Answering this one question can completely shift things in favor of closing the sale.  Listen here…

 

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“The Blueprint for Increased Sales”

Listen to discover the one thing you could to today to instantly increase your sales.  Pay close attention to the example.  It may help you uncover the exact thing you need to change your business results…

 

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Get your copy of “The Blueprint for Increased Sales” here.

If you have plenty of people to sell to you may not think marketing is important.  You may think whatever you are doing now is working just fine and there’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.

YET, if you are only closing 30% or less of your appointments you have marketing challenges that are causing a much higher cost per sale than it could be.

While some business owners, entrepreneurs, and soho’s would be floating on
cloud nine if they could close 30% of their appointments that’s a pretty low closing ratio for most successful businesses… and a very expensive closing ratio at that.

The average cost per sale for face-to-face sales is around $200.  But your cost per sale will be much lower than that if you can increase your sales closing ratio even a little bit.

The reason for lower sales ratios is likely to be ineffective marketing.  Your marketing efforts should:

1. Get the attention of the right potential buyers (prospects)
2. Help those potential buyers (prospects) to self-select
3. Get those potential buyers (prospects) to take action
4. Develop a relationship that transitions strangers to buyers
5. Increase your closing ratio above 30%

When you do a good job with your marketing your closing ratio can easily increase to +90% because you are only holding appointments with ready buyers.

Not only will effective marketing help you sell more… it will help you sell more at a lower cost.  Plus it makes it easier to gain repeat business and referrals.

So if you have plenty of people to talk to and a low closing ratio the first thing you may want to look at adapting is your marketing efforts.

photo credit: Brylan

No matter what service you’re selling there are different potential buyers for your services.  This is true for every product or service.  To make my point let’s look at something as mundane and simple as a can of tuna.

You can buy a can of regular tuna for under $1.  You can buy a can of white albacore tuna for about $2.  You can buy a can of organic white tuna for around $5.  Those 3 cans of tuna represent 3 entirely different groups of buyers with 3 entirely different points of view.

In your business you could say the $1 tuna buyers represent desperate buyers.  There are far more desperate buyers than other types of buyers.  These are the people who need your services the most.  They stand to gain the most from what you have to offer.

If you are like most business owners you truly want to help these buyers.  It breaks your heart to see their pain and suffering especially when you know that pain and suffering is needless.

The problem is those desperate buyers don’t see things the same way you do.  Plus they tend to seek quick fixes and instant solutions in an effort to get themselves out of desperation.

Their fears make it nearly impossible for them to invest in your services.  When they do make that scary decision to use your services (from their perspective) they rarely achieve the results they could or should because their fears prevent them from taking the actions they need to take.  When they do take actions they are likely to act in a helter-skelter unfocused way because they are desperately trying to find that instant fix.  Due to their near panic they don’t get the results they should because they aren’t focused on the right things.

The $2 tuna buyers represent the “squishy middle”.  This is a large group of potential buyers who range from nearly desperate to mostly satisfied to those looking to take things to the next level.  You can’t help the nearly desperate or the mostly satisfied because they lack the commitment to take the focused actions required to get the most from your services.  You can help those looking to take things to the next level.  You want your communications to slice those potential buyers from the “squishy middle” and move them into the last group.

The final group is the $5 tuna buyers.  These buyers represent the movers.  By most standards these buyers are already doing well; however, they know they can do better and they are looking for opportunities to get even better results than they are now.  These are your best potential buyers.  They will get the best results and the greatest value from your services because they have the commitment to follow through on the actions they need to take to get the most value and benefit from your services.

The movers and looking to move are your best potential buyers even though they represent the smallest section in your world of potential buyers.  They are the easiest to work with and the easiest to sell.  They get the most value and best results.

Because each set of buyers has an entirely different perspective your marketing communications must be tailored to the specific buyers you want.  The language they use and respond to is very different.  One of the easiest ways for you to find out how they talk about the things they want, and what they need to hear is to look at the books and magazines geared to those buyers.  A trip to your local librairy or bookstore can help you see who your marketing communications are really talking to.

You’ll notice the desperate buyers respond to things that save, promise instant fixes, and cost the least.

The “squishy middle” is only approachable from the nearly desperate and looking to move up ends because the rest are satisfied and unlikely to do anything.  They lack the motivation to take action and you can’t force it.

The movers respond to things that help them gain and grow.  They understand they need effective systems and strategies for long-term success.  They are less focused on price and more focused on the potential value they stand to gain.

So set aside some time to review your marketing communications.  Listen with new ears and see with new eyes.

Who are you talking to?

If you aren’t talking to the potential buyers you want then adapt your communications to better fit the message they need to hear to want to learn more how you could help them.

photo credit: Julien Menichini

Technically a blind spot is a distortion or absence of sight in a small area of the eye.  In practical business terms a blind spot represents the challenges, mistakes, and oversights we face in our own businesses.  We all have blind spots.

