Ever see the movie the Beverly Hillbillies? It’s a comedy about Jed Clampett and his family and how they strike oil in their backyard and make billions.
Of course the Beverly Hillbillies are fictional, but last year Greg Losh in Selma, Indiana actually did find oil in his backyard. He’s also pumping natural gas to heat his home.
Unlike the fictional Jed Clampett, Read More »
Which are you, a dreamer or a doer?
If you’re a doer (not a dreamer) I’d like to talk with you and see if you qualify for my small business marketing MasterMind Group, a group of savvy entrepreneurs and small business owners dedicated to helping each other succeed.
It’s crunch time!
As I’m sure you know this recession is one of the worst we’ve had since the Great Depression our parents lived through and it’s going to take a while for things to turn around.
The entrepreneurs and small business owners who are going to come out on top, the ones who will make profits even in the midst of the recession will do so due to one thing.
So if you’re interested in significantly increasing your sales this year, I’d like to talk with you about how to leverage your small business marketing to increase your income.
If you want direct access, up close and personal, to me and my over 20 years of Million Dollar Generating Marketing Know-How…then you’re invited to join me, marketing coach Charlie Cook, and just 26 other success-minded small business owners and entrepreneurs in my small business marketing MasterMind Group.
Interested? Get the details here >>
– Charlie Cook
P.S. This is only for doers, not dreamers. It’s for people who are passionate about their small businesses, their customers and the products and services they provide. People ready to tune up their small business marketing so they can profit from this recession.
P.P.S. My one-on-one coaching program has been sold out for months and currently the only way you can get access to me personally is by joining the small business marketing MasterMind Group.
P.P.P.S. This is only for people who have an existing established business and want to take it to the next level. It’s not for opportunity seekers, newbies, or people who are begging for business.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e77e0398-3e37-44de-a698-ee11e2d9c11b)
Even the smartest people I know make mistakes, really big ones. In fact they make more than most. But they are still very successful in small business — and in life.
What is it that winners do that separates them from people who are always struggling?
One of the smartest people that I know is a doctor who retired just last month. He and his wife, both very experienced sailors, had made plans to spend several weeks cruising the coast of Maine. In preparation, the doctor did a lot of work this spring on their 36-foot sailboat, including taking off and refurbishing the propeller and then putting it back on.
When they launched the boat and started to back it off the trailer, though, the doctor discovered he’d made a major mistake (Marketing Tip: don’t make this mistake). When he shifted the motor into reverse, the engine pushed the boat forward and when he shifted it into forward, the boat went backwards.
He quickly arranged to have the sailboat hauled to the local boat yard and made a point of being there when the repair was made. He wanted the mechanic to show him exactly what he’d done wrong when he reinstalled the propeller.
He wanted to learn how to avoid making the same mistake the next time around, get the boat moving forward when he shifted it into forward gear, and get the cruise underway.
And that’s what winners do.
They don’t hide or ignore mistakes or missteps. They acknowledge them, even celebrate what they learned from the situation, and move on.
Anyone can use this simple, no-cost marketing tip to continually get smarter and make more money.
Over the last few decades I’ve seen hundreds of people double or triple their profits within months, and I’ve seen a handful never get where they want to go.
You’ve seen the same thing. Two smart people from the same school end up in two very different places. One as the CEO pulling in a huge salary with generous stock options, the other struggling to make ends meet.
What’s the single most important difference between winners and losers? It’s not just that they make more marketing mistakes.
Winners are quicker to learn and adjust their course to reach their goals! The difference is…
Marketing Tip: The Speed of Course Correction.
Imagine you are in a canoe race where the objective is to paddle across a lake to the finish line on the far side. You and your fellow competitors all have the same strength, paddling experience and start at the same time.
You’re headed for the finish line and paddling hard when a breeze picks up and begins to push all the canoes sideways. Can you predict who will win the race?
The winners will be the team that notices the change in the conditions and adjusts their course the quickest. They’ll win by being the fastest to make the adjustments that will give the shortest possible route to their destination.
Everyone wants a straight path to success, but obstacles get in the way; competitors, recessions, marketing that doesn’t get a response, the shifting interests of your clients; the list is endless if you see it that way.
