Sales Strategy

How can I improve conversion on my website?

By Christian

We spend so much time and money getting traffic to our websites, building our subscriber lists, etc. It’s understandable that one of the biggest questions I get is “how can I improve conversion on my website?”

Think for a minute about the difference between “making contact” and “making an impact”. The difference is huge. For example, you could send a spam email to half a million people this afternoon, if you wanted to do that. It wouldn’t cost very much, and you would be “making contact” with a large number of people, right? But what would it get you? Probably…not much. Consider the fact that “making contact” is probably not really what you’re going for. What you REALLY want to achieve is “making an impact“.

IMPACT: The secret to a 70% opt-in rate

When you “make an impact”…that’s when your conversions go through the roof. That’s the difference between getting a 3% and a 70% opt-in rate. I know, because I’ve been on both sides of that fence. So many people ask me how to get more traffic out to their site, and I respond that my most profitable site only gets a few thousand visitors per month.

If you want to build a site that gets hundreds of thousands of page views monthly, I’m not your guy. I’ve never done that. But if you want to be highly effective with your niche marketing campaigns, that’s precisely what I do. Do you really want to just get more and more traffic? Or do you want to make a much greater impact on the people that matter most to your business?

The direction marketing is headed

We hear about all the A-listers out there who have tens- or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers, but did you know there is an entire world of marketers that make a fantastic living on a list of just a few hundred people? Today there are more businesses marketing online than ever. And do you think that number is going up or down? More new businesses flood the interwebz daily. It’s a beautiful thing. But with as noisy as things are these days, they’re only going to get noisier. This means we need to have a greater IMPACT on our visitors. We NEED to get better conversions, because most of us are not in a niche where getting a hundred thousand visitors a month is even viable. It’s not part of our business model. We need to get great visitors, and we need to keep them.

Focus on engagement. While it’s great to have a big list and a lot of traffic, there is ALWAYS a small segment of your list that is comprised of the people that really “get” you. Focus on them. Focus on making a big impact on a small number of people. I know, it potentially means doing away with the ego stroke of being able to say “I have an Alexa rating of X” or “I have a million-bazillion RSS subscribers”. For some business models, these type of metrics matter. They have their place. But for us small business owners running a website to a niche audience, we need to focus on what’s actually going to grow our business.

How to make an IMPACT

At the end of the day, this isn’t rocket science. Thank God, right? It’s why I love this business. It’s OK to just let it be simple. How do I get awesome conversions with my websites? I have opt-in forms that convert at over 70%, because I build the opt-in form especially for a small, highly targeted group of people. So when they visit my web page, it’s almost impossible for them to not take advantage of my offer. It was built, after all, with them in mind. It speaks straight to their most pressing need, and they know it. They know they’re not looking at a mass-marketed offer, because they’re NOT looking at a mass-marketed offer! They’re looking at an offer that was put together especially for them. They’re looking straight down the barrel of a highly targeted “impact marketing” campaign.

You can do this too. It’s the difference between sending a black and white direct mailing piece, or visiting them in person and shaking their hand. It’s the difference between having your customer on an autoresponder, or taking note of their mailing address when they place an order, and sending them a handwritten thank you note. It’s the difference between having an opt-in box in the sidebar of your blog, or having 7 different opt-in pages…each one targeted to a specific segment of your readership.

Of course, in order to have high conversions like this, you have to do two things:

You have to pay close attention to your clients and customers. You have to know them.
You have to take the time to engage people personally.

People KNOW the difference between automated mass communication and authentic engagement. Personalizing an email is fine, but people still know it’s a broadcast message. They’re not impressed. Mass communication is important, so I’m not saying otherwise, but if you want high conversions you need to go the extra mile.

Authentic engagement is what causes high conversion rates, and it’s just something that cannot be faked. It also cannot be automated. It’s a business decision we all have to make, but if you want to make every visitor count, and if you want stellar conversion rates, that’s how you do it. Make an impact.

Boundaries are not evil

By Christian

It’s natural is get stressed when you hit 3 red lights in a row. It’s natural to get upset when you have to wait at your house for 4 hours, waiting for the cable guy to show up. As human beings, we rarely appreciate boundaries…we see them as unnecessary hurdles. We see them as a pain.

