To listen to the podcast of this blog online, use this link >>

You’ve got a qualified prospect on the phone and you know they could use your products or services. What do you do? What do you say to convince them to buy from you today?

Should you start by telling them about the features of the products you sell or the high-tech machines you’ll be using to get the work done or about the history of your firm? What should you say first, second and third to make the sale?

Stop! If your primary concern is making the sale, your prospect will know it. No one likes to be sold. So if you’re focused on convincing your prospect of your expertise or persuading them to buy, you’re taking the wrong tack.

What Not To Do
Fran is a search engine expert who helps keep my site in the top ten listings for my keywords. I’d referred one of my clients to her and then followed up a few days later to find out why she hadn’t signed up the client. I knew the client wanted SEO help and Fran wanted to work with the client, so I wanted to find out what had gotten in the way

When I asked Fran how the call had gone, she explained that she had spent an hour and a half talking with the prospect. She gave them a detailed review of their site and explained what could be done to improve it’s search engine positioning. On top of that, she sent the prospect a Camtasia of the call, a video file of the lengthy consultation.

But after all that and several follow up calls Fran still hadn’t closed the referred prospect.

Is it taking you too long to close the sale? Are you getting the brush off? If so, you’re using the wrong approach. If you want to close more sales, use this link >>

There is no set amount of time it takes to close a sale, but unless you’re selling something that costs tens of thousands of dollars, you’re not going to make money if you spend hours with each prospect. In most cases, 30 minutes is all you should need to close the sale.

How can you close the sale in 30 minutes or less?
Use this link >>

How to Pitch Your Prospects
Here’s the secret. The way to close the sale is to avoid pitching your prospect. That’s right; don’t try to prove to them you’re the perfect solution. That’s the wrong strategy and is a waste of time.

The best way to “sell” your prospects is by getting your prospect to do the work for you. Get them to tell you three things:

1. What they are trying to achieve
2. What they want
3. How your products or services can help them

Ask them questions to get them talking about the three points above. Then let them tell you why they should buy from you today.

How would Fran’s call have gone if instead of focusing on proving herself, she had asked questions such as these:

• How many unique visitors are you getting a week currently?
• How many sales does that generate?
• How much more could you be making with 4 to 10 times as many unique visitors to your site each week?
• How would you like me to help you?

Fran would have closed the sale and put money in her pocket and the prospect would be a happy client.

Ready to dump your pitch and discover how to have your prospects pitch themselves? You’ll close many more sales in much less time. Use this link to get the details >>

What’s the perfect sales pitch?

It’s the one your prospect gives you to convince you to sell them your products and services. And it’s 100 times more powerful than any you could come up with yourself.

- Charlie
Small Business Marketing Ideas that Get Results

P.S. Imagine if you could close twice as many prospects with less effort. How much more would you make?

Interested in making twice as much? Find out how >>

To listen to the podcast of this blog online, use this link >>

Are you sitting on a source of untapped revenue?

Most small business owners are but they’re just not accessing it. Take Kathy who has worked hard over the last couple of years to more than double her business but is still struggling to breakeven. She is sitting on a gold mine, if she could just tap it.

“I spend about $5000 to make $3000 in sales. What can I do?”
Kathy, Therapeutic Massage

I’d consulted with Kathy several years ago on marketing her growing therapeutic massage business. By rethinking her strategy and rewriting her radio spots, her marketing had helped grow her business to employ seven therapists and serve thousands of clients. Now she was back with another problem and another request for marketing advice.

This year she hired a top-notch copywriter and equally good radio talent to create even better ads. Her company’s spots are funny and well written, and are bringing in new business - but not enough to cover the expense of her upgraded advertising. She’s convinced this is the right marketing approach for her business. How to make it pay?

Kathy’s marketing was on the right track, but not enough of her new clients were coming back. Typically, a new client would leave very satisfied with her firm’s services, but rarely return.

Where’s the real profit-potential in your business? The fastest way to grow your business is by helping your clients buy from you again and again.

Kathy knew that to pay for her radio advertising she not only needed to bring in new clients, but she needed to convert those new clients into repeat clients. If and when they signed up for her firm’s services for the second, third and fourth times, she’d be more profitable.

