How to Increase Sales—and NOT Feel Salesy
I ask ALL my podcast guests the same question, “Which do you think is the most important for sales—SEO, storytelling, or social proof?” …But what is my answer?
You’ve heard what “they all say” in response to this question, but here’s my hot take… (Ok, I can’t actually reveal it here, because then you won’t listen to the episode 😂) What I can share is this—making sales can be a way simpler situation than what we’ve been doing.
With this ONE thing, you can make sales feel good! And not just you feeling good doing the sales & marketing stuff, but your client feeling amazing doing the investing part. You can increase your visibility, do one task instead of 500 for all your social media channels, and you can finally stop feeling salesy. (That’s a pinky promise!)
Topics covered in this podcast episode:
The 3 marketing techniques that build Know Like Trust—fast!
The easiest way to improve your sales (skills and numbers).
How you can implement these selling techniques ASAP.
Don’t forget you can submit a question that will get answered in an upcoming podcast!
Recent Case Studies:
Links & Mentioned Resources:
Related Episodes:
SEO is a Soulful Experience for Entrepreneurs
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome back to the Short and Sassy series of the Basic B Podcast. I've got a fun one for you today. I ask every single guest that comes on the show this one question, but I haven't gone on the record yet with my thoughts and my opinions on it. So that would be fun if I do that. And of course the question that I'm talking about, which happens at the beginning of every interview is “Which do you think is the most important for sales—SEO, storytelling, or social proof?”
There are no wrong answers. There will never be a wrong answer! So I just also want to go on the record saying that, but this is my thought. And of course there's a bit of strategy behind it. Of course there's thought and intention behind it, which is also really interesting because authenticity, intention, and thoughtfulness, these are things that many guests have brought up in their answers. And I love that. I, if you go back to, I want to say it's SEO, it's a soulful experience for entrepreneurs or soulful journey for entrepreneurs.
however I titled that, in that episode I go into, those questions that I ask at the beginning of working with clients. Who do you wanna help? How do you wanna help them? What do you wanna be known for? Because that helps me inform the rest of the project with me working with them. It's really important to be thoughtful. It's very important to really be true to yourself and be authentic throughout all of these pieces, SEO, social proof and storytelling. And...
being intentional with everything. It just, it weaves its way through each of these pieces. So I just want to point that out. Now, it also is important to think through that different people in your audience are going to be coming across your content in different ways, in different places. So that also plays a role in these three pieces and how they impact your sales. All three pieces, SEO, storytelling, and social proof, they all go hand in hand with building that no-like trust.
factor, especially with strangers, but also with people who've been in your world for a little bit. Because, I don't know about you, but whenever I'm thinking of investing money in anything or time in anything or effort in anything, my first question is, is this worth it? Is it really going to be worth it? Am I going to get out of it what I'm hoping to get out of it? So people are going to be thinking that even if they've known you for a while, even if they've hung out on your email list for three years, even if they've known you on Instagram for a year.
Brittany Herzberg (02:31.498)
that question still comes up. So I also don't know if I, I don't think I've shared this at any point. I feel like I just had this epiphany yesterday, but I also had like a deja vu moment, so I could have had this thought before, but I digress. What I want to share with you is on the topic of know like trust, each of these pieces plays into know like and trust. So here's what I mean.
know is given to you by way of SEO. someone gets to know you because you show up as an answer to a googled question because you're showing up on their feed somehow. Storytelling builds that Like factor because we really get to you know show us showcase ourselves show clients potentially show how we work and all that kind of stuff. and then social proof builds that Trust factor which is really critical.
On that note, let me go into each of these because my answer is that I feel like all three are important for sales. All three need to be there in order for you to have sales in the easiest possible way. Easy on you, easy on the client, everybody feels good, all that kind of stuff. So I'm going to go into each of these pieces a little bit more.
Remember, SEO is helping us build that know factor, someone getting to know us, someone learning of us. SEO gets the right people to your digital door, which is really important. We don't want just anyone. I don't necessarily want people to come in and just be like, oh yeah.
SEO gets the right people to our website, to our profile, to our place online. And that's really important because I don't know about you, but I really, sure I would love to help everyone, but there's only one of me and that's just not possible. I really want to help the people who have been ignoring SEO, who know that they need to tackle it, but they want it to be done in a fun way, in a not dry, boring, technical, talking jargon over their head way. So I make sure to say that. I love working with people who are solopreneurs and who also, you know, other people who have a team that they work with.
Brittany Herzberg (06:19.694)
So the first element is SEO. SEO, as we just talked about, is building that know factor. It's getting the right people to your door. We cannot help everyone. I don't want to help everyone. I want to help the people who are those best fit clients where they're gonna have a great experience and I'm gonna have a great experience too. So.
SEO is positioning yourself where people who are looking for you can actually find you. And this can be done on social media platforms, on your website, through a podcast, all kinds of things. On YouTube, you want to get found online by the people who are actively looking for you. They are actively looking for SEO help. They are actively looking for a case study copywriter to work with. They are actively looking for someone to help them learn how to write case studies on their own.
or how to blog with SEO, things like that. Those are the people that I want to get in my world to land in front of on Google. Without SEO as an approach to your sales and marketing strategy, you're really missing out on a critical opportunity to show up as the answer to those Googled questions. So really take some time and think through, what are some of those questions that I could be answering through a blog post, a case study, a podcast episode. What are those?
The second piece, storytelling, builds that like factor. And storytelling keeps people engaged and really feeling connected. And in the case of case studies, I want the readers to feel connected to you, the business owner, the service provider, and the client that you're showcasing.
