Posts Tagged ‘selling’

Are you being honest enough about money?

Monday, July 20th, 2009

small business moneyWhen you started up your own business, you were probably full of enthusiasm.  You may have felt like you had the power to change the world; you wanted to make things better for your clients.

But have you fallen in to the trap of discounting your services to clients you feel can’t afford you?

Have you found yourself doing that little bit more, for no extra charge because you didn’t want to bother them with an additional invoice?

Now I know money isn’t everything.  If you are just in it for the money, then, to be honest, you won’t really care about your clients; you just want to make the fastest buck as possible and get out of there.

But assuming that you do care about your clients, how much do you also care about your bank balance?   Are you running a charity or are you there to make profit?

Motivation to make profit can be tough to admit because, after all, if our clients think that we are out to make a profit, will they not object to paying the going rates for your services or products?

But let’s turn this around.  If you are not being paid well for what you are doing and you are not being rewarded significantly for the work that you are doing with your clients, then how can you carry on and work with more clients?

How can you carry on and improve on what you are doing?  How can you invest in your business systems and create new programs and new services.

So if you are avoiding the question “Am I really in it for the money?”, then maybe it is time that you should be honest with yourself and think “Well, yes, I can be in business for the money, at the same time as really caring about my clients.”

If you can focus yourself on setting strong financial targets this will, in turn, help you to push yourself to give a better service for your clients.

Your thoughts & opinions: What do you think about making a profit from your business? Leave your comments in the comment box below

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Posted in Business Attitude, Prices & Charge Rates | 2 Comments »

Are you being explicit enough with your clients?

Friday, July 17th, 2009

which wayWhen you want to make an offer to your client, it feels easier to make a soft approach.  You don’t want to scare them off so you decide to outline what your services or your products are and finish off with a “If you are interested, why don’t you get in touch?”

After all, you don’t want to come across like a double-glazing salesman, do you?

But unfortunately, not being specific enough about how someone can get in touch with you, can actually be one of the reasons why somebody doesn’t get in touch.

Are you asking them to e-mail you?  Are you asking them to pick up the phone?  Are you asking them to put their name and e-mail address into an opt-in form?

And when are expecting a response from them? Today, tomorrow, before next Friday?

The more explicit you are with your call to action – the reason why a potential client should be in touch right there and then – the easier it is for your client to know what to do.

So forget about being softly, softly.  Forget about trying to let them make the choice; give them the choices available.  Be explicit with your telephone number: call me now on 01…  or E-mail me at …

Make it easy for your clients to know what the next stage is and how they should be communicating with you, and the more likely they are to take the next step towards spending money with you and order your products or services.

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Posted in Marketing Design & Copy, Marketing Small Business | 2 Comments »

Why marketing a small business has nothing to do with selling

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

for saleWhy is it that when we have something to offer our clients and our customers, the harder we try to sell it, the less likely people are to buy it?  People like to buy things but they hate being sold to and this is why marketing really has nothing to do with selling.

Selling is the part of the process that happens once somebody has built up the trust and relationships with you.  The trust and respect to actually to be able to spend money with you.

So if marketing has got nothing to do with selling what is it all about?

Marketing is all about building relationships with people.  Marketing is about turning strangers into friends and turning those friends into clients.

Next time you are trying to sell something and you find that no one is buying, it may be that actually you are trying to sell too hard.  You probably need to back off from the selling and do more of the marketing.

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Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business | 1 Comment »

What if we called long sales letters something else?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

purple_question_markYes, oh yes! It’s obvious from yesterday’s comments on my article “Do long sales letters work?” that most of you hate them.  And yet you still recogonise that this is the way generally adopted to sell products or services online.

It’s interesting.  We hate to be sold to and yet we love to buy.

No matter what our monthly budget is, we still find ourselves buying this, that and the other online and yet when we are faced with a hard-core sales pitch for a particular product it can be a real turn off for a lot of you.

Now I am not here to convince you that the long sales letter is the right and only way to sell things online.

Everyone of you has a different business, different target client and different branding.  Just because something works for one business, doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work for another.

But what if we called long sales letters something else?

What if we called them “everything that your target client needed to know about before purchasing your product or service”?

What if these web pages where incredibly helpful to your clients and presented all the information in one place which made it simple and easy for them.

You see, I think it’s the word “sales” that puts a lot of business owners off from using the concept.

Yes, there is no doubt that a lot of internet marketers use the long sales letter formula to the extreme because they have no intention of building up a loyal list of subscribers.  They want to [and need to] sell there and then.