The business people who end up on top are quick to acknowledge that things are off course. They continually make the changes necessary to reach their goals.
What’s the fastest way for you to stay in the winners’ lane?
Marketing Tip #1. Learn to Love Mistakes
When I had my first website in the mid ‘90s it cost me $35,000 and it was more or less a flop. It barely made any money.
I could have thrown up my hands and decided that the Internet was a total waste of time. Instead I chose to get the most I could out of my $35,000 blooper.
I took it as a challenge to discover which mistakes I’d made and what to do differently the next time around. I sold my second website a year later for just under a million dollars.
I made a big mistake, learned all I could from it, and turned that knowledge into a big success. You can do the same.
Marketing Tip #2. Acknowledge Mistakes Right Away
I talked to a business owner, a specialty clothing retailer, who told me he’d spent $7,000 on Yellow Page ads. When I asked him how many customers the ads had generated, he said none. The following month he signed up with the Yellow Pages again. What’s wrong with this picture?
If you’re not getting the results you want from your marketing, admit that your current strategy needs to be adjusted, if not totally replaced. Let go of the strategies and tactics that aren’t working and make room for new, more effective ones.
My doctor friend who put his propeller on backwards could have just kept the problem a secret and lived with it for the summer, remembering to put the boat in reverse when he wanted to go forward.
Or he could have tried to fix the propeller himself, hoping he could figure it out on his own the second time around. Instead, he admitted his mistake, sought expert advice, learned from his mistake and set off for a great vacation.
Marketing Tip #3. Be Ready to Change Course
Over and over I hear the same things from small business owners struggling with their marketing. They tell me:
“I’m sure that idea won’t work for me.”
“I know that already.”
“I can’t find anyone to help me.”
“I just want someone to hand me a blueprint.”
These are excuses to keep doing the same thing, even if it isn’t working.
Winners recognize mistakes and grab at new marketing ideas. They put them to the test, track the results and continually fine-tune the ways they market and manage their businesses.
I have many clients who’ve done just that, and more than one who doubled their income last year in the midst of a lousy economy. They jumped on the ideas I gave them and put them into practice.
You can be a winner, too. Your business goals are within reach. To achieve them, be willing to make mistakes; admit them; learn from them and take corrective action, quickly.
Want to get the help you need to get to the top? Start here >>
– Charlie
P.S. Wish you had a clear idea of what works and what to do to generate more leads, close more sales and maximize your profits? Each month I interview one of the top marketing or sales experts or entrepreneurs, all who have made a ton of mistakes and learned what works and doesn’t work.
Find out the fastest ways to grow your business from these interviews. And if that isn’t enough, I take the most important tactic from the conversation and detail exactly how to implement it. It’s practically done for you.
Ready to get more business and increase your profits? Click here >>
“If you don’t make mistakes, if you don’t have failures you’ll never learn…too often I find people, they make a mistake, they don’t take the lessons from that and they make it again and again. So spend the time to figure out what you can learn from it so you don’t ever repeat it.” Indra Nooyi, Pepsico, CEO
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=8e653a7f-af82-453d-84f5-0052897e7e1d)
“Can I make this business profitable?” Jim from Kansas City, Kansas asked me a few weeks ago.
Jim installs glass into existing steel or fiberglass front doors, bringing much needed light into homes and increasing their resale value. He has a steady stream of customers and has increased his customer base each of the 8 years he’s been in business.
Yet he was just breaking even before the recession and is now losing money.
What’s the problem?
Any small business marketing that is built around selling just one product or service is going to struggle. In Jim’s case, his only opportunity to resell to past customers is when — or if— they move into a new home. He has to find a new customer to make almost every sale.
BIG MISTAKE!
Finding new prospects and converting them to customers is the hardest part of growing your business.
Once you have a satisfied customer you can sell to them again and again. To run a profitable business, you want to offer a number of related products or services or a service or product that people need more than one time.
Once you have a satisfied customer, you can sell to them again and again. It’s ten times easier to sell an existing customer than to start from scratch with a new one.
Discover the easiest way to attract a steady stream of profits >>
I asked my barber what his life would be like if he had to find sixteen new customers every day. He looked at me as if I were crazy. He only needs to attract new customers periodically when an existing customer moves away or goes bald.
