How To Sell On Social Media Without Selling

I have been getting so much feedback from my post last week about passive branding. Oftentimes, we treat things as common that are normal to us, but other people are like, "Whoa!" "Wow." "Oh my gosh." This is what happened with passive branding. Passive branding is something that I've done for a while. I talk about it in classes, but a lot of people haven't got to sit in one of those.... I wanted to break it down for you guys, the value of passive branding. Passive branding is a way to sell without making people feel sold to.

Passive branding is a way for me to sell myself without having to just overtly sell myself. I was thinking this morning, what are the big four? I'm working on a class for passive branding because the feedback has just been so great. I've been thinking about what I would teach and how I would do it. This is what I've begun to come up with. 

#1 - It allows you to covert sell.

The first thing that passive branding does is it allows you to covert sell. It allows you to be in undercover sales mode because you can remind people about what you do for a living, what you did today, or what happened yesterday. You can wrap it around a story, something you learned, or whatever it might be. You get to covertly sell.

For those of you that really just love sales or you want to be in sales mode all the time, this is how you can do it. Guys, I'm telling you, we frustrate people so much when all we know how to talk about is our business. We've got to get a little bit deeper with people, which we'll jump into in a minute. I love that in passive branding, I can say, "Guys, I was on a coaching call with one of my clients yesterday when blank happened." I just reminded you that I was coaching someone. You could say, "Guys, I'm sitting in the driveway of a home I just finished showing, and blank happened." So you're reminding people, you're a realtor. You're in the driveway of a home that you just showed to some buyers.

People know what you do. They just forget you exist.

Remember this, remember this, remember this, remember this. People know what you do. They just forget you exist. For most of you, you either don't post enough or you post only about business stuff so you've become such white noise to people. Then for some of you, you're so fearful of all of that stuff, you just do nothing. People don't forget what we do. They forget we exist.

We can’t be naive enough to think that they're just going to remember us, right? "Oh man, everybody knows what I do. Everybody knows I'm in real estate." Guys, people's lives are crazy. People's lives are busy. People's lives are full of chaos. If we think that because eight months ago y’all had coffee, that you’re first in line, you're not. When that moment of need arises, they're going to end up on social media that day and they're going to come across one of their friends. Even though that might be their third favorite friend and you were number one, that person happened to be right where they needed to be in that moment.

If our goal is to just have new clients, then we should only be talking about your business, but if our goal is also to get repeat clients and get referrals, not just one referral but ten referrals, we've got to stay in front of people for the right reasons. The person that you sold something to six months ago, they don't give a crap about your business content because they just bought something from you six months ago. This is why the value is in expanding that and getting into more opportunities than just “businessy” stuff. This is where we start. Passive branding allows us to do covert selling.

#2 - It forces us to put value first.

The second thing that it allows us to do is it forces us to put value first. Because now if Coach Kyle becomes the passive part of the video, well that means now we actually have to use our brains a little bit harder and come up with genuine content. We've got to come up with genuine ways to create value for people because it's so easy to just hide behind what we do. It'd be so easy for me to just hide behind giving social media tips and that's all I do all day. When I force myself to start leveraging passive branding, I've got to get a little bit deeper with my content and open it up a little bit more. That's a huge piece of this process.

Start here…what questions do you get asked most regularly about your business and what questions do you wish your future clients were more concerned with? Each of those questions should be its own educational type video. (you’re welcome) :)

#3 - You (SHOULD) never run out of content!

The third part, my favorite part, is you never run out of content. Guys, hear me out…The reason so many of you struggle with content is because you don't know how to talk about anything other than real estate or mortgage or whatever it is you sell. Because of that, you think deep down inside, "Man, who really wants to watch this?" The answer is more people than you would think because honestly, they want more of you (I promise).

Your people aren’t just considering buying your product/service…they are buying you! There are a ton of people out there that sell what you sell. They've got plenty of people to choose from. They're going to choose you for far more than just the accolades that you have inside of your industry. They’re going to choose who they trust. Period.

#4 - You let people connect with your heart.

There are 1,000 social media experts. There are 1,000 companies that do marketing. So if somebody is going to choose me, it's going to go deeper than just, "I thought the proposal looked good." They're investing in me. In my knowledge, in my heart, in my character, and in my integrity. The same is true for you. When we start leveraging passive branding, it opens up what we have confidence in talking about.