Wish more of your clients bought from you again and again? Keep selling the same way you have been and you’re going to get the same results. Discover exactly what to do to close more sales in Eliminating Obstacles to Sales. Use this link >>

Getting a prospect in the door and getting them to buy is only the first step in the marketing and sales cycle. To grow your business significantly you need with your business you need existing clients to buy again and again.

Clients who have already bought from you - know how great your products and services are. They’re much more likely to buy from you again. In fact it costs 8 to 10 times as much to attract a new client as converting an existing client into a repeat client.

Take a look at the numbers. Say you make a $50, $500 sale or a $5,000 sale and then the customer goes away. You’ve made a bit but how much could you be making?

Now imagine if instead of making just one sale per customer you had 5 - 10 a year, year after year. How much more would you make. As client relationships continued to be added and a few dried up you’d increase your revenue by at least a factor of 5 if not many times more.

Just do the math. Every time you make a sale and the client doesn’t turn into a repeat client who buys from you again and again, you’re losing big time. If instead each new client become a life long client you could easily add hundreds of thousands of dollars to your annual revenue.

Isn’t it time to do something about it?

Find out how to help existing clients to become repeat clients. Discover what works to get clients to buy again and again. Get the solution to closing more sales with this link >>

If your clients aren’t choosing to buy again and again, and you’re confident in the quality of your goods or services, then the problem is that you’re not giving them the right choices.

Kathy knew this but wasn’t having success getting her satisfied clients to come back on a regular basis. She’d been offering a discount to clients who scheduled their next massage right away, but wasn’t getting results from her offer.

Think about it. You’ve just enjoyed a professional therapeutic massage and loved the experience. What would motivate you to come back regularly?

Kathy’s offer missed the mark in that clients didn’t see much value in her offer. I suggested that instead of offering first time customers a discount on their next massage, she offer them a monthly membership with unlimited massages. She loved this idea and immediately saw the potential.

How can you make your sales and profits soar? Build repeat business by offering customers services they want and need, and make the perceived value high.

Imagine if your local gym sold individual workouts instead of annual memberships. What do you think would happen? Given most peoples’ follow through on working out, the health club would be broke.

Memberships, annual maintenance contracts, and special offers to past clients are just three ways you can leverage your initial sale and turn it into regular repeat sales and increase revenue for your business.

Are you missing the chance to increase sales by 50% or more? Do something about it. the Insider Secrets to Eliminating Obstacles to Sales >>

- Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing Ideas That Work

You’ve been working with a prospect, moving closer and closer to a sale. Just before you clinch the deal, they decide to go with a competitor’s product or service. Doesn’t this drive you crazy? Just when you think you have the sale all sewn up - it vanishes in thin air.

They may say that your firm is too small, or you charge too much or they decided to work with a friend in the business after all, or all of the above. I’m sure you’ve heard every excuse on the planet.

How do you keep from losing the sale?

Catherine called from real estate agency in town with a similar problem. Her firm regularly competes against national real estate chains and one of the most common objections prospects give is that Catherine’s company is too small. Given that the average sale price of a home is $1 million in town, with some properties selling for over $10 million, losing a listing hurts.

Its natural to want to avoid potential objections to closing sales and hope a prospect never brings them to light. You hope you can make the sale without your prospect ever balking because your firm is small, expensive, located in an unusual place, or whatever.

Many small businesses are, well, small. You may need to charge substantial fees to make a good living from your work and most people have a friend of a friend in the business. Unfortunately no matter how much you try to avoid them many prospects will bring up objections and you can lose their business.

How can you overcome these common objections?

Use prospects’ objections to your advantage and transform them into selling points!

Ever had a prospect raise an objection and ended up losing the sale? Want to discover a way to eliminate objections so you can close many more sales?

I wrote the Insider Secrets to Eliminating Obstacles to show you exactly how to structure your marketing and manage the sale process to get your prospects hungry to buy from you. Use this link to claim your copy >>

In the sales process, prospects always have concerns. If you don’t discuss them or figuratively leave them under the table they will come back to haunt you later. To move beyond prospects’ objections, acknowledge them. Identify their concerns and put them on the table for discussion to resolve them. Here’s how:

Over the years that you’ve been in business, you’ve heard all of the common objections prospects raise. Take out a piece of paper and fold it in half. In the left column, list all the reasons prospects give for not working with your firm leaving a couple of lines between each reason. Across from each objection, in the right column, jot down reasons each objection is actually a plus for your clients.