Jim simply does not have a profitable business model. Instead of using each sale to a new customer to generate additional sales, he’s stuck on a permanent treadmill, constantly needing to find new customers and trying to close the next first sale.
Is It A Hobby?
If you only have one product or service to sell and it’s not something people need over and over, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby. There is no way to grow your business and your income. You’ll always be struggling to make a profit.
Ready to stop working so hard, and make more with less effort? >>
To be profitable, you need to attract first time customers and then sell them multiple products and services or help them buy again and again.
Here’s the sequence that generates profits:
1. Attract prospects to your mailing list
2. First time sale
3. Up-sell or cross-sell a higher price point product,
4. Sign them up for an on-going service and help them
5. Create customers for life (well at least for a year at a time).
Of course there are many variations, but the goal is the same; leverage the first sale into additional revenue so you maximize the value of each customer.
That’s what my trainer did when he signed me for an annual season pass to the gym. That’s what my HVAC company did when they signed us up for an annual maintenance contract.
That’s what the phone company does too. They get you in the funnel with an incredible deal on a cell phone and then sign you up for a two-year contract.
WalMart uses the same strategy. They put the lowest, practically free item at the end of the aisle to get you in to the store. Most people buy a higher priced more feature-laden version, and pick up a handful of other items while they are in the store.
Without a marketing funnel, a way of up-selling or cross-selling – you’ll be permanently frustrated and perpetually broke.
Want to stop being frustrated and start making more with your small business marketing? Start here >>
Is there anything Jim can do to turn his “hobby” into a business?
Absolutely. Jim could expand the services and products he offers to meet more of his customers’ needs. He could offer replacement windows and window washing, for example, and have sales partnerships with people who clean carpets, refinish floors, and do home renovations.
By offering just a few of these related services he could easily double his income within a month or two and have a wildly profitable business. But he didn’t want to change his business model. Last I heard he was headed for bankruptcy instead.
If you just want to be busy, get a hobby.
If you want to make money, your business model needs to systematically help first time customers buy from you again and again so that you make more with less effort. It’s not complicated, and you can easily increase your income by 50% or more within weeks.
– Charlie
P.S. Tired of just being busy? Want to find how to find out the proven formula for attracting clients and profits?
Use this small business marketing blueprint to get the profits you want >>
P.P.S. I’ve known people who worked 50 to 80 hours a week just to make ends meet, when they had an untapped goldmine in their hands. Find out how easy it is to get all the business you want and see your income grow.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5dd8e31d-6e5e-4d3f-9d83-e40f771447b1)
In this economy it seems like everybody has become a skinflint!
Money is tight and a lot of people are worried. While there have always been skinflints out there, it seems like more of your previously free spending buyers have morphed into skinflints.
What can you do to your small business marketing to get skinflints to buy and get your profits back on track in this economy?
Find out how to increase your profits in this economy >>
My Dad The Skinflint
I grew up with a dad who was always looking for ways to cut costs. He’d turn out the lights to save on electricity, often before the rest of us had left the room.
During the winter, he’d turn the heat down to 50 degrees at 9 p.m. and I learned to sleep under piles of blankets.
When gas first hit a dollar a gallon back in the late 1960s my Dad focused on getting the most miles he could out of a gallon of gas. He’d shift into fourth gear at 20 mph. Even before cars like the Prius ever existed he was getting over 30 miles per gallon.
Even when I take my Dad out for a meal, he stills asks for the cheapest beer they’ll serve. Last time I think the waiter must have gone into a storage room and dusted off a Pabst they’d had sitting around for years.
My Dad ascribed his money-saving ways to his Scottish heritage and now your customers are blaming their reluctance to buy on the economy.
What You Should Know
My Dad was a skinflint by nature. It wasn’t that we were perpetually broke or in dire straits. He saw saving money as a game and took great pride in seeing how little he could spend on electricity, heating oil, gas and even beer.
Did that mean he didn’t spend money or spend big on certain items?
Of course not. Over the years my Dad has spent large when he wanted a sailboat, antique furniture, or the latest Toyota Prius with all the bells and whistles.
What you should know is that even people who are skinflints by nature, are happy to spend money when they want something. And that’s just as true for people who are temporary skinflints due to economic worries.