So when it comes to selling your product or service, you may be inclined to remove as many boundaries as possible. After all, you want to be easy to work with, right? You don’t want to upset your customers with any unnecessary hoops to jump through, right? Well hold on there. Be careful.

Boundaries are not evil. They’re necessary.

The fact is that without red lights, a lot more of us would be dying in car crashes on the way to work. They upset us, but they also keep things running a lot more smoothly, wouldn’t you agree?

I see these things in my consulting work all the time:

A salesperson gets a call, but they are not assertive in getting the persons name and phone number. They just give the prospect the information they asked for and hang up, losing the opportunity to help that prospect any further.
A small business regularly lets their clients talk them down in price, instead of competently selling their value and only working with customers who see real value in what they do.
A consultant allows clients to pay them 30,60,90 days after the work is complete, instead of getting paid up front.
A new online marketer has great content but wants to give everything for free. They feel by making offers too soon, they’ll turn off their readers and not build a strong audience. Instead, they end up building a readership that expects everything to be free. How exactly do you monetize THAT?
A new salesperson decides the best way to get business is to never say “no”. They answer their phone 24/7 and work with any client who can fog a mirror. Obviously this is unsustainable, but they’re afraid that setting boundaries will unnecessarily turn away business…which is something they cannot afford to do.

All of these are examples of business owners taking down boundaries. They’re making themselves more accessible. They’re giving their customers and clients what they want, so how could that possibly be a bad thing? It’s bad because it’s not sustainable, and it’s not a win-win.

We need boundaries because boundaries are what enable us to all work together and live with one another in a mutually beneficial way. That’s what we all want, and that’s why it’s WORTH it to put up boundaries. We need them.

For example, you’re not evil for requiring an email address first, before the customer can download the free report. You’re not evil for having your consulting clients to pay you in full, in advance. You’re not evil for turning off your phone at night and not taking calls from your clients or customers at 4 in the morning. Yes, they’ll call you then, and yes…it’s ok to call them back during reasonable hours.

Your business is NOT just about your customer. It’s about you too. Find what works for BOTH of you, and set up boundaries to ensure that balance is met.

Are You “Getting Ready to Get Ready”?

By Christian

When it comes to increasing our sales, we are often compelled to focus on a number of things:

Refine our business plan
Improve our product
Run more ads
Hire an assistant
Go back through past clients and survey them, find out how we can improve
Take on a new lead generation system

There is value in all this, but it all comes second. If we do these things at the exclusion of engaging our customers on a personal level, nothing else matters. You can do this a number of different ways:

Phone calls
Social networking
Responding to comments on your blog
Interacting with your audience in forums
Contacting people on your email, mail or phone list

These are obviously just a few examples. Here’s the point: so many of us don’t like selling, but at the end of the day, sales need to be made. If it’s not getting done, it doesn’t matter how many cool systems you have in place. It also doesn’t matter how refined your business plan is. It also does not matter what your past clients say to you or how many great leads they refer to you…if you don’t have a strong sales system in place that is put into action daily, you won’t increase your sales.

What matters is genuine, earnest engagement between YOU and your CUSTOMERS

Make a decision how you will engage and interact with your potential customers daily. Do it with a blog. Do it with a phone. Do it with a pen and paper if you want…it doesn’t matter how you do it. Blogs aren’t magic. They just work. They are an awesome tool. They’re a tool that works really well…if you use it. Same is the case with any sales system. What matters is not the method of engagement. What matters is that there is engagement. You need to get ear to ear, face-to-face, with your customers in whatever way you can.

Do it however you wish, just do it

You may be inclined to argue that not all methods of engagement are equal. Certainly some are better than others. For example, selling vacuum cleaners door to door is certainly not as effective as selling through other means, correct? I’d like to point out that I know more than one person personally that earns a high six-figure income doing just that. It’s not what I consider ideal; it’s not how I roll these days. I feel I’ve found ways to market my business much more effectively. That said, if you can earn $50k+ monthly selling door to door in this day and age, you can do well doing ANYTHING.

Tweak as you go, but get started. Stop trying to figure out the system that will work best for you, and get busy putting something that makes sense to you into action. Figure out the rest as you go. It will be messy, and that’s how real top producers get stuff done. They just do it.