You can do a video in the carpool lane and then reference where you just came from. "Hey guys, I wanted to jump on while I'm waiting for little Suzy and I wanted to talk about whatever." Now you are combining the business side with the mom or dad side of you. This is the power of passive branding.

Let’s think about this question for a minute... "Do you dare to be authentic even if it raises eyebrows?"

With this question, I'm assuming we would be talking about potential topical issues. We may be talking about politics, religion, race, or any of the big ones that tend to be fire starters for people. I used to just be anti…Don't talk about that stuff on social media, ever period, but here's where I've transitioned to.

You just have to know that if you publicly align, for or against the president, you are potentially cutting your audience in half. We live in a world where people would say, "Oh, you hate the president. I'll never work with you. You love the president. I'll never work with you." Right? We don't have the maturity to go, "Oh, you believe differently than me? No big deal. We don't have to agree on everything."

I have so many friends that agree differently than me. We do not agree on certain subjects. Who cares? I have friends that are atheists. Well, I love Jesus so much, but that doesn't make me love them less or trust them less. You have to know, personally, do I feel passionately enough about something that I'm okay with losing some people by speaking publically on a certain topic? That was a line that I had to draw with my relationship with Christ.

Early on in my career, people used to always say, "Kyle, you cannot make it on the speaking circuit talking about God. It just doesn't work, man. It offends people." I had to make this decision and say, "You know what? It's worth it to me." Now, politics, it's not worth it. You will never see me talk publicly on Facebook Live or on Instagram about politics. It's just not worth it to me because it can get too divisive. Again, I love everybody. I don't care who you voted for. I don't care what your stances are on all the different things, but a lot of people do.

You just have to know the cost of what you're considering doing. What I don't want is for you to go off on something, it offends a bunch of people, and you're like, "Man, I can't believe that happened." I already told you. You can talk about some of those things, but be polite and authentic in the way that you do it. There's a difference between me disagreeing on a stance and calling people that are the opposite of me, morons or idiots.

I think this is why I can talk about Jesus and I don't offend anybody because of the way that I communicate. I'm not trying to shove my relationship with God down people's throats. I'm not trying to use the Bible to prove to people how wrong they are or how right I think I am. I'm simply living out my personal relationship, and I think that's why it sits well with people.

Those are just some things for you to think about. The most important part is people can connect to your heart. This is what we're missing in sales if we’re not careful. I believe that this is the difference between people using you once or referring you ten times over.

But when we don't connect with people's hearts….we can tell people that we care about them. We can say in our business, it's not about transactions, it's about people, but actions speak louder than words. If we have not figured out how to connect to people's hearts, I believe that they are on a ticking clock to leaving us behind.

We are on borrowed time with people when all we think our advantage is that our service is better. It's not. Someone's going to come along with a better service, a cheaper service, a faster service. If you haven't figured out how to align yourself with them or how to tether your heart to other people, they will quickly move away from us to the next best thing in their mind. This is where the real power is. This is why most of my content has nothing to do with what I literally do for a living.

Talking about business is safe. It's so easy, right? There's no potential for condemnation. There's little opportunity for somebody to disagree because it's just business, right? It's mostly based on fact. Here's a house that I'm showing. There's nothing that can be set against that, but the minute I live out my faith on Facebook Live, well, now I'm giving people the opportunity to come against me. But guys, guess what? That rarely happens. If you are already feeling like you're starting to do a good job of this, don't be satisfied there. What can you do to take it to the next level? What's that one thing that you've been saying no to because it's uncomfortable?

I just got a new bracelet that says, “Pursue Discomfort.” This is how I try to live my life. Pursuing the things that naturally, I want to give the Heisman to, right? That naturally I want to go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. That's uncomfortable. I'm not down with that." That's where I'm trying to run towards. I believe it's going to help 2021 be the greatest year of my professional career ever, and also of my personal life because of the way I live it out on social media.

So, I hope this has been helpful. If you guys have questions, reach out to me. This is it, man. This is the key to doubling your income in 2021. You guys are already good enough at the business part. Now it's time to add the hard part, which is this. I love y'all.