At the recent Mega Networking & Referral Event my good friend Brad Tonini spoke about how to improve your sales in a tough marketplace. Brad is Australia’s leading sales strategist and an expert on how to sell your products and services more effectively.

Brad was talking about how to present your products and services to a potential client.

Most small business owners get this entirely wrong.

Typically what we do is present our product or service as either you buy my product or service or not. In other words we give our prospective clients a YES / NO decision to make about going ahead. When faced with such a decision most people will choose to not go ahead.

Why?

Simply because of the conditioning they have had over the years. We all tend to lack a little trust when someone is selling us something. So if asked to go ahead with a single option
most people will choose to do nothing.

How can you overcome this?

Its really quite easy. I have been teaching my clients this for years and was reminded of it again by Brad Tonini on the weekend.

Instead of giving them a YES / NO decision to make, give them three different options to choose from. So instead of the focus being on if they will go ahead or not, it is now shifted to which option they will go ahead with.

Simply giving them a choice of solution package A or B will improve your conversions (everything else being equal).

Even better is to give them a choice of package A, B or C.

Now remember when construct your packages that people buy SOLUTIONS to their PROBLEMS and not products and services. So these A, B, C packages are different solutions they could invest in depending on their drive to get the solution and willingness to invest.

How you position these three packages then is very important.

When you explain it to your prospective client you start out by explaining package A. This is the lite version and the cheapest price. After highlighting what is included in this package you simply say ‘I’m not entirely sure that this is the solution you are looking for’.

Next you present package C. This is the PREMIUM package and naturally the most expensive. So you go from the low end to the high end. This package has all of the bells and whistles included in it. You explain to the prospective client that typically 5% of your clients choose this package.

Then finally you present package B … this is the package that you have designed to sell to the majority of your clients. The price point falls in between the two extremes.

You want to make sure is that there is enough contrast between the various price points. So the pricing may look like this:

- Package A $997
- Pacakge B $3,997
- Package C $9,997

Can you see how when you are faced with making a choice between these various price points the majority of people will gravitate to the middle option?

From experience I know that 5% of people will choose either option A, or C which is fine. Just make sure your package B contains the products and services in one solution that you need to help your clients get the result they are looking for.

Simply by making this one change in how you present your products and services you can get a sizeable increase in your conversion rates. Give it a try and let me know the outcome. I know that when my coaching clients have done this they automatically get a big increase in conversions.

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Why Your Prospects Are Saying No

Are you frustrated with hearing NO all the time from your prospective clients? Usually it is because instead of us leading them to a place of experiencing positive yes decision emotions we have let them remain in a state of fear or uncertainty.

Often the words the prospect uses to explain why they are not going ahead can be confusing as they attempt to articulate their unconscious feelings of fear or uncertainty. Almost invariably though the reasons they say no fall into one of the following categories:

Lets look at these four NO reasons a bit more closely so we understand exactly what is motivating them. The four reasons for a no are:

1. No Need – There are two possible scenarios here.

One is that you have spent time asking the right questions and analysing their situation only to discover that they genuinely do not have a need that your products or service can satisfy. If that is the case then your only option is to thank them for their time and walk away.

The second and more likely scenario is that you have not asked the right questions in the right way in the presence of strong rapport to unearth the prospects true and genuine needs.

If you are consistently struggling to have prospects recognise that your product or service will help them then it is likely you are not helping them to identify their true needs. If so focus on using the questioning model and developing your skills in this area more.

2. No Trust – If there is a lack of trust then the underlying emotion is fear. Usually fear that you or your company will rip them off, the product won’t do what you said it would, you won’t deliver it on time etc. It stems from a lack of certainty about you and your company and the products / service you represent.

The key to overcoming the no trust barrier is to focus on developing your rapport and communication skills. Developing an unconscious rapport is highly effective to removing a lack of trust in your prospect.

Another area to focus on is how you establish credibility in your presentation including providing background information on your company, providing your personal credentials, providing customer testimonials and offering them a money back guarantee of your service.

No trust is rarely an issue if you are referred into the opportunity.

3. No Urgency – A lack of urgency in your prospect is an extremely frustrating place to have them. Often this is where you will hear them say that they will think it over.

On the one hand a lack of urgency is good because you have gotten past the no need and no trust barriers. So you have skilfully moved them past the fear of dealing with you to at least having enough interest in you product or service to think it over.

The challenge of course is that they rarely think it over because there just isn’t enough urgency or drive to implement your solution.

To resolve lack of urgency you need to focus on identifying the pain of their current situation and of not acting. Once you know specifically what this is then keep pressing it as it will motivate them further.

