Episode #299: Controlling Your Public Image As A Salesperson

In the good old days we could have multiple public personas in sales. We could be the professional salesperson, but that image was entirely separate to our family life. We could enjoy boozy celebrations and getting off our face with relative anonymity. We could accumulate customer complaints and deal with them in private. We could rely on word of mouth from within a limited circle of acquaintances. When we met people for the first time, they basically knew almost nothing about us, except the name of our company and any reputation that brand name had in the market.

Times have changed haven’t they. I was reminded of this fact recently. I host a weekly podcast called Japan’s Top Business Interviews where I interview leaders about one topic – leading in Japan. Through a mutual contact, a young man about to graduate from Temple University sought my advice on his speech at the Commencement Ceremony as the student body representative. In the course of that conversation with him he told me he had already chosen a prominent American insurance company to work for, entirely based of the interview I did with the CEO. Separately, two other leaders here mentioned to me that when they were interviewing people to work at their companies, the candidates mentioned they had listened to their interviews with me before the job interview. Potential clients reach out to me, because I am producing a prodigious amount of content spread across the six podcasts and three TV shows I release each week.

My point is never before have salespeople had the opportunity or the risk of having everything out there in social media about them, quite easily discoverable, before meeting with the prospective client. Buyers do check us out, in the same way that we check them out. Naturally they are looking for red flags and we are looking for commonalities, so that we can create solid connections with them.

This means we need to carefully curate our social media information and image. There are plenty of occasions where I have been out on the booze with mates or clients, but you won’t find any of that on social media. Of course, I can control a great deal of what goes up on social media, but when someone else is taking and uploading the photos of the debacle, it gets a bit trickier. Nevertheless, when we are in sales, we need to be very much aware that these occurrences will be seen by potential buyers. I suggest you be the demure one in the photo, while your colleagues in the shot are completely off their faces.

If buyers do a search on you, what will they find? If you don’t know, then I suggest you get busy and start doing a forensic analysis of what they will find. Better you know before they know. If they find nothing, that is a problem in itself. If they do find content, what will they discover about you? Originally, I was scared and doubtful of social media. In 2011, I attended the Dale Carnegie International Convention in San Diego and well known sales instructor Jeffrey Gitomor was a guest speaker. He told us he has 30,000 followers on Twitter and asked how many we had. I had zero because I wasn’t on any social media.

After I got back to Japan, I took my first tentative steps to build a social media profile and a following. Today I have 26,000 followers on LinkedIn. The good thing about a late start was I could be very scrupulous about what I posted. I avoid politics and religion as topics and stick to business content. I had previously been writing articles for the different Chamber of Commerce magazines, so I started uploading these to the social media.

In 2012, I started podcasting and also loaded that content up to social media. LinkedIn tells me I have 2700 articles posted on LinkedIn. These will be around 800 words long and will have been multi-purposed into audio and in some cases video, to extend the reach. Around 2018 I started releasing my own TV shows on YouTube. There is no swearing or bad language in any of these posts or shows, despite how popular this has become. Am I a prude? No, I am a typical Aussie male with a fulsome vocabulary of colourful expressions, but I know there will be members of my audience who don’t appreciate that degree of authenticity, so I restrain myself. My rule is, if my mother was still alive, would she want to hear this type of language in public from me?

Today my weekly shows have grown. The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show which goes out as video, audio and text is up to 245 episodes, 8th year. Both the Presentations Japan Series and Sales Japan Series podcasts go out as audio and text and are up to 299 episodes, 6th year. The Leadership Japan Series podcast is both audio and text and we are up to 473 episodes, 10th year. The Japan Business Mastery Show is video, audio and text and we are up to episode number 145, 3rd year. The Japan’s Top Business Interviews show is video, audio and text and we are up to 112 episodes, 3rd year.

Okay, I am bragging, because who else do you know in sales who produces this much regular weekly, consistent free content? Nobody. This is part of my brand though and I am trying to catch as many potential clients in my social media web as possible. Over the years we have upped the production and editing values and now produce and release very professional work. Could we do more? Yes, we could, but there is a limit on time and money to be spent on free content.

When clients look for me on social media, or through Google or YouTube searches, they are hit with this carefully curated tsunami of content, all aimed at proving I am an expert in these areas and suggesting they should use us for their training. There is no propaganda though. I am avoiding this type of content because it is a turn off to buyers. Do you need to do this much content? No, but you need to be putting out some regular, current, high quality content. Avoid high jacking someone else’s content and putting your cameo intro to the post. Produce your own original work, because this has value and clients can gauge whether you are the real deal or not. Avoid shots of you smashed out of your mind at some boozer with your mates and make sure there are plenty of professional shots of you suited and booted for work. Buyers will judge you before they meet you, whether you agree with it or like it or not. Make sure they find what you determine they will find.