Find out how to overcome your prospects reluctance to buy
Even in today’s recession-racked economy people are buying. Sales of BlackBerries, iPhones and other smart phones are up 25% in 2009. And even people on tight budgets are buying including job seekers.
They’re buying because the connectedness that smart phones provide has a high value for a growing number of people.
How To Get Skinflints To Buy
Are you getting more and more objections when you try and close the sale? Are more and more prospects telling you, price is the problem, it’s not the right time, they’ll need to think about it?
The one thing you need to know is that whenever your prospects seem to be waffling, appear to be morphing into skinflint mode, the problem 9 times out of 10 isn’t that they don’t need or want your product or service.
When prospects take on skinflint characteristics, what they’re telling you is they don’t understand the value of your product or service. And it’s rare that price is the issue either.
If my 90-year old Dad still drove, you couldn’t sell him a top rated Nissan Sentra or a Ford Focus for around $15,000. But you could sell him similar sized gas sipping Toyota Prius for $22,000. That’s $7,000 more!
The small business marketing secret to getting your prospects to spend more
Your Buyers Are The Same
While I think of my Dad as unique, he’s just like your buyers in one way. He’ll spend money on things he wants and perceives have a high value to him.
If you want to generate more sales in this economy, use the same marketing strategies that get skinflints to buy. Appeal to their wants and clarify the value in their terms. Do this and you could easily make this one of your most profitable years ever.
– Charlie
P.S. There is plenty of money to be made in this economy but it’s not going to fall into your lap. To get it you need to change the way you market your small business and how you close the sale.
Find out what works to close more sales in this economy
P.P.S. Visualize more clients buying from you. Imagine more people chasing you, calling you and wanting to work with you.
Sound too good to be true?
All you need to do to make it a reality is take action and discover how to eliminate the obstacles to sales.
Discover what works to bring in more buyers and more profits
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6e2dc579-38bf-4ec4-8d4e-6bd60259fac2)
“My new software application is getting rave reviews from the people who use it, but I’m having trouble making sales. What can I do to convince more prospects to buy?
– Kelly Sanders, OH
—–
Having trouble with skeptics and getting people to take action from your small business marketing?
Forty years ago I had my first experience with mail order. I know it’s hard to imagine but the Internet didn’t exist. Most people actually bought stuff in stores. Hard to believe, but true.
I’d heard about a mail order outfit called L.L.Bean. And I was interested in ordering a sleeping bag for an upcoming hiking trip I was planning. But I wasn’t sure if, sight unseen, I’d be happy with the one I’d selected from the catalog.
What got me over the hump? What got me to go ahead and make my purchase?
L.L.Bean has always had a 100% satisfaction guarantee. With it I felt confident that if I wasn’t happy, I could exchange the sleeping bag or send it back for full credit. And I’d heard stories of people making good on the guarantee and being “100% satisfied.”
Now a guarantee won’t sell your products or services by itself, but without one you won’t sell as much as you could.
Are you a skeptic?
Many of us are. It’s smart to be one. So how do you sell to skeptics?
One simple selling strategy is to eliminate any perceived risk in making a purchase. When your prospects feel confident that they’ll either love it or that they can easily get their money back, you’ve eliminated the risk, making it easier for them to give your products or services a try.
Want to convert more prospects into paying customers? Get the details >>
What stops people from buying? The fear of being ripped off…the fear of paying something for nothing…the fear of looking foolish. No question about it. If you want to turn interested, but skeptical prospects into buyers, you need to conquer fear.
What helps put that fear to rest? A risk-free guarantee of satisfaction.
In a tight economy like this one, people are especially concerned about money. Many business owners respond to those fears with lower prices, but they still can’t make sales. When you decide to take full responsibility for your customer’s satisfaction, you make it that much easier for a prospect to decide to buy from you.
Want to know how to get more people to buy from you? Start here >>
So what kind of a guarantee should you offer?
The one that will be the most meaningful to your prospects, of course.
If you offer a subscription to Forex investment tips, for example, a 6-month ‘read it, use what you learn, and then decide’ guarantee would be effective. It demonstrates that you’re so certain your system will work, that you’re willing to give the consumer 180 days to succeed with it.
