A recent survey confirms it – when working on your To Do list you should start with the items that are most likely to yield results fastest.

Sure, social selling sounds great, but -

• Building a brand takes a long time and the payoff is difficult to measure.

• Being recognized as a thought leader is even more difficult and time consuming.

So you cold call. And nothing happens.

So you email. And nothing happens.

So you make more calls and you send more emails. But the results remain the same.

Is it the medium? Well, you’re using multiple outlets, but they’re performing equally poorly.

Is it the messaging? You’re pitches are direct, succinct, and them­-centric. Isn’t that what the experts say you should be doing?

Maybe it’s the audience. You’ve tried to precisely target those in the industries, fields, and roles where your solution is the right fit. If they’re not going to engage with your pitch, who will?

It is about the audience, but it’s not the targeting.

We’ve all been inundated with pitches. So you might have the right target audience identified and present a relevant, refined pitch. But we’ve tuned it out. We've tuned it all out.

But what if you didn’t pitch?

What if you just had conversations with no direct commercial expectations?

What if you built truly authentic relationships?

Social selling is not just taking what you've always done and moving it to a new platform.

Social selling is not even about building a personal brand or becoming a thought leader.

In fact, "social selling" is a bit of a misnomer because it's not really about selling. It's about just being social.

If you were at a networking event or a cocktail party and you introduced yourself to someone with your sales pitch, what how you expect they would react?

"Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy, but here's my number. Buy from me, maybe?"

(Apologies to Carly Rae Jepsen.)

Treat social media like the biggest cocktail party in the world!

Make connections. Have conversations. Establish relationships. Give value.

How is that closest to the money?

Well, having a meaningful conversation with someone is a lot closer to the money than not having the conversation at all.