Simultaneously you need to learn to mentally lead them to thinking about how great it will be once they have your product or service as the solution. So in effect you are using the pain of not acting to motivate them and then lead them mentally to experiencing the pleasure of having gone ahead.

4. No Money – From time to time you will come across those prospects who have a genuine need that is causing them pain, they like you and your company and have a sense of urgency about your solution … they just are not able to finance the solution.

There is no easy way around this challenge other than to provide flexibility in how you deal with customers. This is easier to do if you are a business owner of an SME and make all of the decisions. You need to assess every opportunity on the basis of its commercial merits.

Often no money actually means your product or service is more than they expected. Without the careful use of questioning you may never find this out.

Recently I was coaching a client who sold kitchen renovations. They were top of the range and nearly always more expensive than competitors. She was often faced with the ‘it’s too much we cant afford it’ objection and as a result was missing some sales.

We taught her to question this objection by asking how much to much is it. So if the kitchen was quoted at $15,000 the prospect might come back and say they only budgeted for $12,000.

The common mistake most sales people make at this point is that they think they have to make a $15,000 sale which is why they are losing sales. The reality is that the prospect has already spent the $12,000 in their mind to get what they want.

In this case the only sale that needs to be made is a $3,000 sale. This is easily dealt with by breaking the difference down and highlighting the added advantages of your solution compared to competitions.

So a question for you … if you are hearing NO regularly then which of these four categories is it usually falling in? I find that a lot of the time for most Small Business owners they get the same NO reasons over and over. When you identify them you are then in a position to be able to take action and make some changes.

Have You Read The Controversial Report …

‘Why Small Business Owners
Suck At Sales’

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PRESS RELEASE

A controversial new report on why small business owners suck at selling and how it is holding them back from success has been leaked!

The report written by Australia’s leading Attraction Marketing Specialist Rod Moore details why most small business owners fail to enjoy the success they deserve in business.

It all comes down to one thing says Moore … ‘A basic lack of sales ability!’. The problem with small business is that they let basically anyone start a small business even if they are not adequately equipped the necessary skills to achieve success in small business.

According to Moore one of the most important factors in success in small business is your ability to be able to firstly ATTRACT potential clients and secondly to be able to SELL them on your product or service. Without these skills small business owners fail.

The leaked report was available at ‘Download Leaked Report – Selling For Small Business Owners’ but may be removed at any time.

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‘How do I market my life coaching business?’

or

‘Where do I find new clients interested in using my life coaching services?’

No doubt you are keen to attract a steady flow of new life coaching clients to you, and I am sure you do not want to come across as the pushy sales type, right?

Most life coaches will invest anywhere from $3,000 to $20,000 becoming a certified coach through one of the many coaching schools that are available.

Then they invest from $2,500 to $10,000 on a flashy looking web site, new business cards and maybe a marketing flyer or two.

More than one life coach has paid good money for display ads that build your image and brand.

Then you wait … hoping the phone rings with a steady stream of eager new clients.

hhmmm …

Okay so you decide to become proactive and start attending networking events to meet people. Who knows, you may pick up some clients at a good networking event.

The real problem though is that life coaching requires a particular marketing strategy. It is a strategy of attraction … a system designed to lead people directly to you who want to become your client.

Those super successful life coach’s that you hear about have developed an attraction marketing system. They have either done it strategically or intuitively … either way the result is the same. They have created a pipeline full of people who have their credit card in hand ready to commence work with you.

The first key to this attraction marketing system is the lead generation component.

In the next few weeks we will be releasing an opportunity for only 50 life coach’s worldwide to have a customised client attraction system developed just for you. The system will help you to attract more potential life coaching clients than you may currently have dreamed of.

Keep your eye on this blog for more details (if you are a life coach then you will want to shoot me through an email and let me know you are interested to find out more)

For now though … I want to give you a gift. Listen into this audio recording of ‘How To Market Your Life Coaching Business’

Download ‘How To Market Life Coaching’

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That’s right … your clients (and prospective clients) hate to be sold. They don’t like to be interrupted by telemarketers at home in the evening, they record TV onto their digital drives and skip the ads when they watch it when it suits them, they are guarded and skeptical of anything you have to say about your products or service (no matter how good they are) and they haven’t got time to review your website, marketing collateral or follow up emails.

They hate to be sold …. BUT … and this is interesting … they still LOVE to BUY!

Think about it … aren’t you like this?

If someone is trying to sell you something and you don’t really need or want it what is your natural reaction? Most of us want to turn and run, right? We hear the voice of our parents from when we are young telling us not to sign anything etc etc.

