So, you have new products that you think will sell like hot cake on Whatsapp?
And you’re looking to make thousands of sales selling your products via Whatsapp status and broadcast features?
Maybe you could even make enough sales to turn this thing from a side hustle into a growing business.
Well, I’m here to burst your bubble.
Don’t do it.
Don’t sell on Whatsapp. It’s a complete waste of time.
Now, let me tell you why you shouldn’t sell on Whatsapp in the first place.
Firstly, Whatsapp is not a place to make sales. Rather, it’s a platform for closing deals from leads gotten elsewhere.
When you decide to focus entirely on selling on Whatsapp, you’d be wasting precious time that would have been better utilized on other platforms.
Here’s why.
Untargeted Audience
From a sales perspective, it doesn’t make sense to try to sell to an untargeted audience.
How are you sure that the people on your contact list even care enough to buy your products?
Well, you have to qualify them, but that isn’t possible on Whatsapp.
So, you do the next logical thing, which is to spray your product ads everywhere and hope that someone would be interested.
Well, most times, they wouldn’t because they do not care about what you have to sell.
If contact A bought a fashion product from you the first time, there is no guarantee that they would buy a health product the next time because these products are in different audience groups.
Unfiltered Audience
Another wrong move by many Whatsapp sellers is that they are trying to sell to an unfiltered audience.
You may have gotten a few leads elsewhere but trying to sell to your leads without filtering them is the number one reason why your Whatsapp sales suck.
You should be creating sales funnels for every lead you get onto Whatsapp and create an ideal lifecycle for every customer.
The best way to do that is to create sales funnels with products in the same categories sold at different prices, from low to high.
If contact A buys a health product sold for $10, they are more likely to buy another health product sold for $50.
Now, you’ve filtered your audience and you have a pretty good idea on which contact is responsive to your ads and how to nurture them.
Not a First-level Sales Platform
The basis of my argument is that Whatsapp is not a first-level sales platform.
Don’t get me wrong. You could make good sales on Whatsapp, but Whatsapp shouldn’t be the first point of contact with your leads.
Trying to begin your product sales lifecycle on Whatsapp is like trying to kill your golden goose before it even lays an egg.
Doing that would automatically have your business restricted to a familiar, limited, and less-responsive audience.
Selling to Friends and Family Isn’t Sustainable
I have this single rule: Don’t sell to friends and family.
Don’t even market to them or have them review a product.
All you’d get from them are only sympathy responses and sympathy sales. And that is not sustainable.
I’ve never heard of anyone who became rich selling products to his friends and family, so why should I waste my time doing that?
A few times in the past, I’ve had friends disappointed that I don’t patronize them on Whatsapp.
Well, I wouldn’t buy a product I don’t need just because I want to please you, and if telling you the fact that your product sucks pisses you off, then you shouldn’t be in business in the first place.
My advice? Go find people who actually need your product and sell to them.
Interestingly, 99% of the time, they are not on your Whatsapp contact list.
Selling on Whatsapp: What To Do Instead
Instead of trying to guilt trip your family and friends to buy your products on Whatsapp, you can do better by making a few changes.
Try these:
Get Leads From Other Platforms
Many other platforms can provide you with the right tools to target the right audience and filter them for responsiveness.
You could run ads and target them by location, category, or interest, and you’ll start getting the right leads flowing in.
Here are some platforms you can use:
- Classifieds
- Blog Links
From these platforms, you can get potential customers chatting you up on Whatsapp, then you try to get them to make the least purchase possible.
Successful leads are then moved to the next stage of the sales funnel.
Use Whatsapp Groups and Communities
Now that you’ve made some sales from leads coming to you on Whatsapp from other platforms, you can then build lead groups on Whatsapp for future sales.
These groups will be based on the product categories or subcategories. So, you could be selling more than one products or services, or even have varied products in the same category.
With Whatsapp groups, you will be able to move your qualifying customers throughout your product sales lifecycle and get the most out of them.
So, no more Whatsapp status blasts and broadcasting to contacts while praying that they like your product and pay for it.
Now, you have Whatsapp working for you instead of the other way round.