But what if you looked at the long sales letter formula – the buying psychology behind it – broke it down and wrote in a way that wasn’t salesy? Wrote it in a way that presented everything in a conversational and friendly way?

What if you presented your product so that your target clients didn’t feel like they were being sold to but instead they enjoyed buying from?

What do you think?

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Posted in Marketing Small Business, Website & SEO Tips | 4 Comments »

Do long sales letters really work?

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

long sales letterHave you ever found yourself on a web page that seems to scroll on and on and on?

The page usually starts off with “Dear Friend” which then flows in to an endless banter trying to get you to buy what ever it is that is on offer.  And it’s usually punctuated with dozens of testimonials, hundreds of bullet points and the odd yellow highlighted text.

Welcome to the world of long sales letters.

But for most of you, it seems, you scream silently at your PC screen and hit the back button.  This is not a world you want to be associated with – especially when it comes to selling your own products and services.

If you hate them so much, why do so many marketers on the internet use them?  And do long sales letters really work?

First of all, let’s be really clear on what we mean by a long sales letter.

A long sales letter is not just a whole load of ramblings typed up on to a webpage.  A long sales letter is actually a carefully constructed piece of copy writing that can take days, if not weeks, to put together. 

It takes the reader on a journey, captures their attention and overcomes every possible objection until you reach the infamous “Order Now” button.

A long sales letter is a 24/7 sales representative that is there to convince you, the website visitor, to make a purchase right there and then.

And if you don’t make a purchase right there and then, there is every chance you will never return.  You are lost for ever and the sale will never be made.

If you are selling a product or a service through the web, making that sale is critical to your long term success. 

So why do you hate them so much?

Now, don’t get me wrong – there are some down-right awful long sales letters out there.  Really cheesy ones that usually start off with that cringe worthy “Dear Friend” [how can I be your friend - we've never met!!]

And the reason why these don’t appear to work with you is that the copywriter has probably been following a formulated script that they have just filled in the gaps with appropriate words. 

What they haven’t taken in to account are the most important ingredients in the whole mix – who their target client is, what it is that these target clients want and what style of language they like to be communicated with.

Without these ingredients, a long sales letter is like that bore you meet at a networking event who just keeps going on and on about their business and has totally ignored everything about you and what you do.

But written with your target client in mind, long sales letters can work.

And, especially if you are relying on the internet to make the majority of your sales, will be far more effective than just listing a whole load of features, the price and a buy now button.

If you are not answering every conceivable question that your target client may have about your product or service in your website copy, it is too easy for your target client to click away and keep searching for something that does answer all their questions.

A well written long sales letter can engage, inform and delight your target client – especially if what they receive after ordering exceeds their expectations.

So, love them or hate them, the long sales letter can work – that is as long as you take the time to really understand your target client and use the style of language that is going to reach out and engage them.

And spending the time to learn how to write great copy that reflects this can be one of the greatest investments you can make in your business.

What are your thoughts about long sales letters? Add a comment at the end of this article.  I would love to read your ideas, too.

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Posted in Marketing Small Business, Website & SEO Tips | 21 Comments »

When is the right time to sell?

Friday, May 15th, 2009

small business marketingImagine standing at an event and someone comes over to say hello.  You shake hands and you both introduce yourself.

The other person asks what line of business you are in and you tell them.  You politely return the favour and this is when the floodgates open!

You end up being talked at for 10 minutes about what this person does, what impact their business has on their clients and the cherry on the cake is a suggestion to meet up for coffee to show you exactly how you may be able to benefit.

Woooo! Hold your horses! Where did all that come from?  You only asked what line of business they were in.

You’ve never met, you’ve have no knowledge of each other and there is very little rapport and yet, time and time again small business owners feel this super-sales pitch technique on first time meeting is acceptable.

It’s almost as if they feel that this first meeting is the only time to make an impression and the quicker they can get down to business, the quicker they can qualify whether there is a potential sale to be made.

No matter how tough business is for you at the moment, going for the sales juggular can often lead to sudden death.

So when is the right time to sell?

Selling is an incredible important part of the business process. Without the selling part of the process, you won’t make any revenue and your business will grind to halt.  But selling can only happen if the other person is buying.

The right time to sell, is when the other person feels it is the right time to buy. And for most small business owners, a certain amount of trust, respect and rapport needs to be in place before this can happen.

Begin first meetings by asking questions, listening and exchanging contact details.  Build relationships over time and you will actually find that you never need to make a sales-pitch because the right time to sell will be when the other person buys from you.

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Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business | 2 Comments »