I want them to be able to see themselves reflected in that client story, and I want them to see themselves actually working with you. People often don't feel like storytelling actually comes naturally to them, but it's really important. Stories make you more interesting, stories help you stay top of mind without even trying. It's I've seen it done before, it's pretty wild. And stories are the easiest way for people to connect with you.
Brittany Herzberg (08:25.514)
So they're really important and we can't be sleeping on them. And look, I don't feel like the best verbal storyteller, but written, I'm able to lean on that pet framework that I came up with and just really trust that that's going to help me get my stories across. And it makes me feel like a much more, a much better copywriter, a much better storyteller. Without storytelling, you might be missing out on some of those connections with people.
I think the most interesting bit, tidbit that I put in a case study once was about someone liking Funfetti. She was obsessed with all things Funfetti. Although that was so cute and it actually bonded the service provider with the client and most people would probably skim over that and just be like, oh yeah, cool, Funfetti, whatever. But it actually made that story come to life. It gave her some personality without storytelling.
you might kind of be forgotten and just end up as one of those like, Oh yeah, I heard someone talk about that on a podcast once. Oh yeah. I heard someone say something like that on Instagram one time. I don't want you to end up just in that like giant grouping that lives in our brains of, Oh yeah, I heard that somewhere from someone. I want them to hear the story and remember that it was you. This, this is, this is one of my missions.
Alright, and then the third piece of course is social proof, which is building that trust factor. And social proof is so lovely, it allows other people to do the selling for you. And okay, so again, I'm going to use case studies. So in the case of a case study, the case study itself is a giant piece of social proof. But also, but and, I include client quotes in case studies because their words matter so much.
Their words have SEO in them. Their words sometimes lend itself to stories. But their words also build trust. It helps the reader to know, oh, yeah, I can trust that this person is going to follow through on what they say. Oh, this is what the process looks like. Part of the brilliance of case studies is that it allows someone to try before they buy with an experience. And that's really hard to do.
Brittany Herzberg (10:41.322)
We can do it with video, yes, we can do that with audio, we can do that with podcasts, but having a written case study where you also maybe tie in some of those other elements of linking to a podcast episode or embedding a YouTube video, it allows someone to try before they buy. See the whole experience, touch it, see it, before they decide to invest their time, money, and effort. And that's a gift. That is a big gift that you can give clients.
And it's a big gift that you can give yourself. Okay, I'm getting off on a tangent. So social proof, including social proof, it helps clients see themselves and really put themselves in the shoes of clients who've worked with you, especially in the case of case studies. Without social proof, people feel like they're the first. And it's a really uncomfortable thing being the first, you know, like we don't necessarily.
want to be the first to go to a restaurant. We want to know that other people have gone there and they've enjoyed the food too and that they felt, you know, like it was a worthy, worthwhile experience. It was worth it. There we go. There's the words. So we don't want to be the first. We want to see that social proof. We want to know.
what it's like before we really decide to invest time, money, or effort. And also without it, people don't know if they can trust you, which is why social proof is so important for trust, for building trust. If they aren't seeing testimonials from people who worked with you, how do they know that you're definitely going to deliver that thing? How do they know that they're going to have a good experience? How do they know what it's like to work with you?
These are all things that all the questions that social proof helps answer. And I also want to point out that statistics are another piece of social proof. I want to say it was Brittany McBean, my mentor and friend when I was going through five figure leap.
Brittany Herzberg (12:34.758)
she brought this up on one of our calls and all of us were just sitting there, all copywriters, and we're like, oh yeah, that makes sense that statistics are pieces of social proof because really all social proof is proof provided by other people, is getting a sense of what other people think about it. So including something like statistics can also be helpful, that can be another way to include social proof. So to tie this whole thing up...
Sales can totally happen. Sales can totally be made. Sales can come from just one of these pieces. Just SEO or just storytelling or just social proof. It's happened to me and I've seen it happen. But sales happen much more easily.
and with clients feeling much more confident in their buying decision when all three are present. And the thing that ties all three together so beautifully is case studies. So if you're interested, there are some options.
The case study training program, of course, I'm going to link that below. That is around right now. Doors are open April 22nd and we start on April 29th. It's something I love teaching. I love sharing about this because you don't need me to write a case study for you. You are totally capable of this.
and whether this is something that just fits your budget better or you really just want to learn how to write case studies in this way where it's combining SEO story and social proof because no one else is talking about how to do this in this way, the case study training program is definitely going to be a fun place for you. So I'll link that below and you can go and check that out. And of course, let me know if you have any questions. Also if you're like case studies sound awesome, but I do not want to write them.
Brittany Herzberg (14:19.634)
And I do have the budget to hire you. Done for you case study copywriting is something that I offer. So I'll make sure that's linked below as well. If you go over to that services page, you'll see the process, the investment and the timeline over there. And finally, you could also go listen to the episode where I, I want to say it was like 15 minutes. It was a short one. And I share how to write case studies easily. You've got that, the case study roadmap, I believe is linked over there and I'll make sure it's linked below here too, but.
case studies so beautifully tie all three of these things together and just make for an easier sales process on you, for you, and for your clients. And I can't say enough good things about it. Before I go though, I will say there is no wrong answer to this question. So if you ever come on the show or even if you find yourself listening to this podcast or listening to any podcast, there are no wrong answers. Like I said, sales can happen from one of these pieces. I just find that it's
easier and clients make a decision they feel really truly good about when all three are present. And with that, I'll see you next time.