No Room for Feet in Social Media

by Justin McCullough on June 29, 2010


“If I could just get a foot in the door”. I know you’ve heard that before – you may even have said it yourself. This popular and often misunderstood sales expression is not sage advice.

There is no room for feet in social media.

See the expression “foot in the door” came about during the times of the traveling salesman often called a door-to-door salesman (or worse, a “snake-oil salesman”). These men would knock on the door of a home and when greeted by the homeowner (often a woman) they would give their best silver-tongued USP (unique selling proposition) and if that didn’t get their attention, they would quickly wedge a foot in the doorway to ensure the prospect couldn’t close the door on them, thus ending the sales call.

In the days of door-to-door selling, that type of forceful, aggressive, and one-way selling was well advised by sales practitioners. “If I could just get a foot in the door” became the common plea amongst salesmen seeking an angle that would lead them to the sale.

We don’t operate that way anymore.

9 Popular Social Media foot in the door techniques that do not work:
1.  Twitter @replies and FB @ mentions that include a sales message with no relationship
2.  Streaming sales messages on your FB wall or twitter account
3.  Linking to videos that have you pitching your latest and greatest (fill in the blank)
4.  Posting a genuine looking message but then using bit.ly or other url shortner to link to your sales pitch
5.  Auto DM’s that link to your free ebook, free newsletter, Facebook page etc
6.  Shouting at everyone and not listening to their response and not replying with anything of interest or relevance
7.   Name dropping other online contacts as if they are friends when in fact they are not your friends
8.  Becoming a loose contact with someone online and trying to work them for contacts or leads
9.  Spamming

Despite what others may say, you don’t want a foot in the door. Stop trying to wedge a foot in and start trying to extend value into your relationships. Work hard to create connections that spark interest and develop relationships into something meaningful.

Learn how to sell with social media and you’ll never need a foot in the door again.

About Justin McCullough

Justin McCulloughJustin McCullough is mentor, marketer and leader with more than 10 years of selling experience from startups to large corporations. Justin’s experience ranges from advertising agencies to newspapers and web development firms to book publishers. You can find out more about Justin at www.justinmccullough.com or www.leader4hire.net .
(Image by Tim Parkinson)

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  • http://www.markbrimm.com Mark Brimm

    Solid piece on the relationship between sales and social media. Building relationships is the key, not assuming a connection from the get-go. There is so much more potential with social media to build networks and customer base, just by listening and building a relationship. And while there are always those special exceptions to the rule (say, using Twitter or a Fanpage as a bullhorn when your profile is a brand or the official profile for your organization and not a person within the org), these are great general rules to steer by. Introductions, building relationships, getting permission, and operating on the basis of a relationship–these all generally apply. Spamming is never appropriate. Mass-communicating to strangers who didn’t sign up for it is not the point in social media. Communicating like a person to another person is–or at least getting permission for your org newsletter, announcement tweets, etc. You’ve captured and detailed the gist of all this well in this post, Justin. Nice work.

  • http://twitter.com/marlitah Marlita H

    I like this piece, Justin. One of the reasons I like Marcana is that while I know you're all marketers, none of you behave like my image of they typical marketing person. Sorry for the generalization but there you have it. Nothing turns me off faster than someone who is unable to carry on a conversation without an angle. Your networks should be just that – they are webs of relationships with people who whom you find something in common (a dislike of ending sentence with prepositions, for instance). As a consumer or business person, I am going to give my business to someone whom I trust and while someone may be very good at spreading the word about my product or idea, that person also embodies the first image people have of what I have to offer. That image has to last if my business is to last.

    I cannot tell you how many times I have marketing people ask out loud if someone can do something for them [their customers] when they don't have the slightest clue what that person is all about. It is very disconcerting and makes both the represented customer and the contact look like commodities.

    Thanks for your appreciation of humanity. The marketing world could really use a good dose of it.

  • http://www.markbrimm.com Mark Brimm

    Since I write on this site, in addition to being defacto editor, I appreciate what you said about the authors caring about real connections versus canned responses and angles. There is a big difference between opportune, smart selling and smothering. I totally agree, it's as hard to stomach over-aggressive selling (at least for me) as it is to stomach completely uninterested nonselling from someone you come specifically to give your business to. Either way there is a negligence in respect for the other person.

  • http://twitter.com/jckhewitt JC Hewitt

    Plenty of people can learn from this post.

    I get the sense that many people pursue spam and hard-sell techniques because they think it's the “only thing that works.” In reality, it's a method that ensures being permanently trapped in the low end of the market. Ethical marketing strategies are also the most sustainable (and long-term profitable).

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