A good guarantee will make sales. A risk-free guarantee will make more sales, double…even triple what you could make without one. Here are some templates for some guarantees that I’ve used successfully:
– “Subscribe today. If you think your first issue—or any issue —doesn’t deliver at least $XXX worth of ideas and information, you can tell us to take a hike. We will cancel your subscription and send a prompt refund for all un-mailed issues, no questions asked. We won’t be happy to know that we failed your value test, but that will be our problem, not yours.
– You can’t lose with our guilt-free, no-risk guarantee and access to the entire program and every one of the bonuses…all for only <$>! If <product name> is not everything we say it is and you are not completely satisfied with it, then we will refund every penny of your money with no questions asked. That’s more than a guarantee; that’s a promise.
– My guarantee is to ensure you are 100% happy with <product name>. If for any reason you are not entirely satisfied, I will refund your money. No questions asked. This is an ironclad guarantee, no ifs, and no buts. If <product name> doesn’t deliver, your money will be happily refunded. In fact, you need no reason to ask for a refund whatsoever. Just tell us the dog ate it! We trust your integrity and honesty absolutely. We take the risk and you have nothing to lose, so take your 90-day trial today.
Let me ask you one last question. Do you expect the companies you buy from to stand by their products and services?
Of course you do. Use your guarantee to let your prospects know you do the same, and you’ll turn skeptics into buyers and see your sales soar.
Interested in finding more ways to convert prospects to buyers? Find out the simple formula to increase your profits >>
– Charlie
P.S. Yes, I include a guarantee with my products. Take a look here to see it >>
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=96334488-be75-4971-b059-feb04fd91c7c)
What’s the “one thing” you can do to generate more interest and more sales from your web marketing? What’s the “one thing” that every successful entrepreneur and small business owner needs to do to make more money?
Getting the attention of your prospects is the obvious answer. If people ignore your ads, your mailings or your ezines you’re never going to make as many sales as you want. The problem is not what to do but how to do it.
Discover the top copywriting tactic proven to trigger more sales. If you haven’t done so already, make sure to register in the next few minutes.
On Thursday May 14 at 4 p.m. EDT Dan Lok, the sales conversion expert and author of ‘Turn Words Into Cash,’ and I will be sharing top copywriting and web marketing tactics with you.
When you register for the TeleSeminar you’ll receive a FREE COPY of my latest ebook – ‘The 22 Hot Buttons That Get People to Buy.’
Only a few spots left. Use this link to register immediately before the doors close >>
-Charlie
P.S. Unavailable on May 14? You can still get my 50-page ebook, ‘The 22 Hot Buttons That Get People to Buy’ – FREE. Just register today and download it in minutes – no cost, no obligation.
Discover how easy it is to sell more >>
P.P.S. What did Marc have to say about Charlie’s last TeleSeminar?
“Charlie makes every minute count. When the hour was over, I had a dozen different strategies for connecting with prospects and turning them into my customers. I put two of them into practice that same day and saw results immediately.”
Marc Atherton, The Marketer’s Marketer
Register in the next few minutes before all the spaces are gone and the TeleSeminar is closed. >>
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=da8f6dcb-7e75-433c-b736-07f60d1504e2)
REGISTER for this one-time only FREE TeleSeminar with Copywriting expert Dan Lok now >>
Sign-up today and receive my FREE 50 page ebook, “The 22 Hot Buttons That Get People To Buy” just for registering!
How to Increase Your Profits In ANY Economy
—–
“Over the last 12 months, every time we take out an ad, send out a mailing we seem to get a lower and lower response rate. The same is true with our website, it just doesn’t seem to be pulling in new clients.
I know the economy stinks, but that’s not my style to try and look for something or someone to blame. What can I do to get more sales this year?
– Arthur Petersen, KY
—–
Over the years you’ve worked hard to build your small business. What can you do now to make sure the current downturn doesn’t steal your profits and that instead you keep new sales coming in and keep growing?
Nine years ago, I wrote my first sales page which I posted on my website. I looked around at the type of sales pages my competitors were using and tried to use the same approach.
The result? Even weeks later sales were barely trickling in.
I knew it wasn’t my product and I was getting plenty of traffic to the page – so what was it I was doing wrong?
