tried those sports bra.
Kristen Boss (06:06): Oh, now you’re recommending that protein shake. Great. I’m going to go buy that too. Okay. And then they buy that and they’re like, it is just as good as you said. Now, I’m two for two. What I’m doing is I’m creating a bridge of trust through multi referrals of products. I love that. I don’t make a commission on your audience is no different. I want you to think about other things you use every day and why you love it and start sharing the links. You don’t have to make a commission, but you sure can. Now, I don’t know about your compliance with the company that you might be signed up for. You might have something that says that you’re not allowed to have affiliate links with other companies or Amazon or whatever. But here’s what I noticed you, when you build good referral rapport with your audience, you are naturally creating a bridge in their mind of like, well, if I’ve liked everything else they have referred to me, then I’m actually going to like the products that they sell because they actually like the products.
Kristen Boss (07:05): Now, I’m going to call this influencer distrust, where people now more than ever, because they see celebrities doing it, they see big influencers doing it where they’re partnering with these brands just to make money off the brands. And a lot of influencers have come under heat for this because people are asking, wait, do you actually really like this product? Or are you just recommending it or posting about it to make money on it? Do you actually use this? And with celebrities, unless it’s their brand, and even then sometimes I’m like, do you actually wear that skincare moisturizer that you sell or do you use something else? And this is just your business. You sell a different product. But a lot of times when you, I’ll never forget watching a Neutrogena commercial and Jennifer Garner would come on and water would be splash in her face and she’d use Neutrogena, and we’d all know, but do you wash your face with Neutrogena every day?
Kristen Boss (07:59): Probably not. So now there’s mistrust. I am questioning the validity of their referral about a product because what your audience wants to know is do you actually use it? Do you actually like it? Will I like it? Or are you just talking about this to make a dollar off of me? This is why a bridge of trust and multi referrals is so intensely important on your platforms is you need to have multiple connections and points of evidence for your consumer to build trust before they inevitably buy from you because they know you’re making a commission on the product. And I don’t think I might be alone in my opinion on this, but I don’t think people have a problem with you making money on a product that you like and that you refer so long as they will love the product and they will enjoy it, and it does what it’s supposed to.
Kristen Boss (08:49): What people don’t like is you making money off a product that you don’t use, that you don’t, but you’re just talking about because you make money on it. Now, you might be like, okay, but no, I am obsessed with my products. I love my products, and I don’t sell anything I don’t love. But your cold market doesn’t know that, and they might be hesitant to put money in your pocket when you haven’t earned their trust. So the best way to earn trust before they buy a product from you is through multiple referrals. This happens in everyday life too. Think about your friends, your family. If they’re like, you want to be a go-to referral person, it has to start with giving one good referral of like, Hey, that dentist you sent us to, we really like that dentist. Thank you so much. Now that I had that good experience, can you point me in this other direction?
Kristen Boss (09:37): So now again, we’re just stacking evidence that your word means something to your cold market. This is why the bridge of trust is so key with your content. So instead of you just talking about what you’re doing every day, and there’s so much value to this, and I was doing a keynote for this for another company where I was telling them, listen, that other account I created, I grew it to 2000 followers, and I’m not sitting there actively trying to grow that account. It’s grown organically through content that I create that is value driven, that has nothing to do with making money a business. It’s only about health. My journey, my weight loss, what’s been working for me and what’s been so fun is I’m getting messages all the time. Now, let’s see, how long have I had that account? I think I’m like 90 days.
Kristen Boss (10:29): The count’s been around for 90 days, and people message me probably once or twice a week saying, Hey, since I’ve been following you, I’ve lost five pounds since following you. Thank you. That means I’m actually really contributing and bringing positive change to their life and my referrals because I’m like, Hey, this sports bra, Hey, this thing. Hey, these trainers, this hack, I’ve learned, Hey, this theon I use Now, I actually ended up earning referrals by saying like, Hey, I’m not a trainer, but you can try over here. And I think I made over $2,000 in referrals in less than 30 days from opening my account just because I was talking about all the things I loved, and I built that trust with them. So all that to say and if, and I want you to hear that so that you know just how possible it is for you that once you become somebody who is good at referrals, once your audience sees you as somebody who’s like, oh my gosh, I love everything she recommends, that’s naturally going to translate over into your social selling business, along to the company that you are aligned with because you have been slowly building a bridge of trust with them through multi referrals, through products outside of what you actually make commission on.
Kristen Boss (11:45): Do this, you’re going to notice an increase in your engagement. You’re going to have people asking you more questions, and you’re going to notice a lot more conversions in your content. When you say, Hey, this weight loss shake I’m doing, or this detox shampoo I love, you’ll be able to just drop a link. Why? Not just because they have the evidence that your referrals are good, but you’ve actually conditioned your audience to buy things through the links you share in your stories so that when you finally do share like, Hey, this weight loss supplement regime, hey, this meal plan or this workout routine, whatever it is now, they are conditioned and used to just clicking on links in your stories because every link you have dropped up until this point has added value. They’ve liked it. And this is how you get people buying from you while you’re out doing things in your day because you’re just dropping links in your stories being like, Hey, here’s something that’s valuable.
Kristen Boss (12:45): Here’s something that’s valuable. And inevitably in their mind, they get to a place where they no longer decipher like, oh, well, that link, you make money on that link. You don’t, and I’m not going to buy from that link. They’ll just be like, every link you’ve ever dropped has been valuable to me. Therefore, I’m going to buy through your link and you are going to become somebody that they trust to buy products from. You do this consistently. You’re going to notice an uptick in your engagement and your purchases, and you’re going to have a lot more fun talking about more than just your products, but talking about all the products that improve your life and make your life easier, or those life hacks just share about it, even if it’s like a kitchen knife. It doesn’t have to be this fancy thing. Also, don’t be afraid to start an Amazon storefront. It’s such a smart way to also diversify your income, and it doesn’t take away from your social selling business. It adds to it. So I just wanted to give you that encouragement today, that little hack that I know will make a big difference in your business and weeks to come. We’ll catch you in the next episode.
Kristen Boss (13:53): That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to kristenboss.com.
