Episode #116: Selling In the Coming 5G World

The release of 5G or fifth generation mobile networks is only a few short years away, probably around 2020. There is a lot of controversy at the moment about the reliability of different providers, but the real story hasn’t been grasped yet. Our phones currently run on a 4G standard, which provides a certain connectivity speed. Interestingly the move from 4G to 5G, isn’t a simple speed doubling process. Reports are that the difference is 5G will be 600 times faster than 4G. Wow! What does that mean for salespeople across all industries?

The capacity to upload heavier files, to send at lightning speed, grabs your attention. What are some of the heaviest files at the moment? Video! YouTube is already the second largest search engine after Google. It is true too. I have noticed myself that I prefer going straight to YouTube to find out how to do something, rather than wading through all the links on Google. The union of content marketing with blinding connection speeds, means the search function for YouTube will overtake Google in the next few years. Are you prepared to be found there staring in your own video?

Now this is not to say that the importance of audio is going away. Podcasts are also a key to getting value in front of buyers. That is why I am releasing three ever week. People are multitasking these days like they have been possessed. They want to listen to audio, while they are at the gym or walking the dog. Don’t miss the implications of audio access to our information from all of these devices like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Home, etc. We will be tapping into information through audio, to a greater extent than now, but today I want to feature more on video and 5G and what it means for us in sales.

Producing video content and uploading that to YouTube will become a more important aspect of “know, like and trust” than we have at our disposal today. Video gives a very strong impression about us. How we look? How we sound? Are we trustworthy? How we relate to the audience? As some of my friends have unkindly remarked, “Greg, you have a good head for radio”, meaning I am not very photogenic. We may be shy to video ourselves thinking that we are not handsome enough, smooth enough in front of the camera, or attractive enough on tape when a microphone is involved.

Forget all of that. This will be the age of discovery by buyers, before they ever meet us. This is how they will be searching for experts to bring solutions for the problems they face. They will be able to “try us before they buy us” by watching our video, to see if we have the goods or not. What if we are not attractive enough for video, won’t that work against us?

Well, I wish I was more handsome, but there is not much I can do about that. My parent’s DNA contribution has spoken. I have to go with what I have got and so do you. I don’t have a great sounding voice either, because it sounds husky, from all that shouting or kiai I did, in my 47 years of karate training. Can’t do too much about that either. One of our Dale Carnegie trainers in America is DJ Thatcher, who has a voice you would die for. Very deep and melodic. I can’t become DJ Thatcher, but I can control what comes out of my own mouth.

So despite how we look and how we sound are we providing value? Our videos have to show we know something special about our subject and we can be useful to the buyer. Don’t think you have to hold the “best bits” back either. You have to go the other way and provide strong expert authority in this environment and do it for free. Won’t my buyers become sated on my free video offerings and not need more from me?

I don’t think this is a concern. When they need more than what they can get from a video, you are the one they will select over everyone else you are competing with. By the way, if a video can fix their issue that simply, then there probably wasn’t a substantial engagement involved anyway.

Won’t my competitors steal all my best ideas? The old style control function of buyers by suppliers, through exclusive, high value, proprietary knowledge, still exists, but only just these days. Almost everything is out there today. There are not many secrets left anymore. You have to jump in because everyone else is. Now, they can copy you, but they can’t be you.

I could order a big truck right now and send all of our training manuals to my competitors, but it wouldn’t help them. They don’t know how to deliver it the way we do, so all they get is an empty shell. This is the same with your competitors. They can’t replicate who you are, your company culture, your approach to clients, quality, reliability, plus all the human interaction pieces which are the sum of all that you are, down at your firm.

As an example, I recently did the recordings for the audio version of my book Japan Sales Mastery. Anyone could have read the text but no one would emphasised key words the way I did. This is because I wrote it, I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. We cannot be copied. Get your stuff out there in the public domain.

So let’s start working on video of you for your newsletters, video email messages, website, YouTube channel and then push it out through social media so that it can be easily found. These days you have so many choices. You can do it through Facebook Live. You just pick up your phone and away you go. Although, as I found that that is like walking on the high wire between two skyscrapers, with a strong wind blowing and no safety net for beginners. If you screw it up, like I did (!), you are very visible to lots and lots of folks. Oops. I am your typical male who never reads the manual. I found out later there is a function you can select where only you can see the video, which is probably a good precaution when you are starting. Hey, I should have done that!

You can go for a weekly YouTube TV show like I have, with the Cutting Edge japan Business show. High quality camera, lighting softboxes, serious audio recording, a set, editing suite, etc. Or you can shoot something on the move with a mobile phone, or a tablet, as the camera quality is so good today. Just add an external microphone, stand close to the camera and away you go. It can be edited later, so you can correct any problems. I have a number of videos on our Japan Dale Carnegie TV channel on YouTube which were shot on my iPad with an external mic. Very low cost and time effective for the quality. The audio is key though, so I suggest you make an effort to get that to be the best you can arrange.

What about appearing in front of the camera? My recommendation is to do our High Impact Presentations Training course. I don’t say this because it is Dale Carnegie, I say it because it is such an awesome course. This will give you the supreme confidence and skills to master the lens. That is what I did and you can check out the results in my videos! I reckon if I can do it with how I look and how I sound, you can do it and probably do it much better. You will see 5G distribution roll over the top of you or you can start surfing down the face of the wave. The technology is here and time waits for no salesperson.

Action Steps

1. Read up on 5G and what it will mean for you
2. Understand the power of the YouTube search function with buyers
3. Get over your inhibitions about being video and voice recorded, no one cares, as long as you are bringing value
4. Be prepared to share your best stuff for free, because your competition will be doing that
5. Start, review, improve, continue, master