Contrast this when you have a need or desire for something.

If you have a particular need for some service in your business then what do you do today?

Yes … you probably Google it.

You do some research … you click and flick. That is where you click on the web sites that come up in your search and make a 30 second assessment if you believe that site has what you are looking for and then you give it the flick if it does not.

When you come across that one site that appears to have the right solution to your needs you maybe make contact or research some more.

The point is … today when we have a need or desire we research for a specific solution and are happy to make contact when we believe we find it … and are more than happy to make a positive purchasing decision ie we love to buy.

So how does this apply to your business?

Well if you are still using interruption marketing today and trying to sell your products or services to people who don’t want them then … well good luck for the future! The web is changing everything.

The key to marketing your business in the future is to position yourself as an expert service provider in a specialised niche and gain visibility within that niche.

When your prospective clients go searching for your solution you need to show up.

When they land on your web site you have 30 seconds … the strategy behind your web site will determine if you have any chance of building a relationship in those 30 seconds or not.

You will need to ensure your total marketing strategy facilitates the purchasing process that they buyer wants to follow.

Your marketing strategy needs to make it easy for your prospective clients to say yes to you.

Does your marketing strategy do this …. find out here?

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How To Successfully Sell Your Service

Most small business owners do not consider themselves to be sales people or good at sales. They fear coming across as being pushy and as a result they have no sales strategy or at best an ineffective strategy.

In order to move your service based business to the next level you will need to implement the right sales strategy. Every business is different of course but there are some general rules that apply.

Here are five keys that will help you to improve your sales strategy for your small business:

1/ Only Sell To Those Who Want Your Service

There is little point trying to sell your service to those that do not really want it in the first place. A lot of small business owners spend way to much time trying to sell to a small number of prospects. You are better to spend your time attracting more prospects and only selling to those who indicate they need or want your service.

Sounds obvious yet you would be amazed at how many small business owners just do not have enough prospects entering into their marketing funnel.

Spend less time trying to convince and persuade and spend more time focused on attracting new prospetcs. Its a process of sifting and sorting.

2/ Let Prospects Put their hand up

When you have the right marketing strategy in place you will attract lots of prospects to you. Your next steps is to have the right prospects ie those most likely to use your service, put their hand up and indicate their interest to you.

Here is how we do it at Profit Minute. Our first goal is to attract prospects to us by giving away the free report ’7 Keys To Attracting New Clients’. This allows us to pull prospects to us and have them enter our marketing funnel.

The next step then is to have the right prospects put their hand up and indicate that they could use our Marketing Strategy Coaching to help them grow their business. We do this by offering a complimentary Sales & Marketing Audit which is a 45 minute consultantion over the phone valued at $297. This gives the prospect the opportunity to learn more about what is the right marketing strategy for them, and to find out how they could really accelerate their business by working with us.

Not all of the prospects who request the free report will go on to request the Sales & Marketing audit … those that do though have put their hand up.

3/ Sell in Person

To many small business owners today are trying to have their websites, emails or marketing materials do the selling for them.

This does not work effectively for selling services!

You need to do it in person … either face to face or on the phone.

4/ Add Value in Sales Presentation

You want to make your sales presentation a value added experience for the prospect. In other words do not just try and sell, sell, sell … there is nothing that will make your prospects run faster.

Instead provide a lot of value to the prospect in a way that they sell themselves on using your service.

When we conduct a Sales & Marketing Audit we help our prospects discover for themselves what challenges they have in marketing and what they need to do to improve in that area. As they think it through they begin to come to the conclusion that maybe they should consider using our services.

5/ Help Them Identify Their Go Ahead Reasons

Every prospect has reasons why they would go ahead and use your service.

Your job is not to sell your services to them, but to help them identify what those go ahead reasons might be. You do this by asking lots of questions.

Ask them questions that helps them identify the pain of their current situation.

Ask them questions that helps them imagine the pleasure of achieveing their goals after they work with you and use your services.

Ask them questions that identifys their core values … ie what would be most important to them if they decided to work with you.

Then when you present your services as the solution simply present it in light of what they have identified as most important.

So there are five keys to selling your service. Naturally this is a high level overview and every business will require its own unique sales & marketing strategy. If you are looking to take your small business to the next level then request a complimentary Sales & Marketing Audit today by clicking here.

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You can listen into the recording (or download the podcast) now at Blog Talk Radio.

Click the Blog Talk Radio button for more details:

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Does the thought of having to market your business and you send shivers down your spine?

Most small business owners are not entirely comfortable with having to get out there and win new business. So they run a few ads (which typically do poorly), go to a few networking events, tinker with their website and hope that someone refers them on.

