Too many business people look to sell their products and services before their prospects respect and trust them.

This is a very poor strategy. Because after all, people need to know that you’re someone with plenty of integrity. They want to feel confident that if they buy your product or service, they’re going to get a great return on their investment in terms of the value they get from it.

So what is the number one way to make sure you gain the trust and respect of your prospects?

Yep, you guessed it…

Email marketing.

Your whole email marketing strategy should be based around getting the people on your email list to trust you. You do this by sending daily emails which provide both value and entertainment. (After all, nobody on your email list wants to read a boring email.)

Look, that’s not to say you shouldn’t pitch your products and services in every single email you send, because you absolutely should. But you should only do this after you’ve already provided value and entertainment. This way, people on your email list won’t mind at all that you’ve offered them the chance to buy from you.

In fact, by this stage, they should be eager to see what you’re actually selling.

So my advice to you is this:

Instead of sending cold traffic straight to your sales page, send them to a squeeze page where you can capture their email address instead. You do this by offering what’s called an “ethical bribe”. What this is, is something you give away for free in exchange for them giving you their email address. For example, it could be a free report which provides a solution to a problem currently facing your target market.

And the same applies when selling, or simply networking, on social media.

I get a lot of people messaging me on forums, LinkedIn and Twitter. Yet instead of trying to build rapport with me, or trying to build a relationship, they just try to get me to buy from them.

They give me literally no value in return.

So I don’t even bother replying.

Instead, they should offer to give me their own “ethical bribe” in exchange for me giving them my email address. They could then proceed to send me daily emails.

Anyway my friend, if you’re going to use social media to network, make sure you provide value before you “sell” your products and services. Just like you would with your email list.