What’s so frustrating is the fact that everyone but you can see the mistakes you are making yet no one tells you about them.  Mostly because you don’t ask and also because people don’t want to hurt your feelings, or worse yet, make you mad.

If you’ve ever tried to sell your home or watched HGTV you know that most home owners don’t see the things about their home that make the home less attractive to buyers.  Sometimes it’s an easy fix to get your home buyer ready.  Other times it requires some major work.  Yet the result is worth the effort.

Now I’d like to demonstrate how this can happen in your business as well.  The easiest way to do that is to show you two successful online businesses and demonstrate the impact.  First, I’d like you to go to Yahoo and take a look around.  Even if you’re a regular Yahoo user please take a moment to visit the sight and really look around.  Try to notice things you haven’t noticed before.

Next, go to Google and take a look around.  You can’t miss the difference.  While Yahoo has all kinds of things to look at and click on Google is very sparse.

Here’s why Googles approach has worked so well for Google and Yahoo’s hasn’t worked as well for Yahoo.

When someone new comes to your business whether online or offline that person has three questions you must immediately answer or they leave never to return.  Here are those questions:

1. What is this business/website about?
2. What can this business/website do for me?
3. Is there a good reason for me to do what I can do here?

It seems pretty obvious when you think about it doesn’t it?

When you compared the Yahoo website to Google did you notice how cluttered and confusing Yahoo seemed in comparison?  There were so many different things you could do.  There is so much stuff on the page it doesn’t feel like there is a clear pathway to the information you want.  Yahoo simply looks like a whole lot more work to use than Google.

In contrast Google’s sparseness is easy to look at.  There is a simple pathway to well defined information.  Plus there is one clear action on the page, enter a search phrase in the search box.

A clear path to one action is huge.

That’s exactly what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing strategies.  You want the right people to take an action that connects that person to you and your business.  And that’s all you want.

Everything else must come later after they’ve decided there is a good reason to connect with you.

When you try to do too much, ask too much, and give too much information YOU LOSE!  Even when you are as big as yahoo.

Going back to the concept of blind spots I want you to realize you can’t see what your potential buyers see because you’re too close to your business and too invested in what you’ve done.  So get help from some outside impartial eyes and really pay attention to the feedback you get.

This is something we can help each other with right here.  If you’d like to get constructive feedback about your online presence for your business tell us about your business in the comment box and include a link to your website so others can view your site.

After you view the other person’s website come back here and give constructive feedback about your impression and recommendations for improvements.

Don’t be shy this is an opportunity to get some valuable help!

photo credit: Marcin Wichary

What’s one of the costliest ways to grow your business?  Hiring sales people to go out and knock on doors.  Even if those sales people are commission only.

Recently I had the…  ahem… not sure how to say this exactly… misfortune of observing a fantastic example of what not to do.

So let me set the stage a little.  This particular business is selling an information based service costing upwards of $15,000 initially with additional costs over a 5 year contract.  A profitable service to sell but not necessarily an easy service to sell especially from a door-to-door cold call.

When I read how Jonathan Morrow described the 7 types of people he’d like to tell to shut the ****up I had to laugh out loud because he hit pretty close to this sales person.  Here are the 7 types he referenced:

1. People who are too big for their britches
2. Snobs who look down their noses at everyone
3. Cold fish
4. Anyone who talks the talk but can’t walk the walk
5. People who beat around the bush
6. Morons talking out the wrong end
7. Long-winded gasbags

Whether you’re hiring sales people or making the sales yourself there are several things to consider in your behaviors and theirs.  The problem is sometimes the things considered admirable in sales people… when just a little off the mark… become very unattractive… and it reflects directly on you… your business… and what you’re selling.  Here’s how I would adapt that list to better fit Mr. Salesperson:

1. Crossing over the line of confidence and coming off arrogant
2. Talking down to the very people you want to buy your stuff
3. Being a cold fish is rarely a problem with sales people BUT presuming an overly friendly relationship is
4. Making unbelievable claims and telling preposterous stories
5. Failing to get to the point… it took this guy 3 sales calls to get a “no” that he should have gotten the first day… that is if anyone could make any sense what-so-ever about what the heck he was selling
6. Feigning knowledge and understanding you don’t have
7. Talking too much and too loud

On top of these 7 unattractive traits this person also…

• Pitched rather than discussed
• Never uncovered the motivation to buy because he was too busy braying about feature after feature after feature
• Used every technique and tactic from the handbook for selling low value junk

I was so embarrassed for this person it physically hurt.  I felt even worse for the owner.  With sales people like that running around… business development is going to be a tough go.

Morale of the story…

• make sure anyone trying to sell your stuff can clearly communicate what they’re selling
• don’t expose your potential buyers to behaviors that would embarrass you
• prepare your sales people to sell solutions not features