Make a plan, then EXECUTE

Making a plan is crucial. Take 10 minutes. Make a plan. Then put it into action. Action is key, not perfection. I talk with clients all the time that are spending too much time trying to “figure stuff out”, trying to “perfect their systems”. They’re getting ready to get ready. If you ask me, an ounce of action beats a pound of preparation. Go make it happen.

The benefit of starting with nothing

By Christian

In my consulting business, I work with a lot of real estate professionals. That’s probably not too much of a surprise, because Dangerous Tactics is about how to make more sales, and Realtors definitely are in a sales-based business, correct? One of the biggest concerns I hear from new agents is the concern of income. Basically, “how long is it going to take before I start making money?”

We all need an income of some sort, so this seems like a reasonable question. But as I argue so often, I think this is the wrong question to ask. Don’t ask how long it will be before you start making money, because if that’s your question it means your focus is on making a sale. That’s the wrong focus.

The right focus

If your focus isn’t supposed to be on making sales, then where the heck is it supposed to be? Is that question on your mind? I hope so, because THAT is the right question 🙂

The best place to focus is on the client. What do THEY need? How can you best help them? What’s in THEIR best interest? If your focus is not on them, then you are not serving them, and if you’re not serving them, do you know what path you’re on? You’re on the path to becoming a high pressure salesperson…or a broke salesperson. I’d wager neither one appeals to you, right? So let’s work to correct that.

The best salespeople and highest-producing business owners don’t care if they make the sale. This might sound counter-intuitive, so if you’re inclined to argue with me, then I encourage you to spend a while talking with top producers and successful business owners like I have for many years. I’m confident that after a short while you’ll see exactly what I mean.

So if you legitimately need to make a sale, how the heck are you supposed to not care if you make the sale?

This is the big secret to high production and a lot of success in your business. Of course you need to pay bills, and that will always be the case. So this means that you need to get good at what you do. Education, training and coaching are the constant companions of every successful business owner and sales professional. This is no coincidence.

You need to get good at making more sales, but as you already know people don’t like high pressure salespeople, and they rarely buy from them. So if you legitimately need to make a sale, how the heck are you supposed to not care if you make the sale? This is an issue a lot of people struggle with, so I want you to stick with me. If you read this post and apply it to your business (this is completely applicable to anyone who wants to sell more of their stuff, not just Realtors), then you will be on the road to making a lot more sales. I guarantee it.

How to not care about money

You know how a bank will only give money to people who don’t really need it? It’s a funny situation, but the same principle applies to making more sales in your business. If you are desperate for a sale, it quickly becomes very difficult to make a sale, because customers know your focus is on yourself, not them. See the trouble? It really is essential to not care about money if you want to truly grow your business and start making more sales. So how do you do it?

There are two ways:

Have money in the bank
Spend some time in the trenches and learn that not having money really isn’t something to be afraid of

Clearly this may seem like a difficult choice, and for many people it is. That’s why top producing business owners and salespeople earn a high income…they don’t really need the money.

Points to be argued

Of course this is an easy thing to argue. You can cite the existence of self-interested and corrupt business owners. You could point out that this is an easy thing for me to say, because I’m so uber-successful, etc. I understand 🙂 But here’s the thing…it’s not my rule. The world gives money to people who don’t really need it, just like banks give money to people who don’t really need it.

Why is this the case? Because if you’re trying to make sales, your motivation is going to shine through every time, and people’s bullshit detectors are on high alert. Importantly, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a business like real estate where you’re working face to face with clients or if you’re in a marketing-based business where you rarely see your customers face-to-face.

Many business owners think they can hide behind their sales copy. Because they’re not physically face-to-face with their buyers, they convince themselves they’re not in sales. We like to call ourselves “marketers”, because we don’t want to think of ourselves as sleazy high pressure salespeople. But the fact is everyone is in sales, and your motivation is what matters, not your method of delivery of your sales messages.

You can do personal one-on-one sales demos, webinars, or you can write sales copy that will be read by thousands of people at a time…it’s all the same. If your motivation is to truly and earnestly help the customer, the customer will know it, and trust will begin to form. You will be on the path to earning some serious business if you stick with it. If on the other hand your motivation is to make money, pay your bills and get your balance sheet straightened out…the customer will know that too.

Which one do YOU think will earn you more sales?