This is not a strategy for SUCCESS which may explain why many small businesses do not reach their full potential.

So why is it that we don’t like the sales & marketing process?

Well have you ever heard the term ‘pushy salesman’?

Of course you have, right? We have all heard of or experienced pushy sales people before and for the most part its a huge turn off. For this reason many small business owners do not see themselves as being in sales.

Marketing is no different … there is pushy marketing as well. Push Marketing is any form of marketing that is designed to interrupt you so they can impose their marketing message on you.

I was in Hong Kong last year waiting to cross the road at the lights. I must have stepped to close to a sensor and this building beside me lit up in a full blown commercial right in my face … talk about pushy.

Push Marketing is the telemarketer rining you at 7pm at night at home when you are about to have dinner. It is the annoying TV commercials which signal time for a hot cuppa and a biscut. It is radio jingles with ever more insane and stupid character voices desperately trying to engage a disinterested audience.

Push Marketing is the person on the street corner who trys to stop you as you pass so you can sponsor some poor child in Africa.

Push Marketing is the full page advertisment in your favourite magazine that flick past in search of your favourite articles. It is the letter box full of JUNK MAIL.

Push Marketing is the countless emails we receive telling us we will miss out if we don’t buy their super duper once in a lifetime product with a hundred bonuses TODAY!

Push Marketing is every attempt a business makes to push their marketing message out and INTERRUPT you long enough that you might make a positive buying decision.

Push Marketing … most people think it SUCKS … most small business owners don’t want to use it.

Big problem is that Push Marketing is the only form of marketing that most people are aware of.

Think about this … what if every Real Estate agent in Australia agreed that they would no longer advertise any houses for sale. Sellers would save thousands! But what would happen to the Real Estate market … do you really think people would stop buying and selling property? Of course not … however the entire industry dynamic would change.

So what is the alternative?

Well instead of trying to PUSH yourself and your business onto the unsuspecting public … what would happen if you could attract clients to you?

How different would your business be if you could literally PULL new clients to you in a steady stream?

Would your business become more PROFITABLE if you had a waiting list of clients? Could you increase your FEES?

Consider this … how come brain surgeons don’t have to use PUSH marketing?

It is because there are few of them, there is a high demand for their service, they charge a lot, they are always referred, they are perceived to be industry leaders, they have specialized knowledge, and they are well connected amongst their peers and associates.

If you could model your business along similar lines is it possible that you could PULL clients to you?

Could your business become so magnetic that clients seek you out?

If there is a demand for what you do … in other words there are enough people out there willing to pay you for your service, then you could model your business in such a way that you attract more clients than you will ever need.

The key is to break away from how everyone else in your industry is marketing because most of them are using Push Marketing which as we have discussed no longer works.

You want to think about how you can have people seek you out, engage them in conversation, build a relationship with them, help them articulate their needs, and lead them to their own conclusion which is to use your service … after all … you are the only one out there helping them rather than trying to sell them.

Imagine the possibilities …

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The answer …

400!

That is 400 new businesses being registered every single day!

That is incredible when you think about it. In the course of just one week there are 2,000 new businesses being registered. Now keep in mind, this is just the state I live in here in Australia. When you add in the other states of Australia it is possible that we are talking about 5,000 new businesses each week … or 250,000 new business start ups in Australia per year.

Now when you combine this with the broader Australiasian region, North America, UK, Europe and so on we come to a staggering number of new businesses.

So who are these new businesses and what type of business are they starting?

Well the overwhelming trend right now is to start up small home based businesses particularly in the service arena. With the explosion of interest in areas like coaching, training, professional speaking, fitness professionals, alternative health modalitys like massage therapists, it is conceivable that a large proportion of these businesses are coming from services like these.

Think about it … a service based home business is easy to start and requires little to no capital investment. These days armed with a web site and business card you can be in business. Not only that, we are no longer restricted geographically. Today you can be in business globally. This of course is a dual edge sword … not only can you compete in markets that may not have been accessible before, but so can your competitors.

This is all well and good but think about how this level of competition is going to impact your ability to get the attention of your ideal client, let alone ATTRACT them your to your business.

There is no doubt that as we move forward the trend towards small business will continue. The challenges of getting the ATTENTION of your clients will grow. The key to DOMINATE the market then is to become the best in your field at Sales & Marketing.

The upside is that very few Small Business owners will acknowledge their deficiencies in sales & marketing. As a result most will not seek out the services of a business like Profit Tune.

You on the other hand, if your here at the Profit Tune Blog, appreciate the value of growing your business with the right sales & marketing strategies.

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