When you meet with a prospect, use your list to bring up potential hurdles yourself and address them up front. For example, Catherine’s real estate firm is small compared to the national chain firms in town. Catherine might say to a prospect, -

“You know we are a small firm with ten employees. Let me tell you about all the resources we have to help you sell your home. In addition to providing you with the same resources you’d find at a larger firm we provide more attention to detail, more local knowledge, etc.”

Then Catherine can go on to explain how her firm sells a higher dollar volume of homes per employee than the national firms. She could also talk about her highly motivated brokers who earn higher commissions in large part because they aren’t part of a national chain. She could mention the $100 million in homes sold last year.

After explaining the many advantages of working with her unique firm Catherine could ask her prospect, “Are you interested in having a small firm of highly motivated experts help you sell your home?”

With your experience in the business you know the most common objections prospects raise but what about others you haven’t considered. How can you keep these from getting in the way?

To make sure you’ve covered all of a prospect’s concerns, ask them. Jot down a question or two to use to uncover any hidden or lingering concerns they have. Address them and move on. After they’ve explained their concern, restate it clearly to make sure you have it right and then counter it. For example if they are hung up on price, explain the value and benefits of your services and expertise.

Don’t know why prospects aren’t using your services?

You gave it your best shot, but they still selected another firm. Its time to do a post-mortem and find out what went wrong. Call up that lost prospect and ask them why they picked another service provider. Write these reasons down and tack them above your desk. The next time you meet with a new prospect, bring them up.

Early on in the sales process, bring up possible objections and get prospects talking about their concerns. When these are on the table you can address each one and show how each is an advantage. When you put prospects’ objections on the table and transform them into selling points, you’ll see your sales and your business soar.

Want more business? One of the easiest ways to instantly increase your sales and profits is to improve your conversion rates, get more of your prospects to buy. Want to improve your conversion rates? Use this link to claim your copy of the Insider Secrets to Eliminating Obstacles to Sales >>

Charlie

Last Friday I injured my left shoulder. I landed smack on the top causing what feels like a minor separated shoulder. Afterwards my shoulder hurt so much I could barely move my left arm, or even get up from a sitting position.

I was in such pain that on Saturday, I skipped my morning 30 mile bike ride and canceled an afternoon sail with one of my best friends despite perfect weather.

If you know me, biking and sailing on the weekend are two of my favorite activities and I have to be in serious pain to pass them up.

If that wasn’t bad enough when I was getting ready to go out for dinner Saturday evening I had to ask my wife to help me get my socks on and tie my shoes. How embarrassing is that?

Still I got no empathy or sympathy from my wife! Instead my son and wife made fun of me.

Why?

When my wife asked how I injured my shoulder I told her I was practicing forward kneeling rolls at the gym, basically a somersault starting with one knee on the ground. I’d been watching a 14-year old perform them with ease and figured I could do them too.

My wife thought I was pretty silly to even be attempting them and reminded me I’m not a kid anymore. (This is a discussion we have frequently.)

Am I looking for empathy? No - but your prospects are.

If you want to be successful at selling - EMPATHY is the key. You need to understand your prospects’ problems and concerns.

Discover how to use empathy to close more sales with this link >>

Charlie
Small Business Marketing Ideas That Work

How important are your product names to the success of your marketing?

Back in March after a ski trip, my son returned to college leaving his ski boots in our poolroom, that wasn’t the problem, the problem was they were highly odiferous if you know what I mean. Other than dipping them in Clorox I wasn’t sure how to kill the smell.

With a short web search and I found the perfect product. It was marketed under the name, “Stinky Feet”, which got my attention and I whipped out my credit card and bought it. Amazingly enough the stuff worked, at least after a few applications.

How important is the name of your product or service to the success of your small business marketing?

Product names like Stinky Feet or Mold Away or Eliminating Obstacles to Sales or Creating Web Sites That Sell let your prospects know what they’re for or do immediately. That’s a good thing if you want the sale.

Want to get the attention of your prospects and attract buyers with your marketing? Does the name of your product or services contain a description of the problem or the solution?

If they do, they’re much easier to sell.

Know of other great product names or ideas? Submit them here by leaving a comment.

- Charlie
For Marketing Ideas That Work