I made the same mistake that most small business owners make. Even though I’d put words on the page, they didn’t grab my prospects’ attention, they didn’t work to get them reading and they didn’t work to generate a flood of sales.
Ever take out an ad, send out a mailing put up a web sales page and find yourself in the same situation? Even with plenty of exposure you get hardly any sales?
What’s the solution? Can you generate 5-10 times as much interest and sales? Can you make your marketing strategies work to get people to contact you and buy from you? And most importantly, can you light a fire under them so your prospects are motivated to make a purchase TODAY?
The answer is YES!
Find out the simple steps to take to get all the prospects and sales you can handle >>
After failing so miserably at writing copy that sells when I first started out, I did a lot of research and I sought out the best advice I could find. Eventually I hired one of the top copywriters on the planet as my mentor.
Thanks to consistent application of a few simple marketing strategies, I now enjoy some of the highest conversion rates in the industry. Translated into English that means, the ads, the sales pages and the direct mail pieces I write translate directly into a huge number of sales and amazing profits.
In business one of the keys to success is generating at least 10 to 20 dollars for each dollar you spend on marketing. When you do, when you spend a dollar on an ad and it brings in 20 or more it’s easy to be profitable.
How can you do this? How can you get your ads, mailings, websites ezines, etc. working so they bring in a flood of sales even in this economy?
Find the answer in this FREE Copywriting TeleSeminar >>
Stop thinking about what you’re to sell and start thinking about what your prospects are buying!
This is the number one mistake every small business owner makes. Your messages need to focus on what your prospects are looking for, not what you’re selling…
Prospects want to know ‘What’s in it for ME?’
Answer that question by talking about the BENEFITS of your product or service, not the FEATURES.
Volvo commercials don’t advertise that the car frame is made of high-quality metal, or its design was years in the making. They say that your family will be safe in their car.
A print ad for Viagra doesn’t show the chemical compound of the little blue pill. It shows a man and a woman holding hands on their way to an intimate moment.
Benefits, not features are what matter. Or more precisely: the benefits of the features.
Is your copy filled with the words ‘I’ and ‘my’? Does it have phrases like: ‘I can get you a better mortgage rate’ or ‘My system took me a long time to develop.’
That’s all about YOU. To sell more you need to make it all about your prospect. It’s a lot more powerful to say ‘You can lower your mortgage rate and save money with my help’ and ‘You can save time and enjoy success sooner using the system I spent years to develop.’
Interested in making your ads, your mailings and your website convert visitors into profits?
Sign up for the one-time Free Copywriting TeleSeminar >>
(note space is limited)
Any time you’re communicating with prospects…in sales letters, print ads, web site copy, or even your on-hold message, focus on the three things that tell them ‘This is all about You’. Focus on:
1. The NEEDS They Have – ‘Do You Want Your Lawn to Be Lush and Green?’ or ‘Your back pain doesn’t have to hold you back’ or ‘You’ve come to the right place to get out of debt.
2. The BENEFITS You Provide – ‘You Won’t Have to Break Your Back Feeding and Seeding’ or ‘Your flexibility and comfort will improve instantly’ or ‘You can pay off all your bills in 60 days or less.
3. The FEATURES That Allow You to Provide the Benefits – ‘Our lawn product uses a ‘secret’ seed that gives you months of care-free enjoyment’ or ‘I am a licensed chiropractor, so you’re in good hands’ or ‘The creators of our system all come from the credit card industry so they know exactly what you need to do”
Notice that all the features still talk about ‘you.’
– Charlie
P.S. When your marketing copy is working it’s like you’ve switched the traffic light from red to green. Sales come pouring in. To get you started, I’m giving away a 50 page FREE ebook that includes, “The 22 Hot Buttons That Get People To Buy.”
To claim your copy register for the Free ‘Instant Cash Copy’ TeleSeminar before it fills up.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0c93f886-8782-4f02-92fa-f981ad95dc4e)
You want to increase the flow of sales revenue, but you are stymied by prospects’ seemingly endless objections. Prospects say they’re not interested. They tell you your price is too high, or this isn’t the right time. You’ve heard all the objections.
What can you do to simplify selling and get rid of these once and for all?