The benefit of starting with nothing

When I first began my sales career 12 years or so back, I had nothing. I had a part time job at a restaurant and was making about $5k per year. Yeah, I was pimpin 🙂 My wife and I had basically nothing but each other, and I learned something really important during that time. It wasn’t a dark time. It was awesome. It was simple. No it wasn’t a rich lifestyle. I drove a Geo Metro, man! But we had everything we needed, and we got by.

…as soon as I took that attitude, my sales started coming in as fast as I could handle them.

The essential lesson was that even if I lost everything today, I know for a fact I would be OK. I also know for a fact that I could rebuild things very quickly, because I know what to do now to get results. How do I know that NOT making the sale is OK? Because I’ve done it. I’ve been totally, completely broke, and while it’s not my ideal situation, it’s really not that bad.

That’s the benefit of starting with nothing. You can focus on your clients without worrying about whether you make a sale or not, because you know that the absolute worst thing that can happen is that you won’t make money, and if that happens…so what? Ironically…and this is the killer point of this whole post…as soon as I took that attitude, my sales started coming in as fast as I could handle them. I started winning awards, all-expense-paid vacations and earning more money than I’d ever made before.

Do I recommend starting with nothing? Not necessarily. You can always do option 1. Have money in the bank. At least that way you have something to fall back on, and it allows you to maintain focus on what matters…the client. But if you can’t do that, you always have option 2, and it might be the best way to go. With money in the bank, you can still lose it and might eventually have to face being broke.

But if you start with nothing, you have the opportunity to learn that being broke and being poor are two completely different things, and if you learn that lesson then nobody can take that from you, and nothing…nothing can stop you.

How to Get More Money

By Christian

When I was selling vacuum cleaners door to door (yes, I did!) there always came a time when my demonstration was finished, and it was time to show the customer the price sheet. It was a stressful time. In sales we have a high tech name for this. It is “asking for the order”. If you want someone to buy something you need to usually ask them to buy it.

Duh, right?

Could it be simpler?

Well, most people don’t do it. In business, you’re probably actually very good at what you do. After all, you do it all day every day. You have skills that are valuable to others, and you’re probably comfortable giving a customer a brochure, responding to emails with questions or any number of other things that demonstrate your ability to give the customer or client value. But do you take the next step and actually ask people to buy?

Working with sales people, marketers and business owners in tons of different niches, I’m regularly confronted with this basic step being skipped. It’s essential to remember that people rarely take action on their own. Their needs to be a precipitating event. Something needs to happen to prompt their action. They need to be shown the next step. You’re the professional, no? Well if you’re the professional, you know when it’s time to make a buying decision. Of course, sometimes that decision is going to be “no thanks”. That’s part of being in business. But ASKING FOR THE ORDER is also part of being in business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

If you don’t ask you don’t get. Really!

How to get more money

Sometimes business owners stress on what to charge. Especially when it comes to consulting, we often feel pressured to sell our time much too cheaply. Back to my vacuum sales example…the price I charged back then (this was many years ago at this point…I’m certain the price is higher now) was about $1600. Yes, $1600 for a vacuum cleaner. You may think that is a very high price, and you’d be right. Importantly, I believe in the product, and I will only ever use that type of vacuum cleaner to this day. I only ever sell products or services that I believe in 100%. That said, it’s very expensive.

So who in the world pays that much for a vacuum cleaner? The answer is no one does…with one exception. Those who are asked. Of those who are asked to purchase a vacuum cleaner for $1600, approximately 1 in 3 say yes. 1 in 3? Yes. 1 in 3. Is asking for the order really that effective? In my experience, yes it is.

It appears that if you ask, you just might get what you want…not every single time, but pretty darn often.

It’s expensive to be inexpensive

Why would you sell your time (or anything for that matter) too cheaply? What ends up happening? You end up resenting the work, don’t you? And clients still complain that you charge too much, don’t they? How much is the right amount to charge for your product? Charge the amount that makes you feel good about doing it. Pricing is an element of marketing much more than it ever reflects actual value. Actual value doesn’t exist. Pricing does exist, so charge what you’re worth!

Does this mean you have to charge $1000 an hour? Of course not, but I know many consultants who do. Even more. The point is not price. The point is that there are plenty of clients who will pay basically whatever you ask them to pay. You have to position yourself, and then simply ASK FOR THE ORDER. That’s how you get more money.