- The Power of Polling
I want to tell you about one of the best tools on social media that you can use to grow your business and increase sales. It’s totally free, and one of the best ways to connect with your customers, and learn what they want. I’m talking about the power of polling.
Pretty much every social media platform has some way to poll your followers, and what better way to find out what your customers want than asking them? Polling is one of the most powerful tools for change, and it’s never been easier to reach audiences than it is today. Bill Clinton became one of the youngest presidents in history beating out George H. Bush because before he went to every speech, he would poll the audience and find out what they wanted to hear.
If you're not polling your audience at least once a month, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to talk to your customers and the ability to make decisions that meet your customer’s needs. There’s no maximum limit on how often you can poll your audience. Do it as often as you can.
I've done up to 15 polls in one day on my Twitter, and the things I learn from my customers from those polls is totally irreplaceable. If you’re having trouble making a decision about products to launch, design, color schemes, anything really, just ask your audience. You obviously can’t please everyone, but if a majority of people are telling you they like one option more than the other, the choice is obvious. Meet your audience's needs and expectations.
Another great way to use polls is to figure out pricing. If you can split test your audience and figure out the best price for your product, you can actually end up making way more money. A lot of people just make up their prices based on what makes sense to them, but chances are your customers will be willing to pay more for your product, and you might not even know it.
Back in 2008, I had a business that was making about 100 grand a week. I had based my pricing off of a competitor. One day I went to the guy who was running my split testing and said “you know, I think our pricing might be off, can we do a test to figure out what people are willing to pay?” So, we ran the test, and he came to me about a week later and says "Tai, I got good news and bad news. We mispriced our products for the last year and a half."
I said, "how much money do we leave on the table?" He said, "well, you'd have an extra eight million dollars in your bank account if we had run this test one and a half year ago." I was relatively depressed, that’s a lot of money. He said, "The good news is now we know how to make an extra eight million dollars."
So, it’s never too late to start listening to your audience, because as soon as you realize exactly what they want and how much they’re willing to pay for it, you save yourself a lot of frustration and start making more money.
It’s really important to keep your polls simple. Only give your audience a few options, keep your questions short. I guarantee more people will engage with you and be interested in what you’re asking, because people have short attention spans.
- Reading People
You need to be able to read people. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, understanding human psychology and the way people think is key. If you can understand your psychological traits and recognize some of the negative things about yourself, you can begin to fix those, then you start to realize the issues other people have.
If you can recognize people who are narcissistic or Machiavellian personalities, you’re going to save yourself a lot of grief. Narcissism is the inability to see things from other people's point of view, these people are extremely difficult to work with. They actually end up failing a majority of the time because they refuse to listen to anyone else. If you’re an entrepreneur, you need to be like a sponge. You can learn something new from just about everyone, but a narcissist will never grow because they think they already know what's best.
You need to phase these people out of your life, because they will bring you down. There's always one narcissist in the family, just see them at Thanksgiving, that's enough. Blood is thicker than water but it ain't thicker than common sense. A narcissist will inevitably accidentally take from you.
Take a personality test. Be completely honest with yourself, because no one else will see the results. I’ve put together one of the most extensive and accurate personalities around, and you can take it for free. Check it out at tailopez.com/fullquiz, and once you’ve taken it, I’ve included instructions on what your results mean. Before you can read other’s, you need to know what your personality is like.
Before you begin working with someone new, make them take it as well. It’s a great way to begin learning to read people.
- Grow Your Social Media
You have to grow your social media. A lot of people approach this from the wrong direction. To grow your social media following, you need to understand VRIN scores. V stands for value. R stands for rarity or how rare it is. I stands for inimitable and N stands for non-substitutable.
Value means you are giving your followers what they are interested in. Your posts need to be reaching your audience's values. I know my audience values the good life, so I give them content that shows what success brings with it. People value the payoff of hard work and entrepreneurship, so I post my cars, my house and all the great things that my businesses have allowed me to buy.
Rarity is how many other accounts are out there posting similar content. The more content that you provide that not many people get to see, the more excited people will be when they see it. It’s common sense. Rarity is the amount of emotion that people get when they see your post.
Inimitable means your post is hard to recreate. It means that not only is it rare, it’s extremely unique and genuine. People can tell when what you’re posting is trying to be like someone else. You have to be unique, so others can’t reproduce what you’ve created.
Non-substitutable is similar to rarity, but it also means that what your posting is relatively impossible to be replaced by something new. You need to create timeless content, so as time goes on, your post is still relevant.
If you can learn how to master these three tools, your business will grow and you will create a loyal audience, because you understand why your audience follows you and engages with you, while other people are getting lucky and shooting in the dark.
Success isn’t a one-time thing. People who become successful and wealthy are able to recreate success over and over and over again. If you can learn what makes your business successful, you need to repeat that as often as you can.
How often do you use surveys or polls on your social media?
Even if it’s on your personal accounts and not for your business, you are going to be able to make smarter, more informed decisions again and again.
I hope you use these tips, because they are extremely important to grow your brand.
Stay Strong,