Engineer Your Business Marketing
When I was seven one of my favorite ways to spend a hot summer day with my friends was playing a backyard game we called “waterworks”. We’d use a trowel to construct channels in the dirt, put the hose at one end and watch the water flow.
If we wanted the water to go straight, we’d remove rocks and debris to clear a path. We became sophisticated engineers, guiding water around corners and across short aqueducts. We felt like masters of the universe, directing the water where we wanted it to go. (You can bet my mother loved seeing us come into the house covered with mud at the end of the day.)
Plan your marketing to the same way and lead prospects to your products and services the way my friends and I engineered our waterworks; by making clear paths and removing obstacles. Channel your prospects’ attention and interests and you’ll eliminate their objections.
Below are the four most common objections and ways to eliminate them.
Lack of Interest
Prospects need to understand what you do before they can become interested in what you have to offer. It is that simple. If you’re marketing yourself as a lawyer, coach, accountant or fitness center, you’re not telling people why they should be interested. To capture their interest, explain the problems you solve from their
perspective.
Lack of Leads
You want people to email you, call you or go to your web site to buy your products and services. But first you have to motivate them to contact you so you can market to them. Once you have their attention, use your conversation, your emails and your web site to ask them what they want and need.
Lack of Credibility
You want prospects to see you as the expert; the person and the firm that has the products and services they can rely on. One of the biggest challenges to attracting new clients is gaining their trust and being seen as the essential expert. Use your articles, ezine, and web site to demonstrate your expertise. Use testimonials from clients to tell prospects about the results you and your products have achieved.
Pricing Objections
Whether it is a $25 subscription or a $50,000 consulting fee, prospects object to price when they don’t understand the value of the purchase. Establish a set of questions you can use to help prospects define what they want and what you are providing. When price is put in context, it becomes much less of an obstacle.
Still not converting as many prospects to clients as you’d like?
Use questions to find out more about what they want, and what their concerns are. Then address each of these objections up front and remove them as potential sales killers.
Think of your target market as a reservoir of water waiting to be tapped. If you eliminate the barriers between them and you, you could send a steady stream of new clients and customers your way. Now, don’t just imagine it, do it.
Start eliminating your prospects’ objections and create a clear path for them to become clients and customers. Help your prospects get what they want and you’ll be selling more products and services
to more clients.
– Charlie
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f971d7da-4cce-4a4d-a963-ecd9564e3682)
Have you ever had a prospect walk away from a sale just when you thought you were about to close?
Of course you have. It happens all the time. And more and more small business owners tell me that in this economy, their prospects are even more price sensitive. They’re finding it harder than ever to close as many sales as they want to.
Are you closing all the sales as you want to? Discover how to close more sales here >>
Before I tell you the easy way to bring in more sales, I want to clear up some confusion about marketing in this recession.
Price Is Not The Problem
While finances are very tight for some people, the majority actually have money to spend. In fact individual savings rates have almost doubled in recent months and many people have even more money in the bank than a year ago.
No question that everyone is looking for a deal, and hoping to get the same kind of discounts that we’ve been seeing for the last 4 months, what they really want is value. But it’s not the price that closes the sale. You’ll make the sale when your prospect feels certain that they are getting the best value for their money.
Want more sales? Use this proven strategy >>
Focus On Selling and Kill the Sale
I was talking with Sam, a coaching client who recently went on a shopping spree. His business grew enough last year that he not only had money to spend on his home in New York, but he purchased a second home in Florida.
Sam and his wife needed a new dishwasher for their home in New York. They went to three appliance stores. In the first two, the salespeople asked a couple of questions and then launched into hard sell presentations about the benefits of various models on the floor.
Sam and his wife walked out of both stores. They didn’t want to be sold, and the salespeople were so focused on making their pitches that they drove these prospects away.
The salesperson at the third appliance store took the time to ask them about their home, their cooking and entertaining habits, and their budget. Then he showed them two dishwashers that would suit their needs. One was within their budget but didn’t have everything they were looking for, and one cost more than they had planned to spend, but had all the features they wanted.
Have you guessed the outcome? Right. Sam and his wife bought the higher priced machine because it was a good value for them. They bought from the salesperson who took the time to ask a few questions, listen to their answers and then offer them two good solutions.
Want to make more sales? Start here >>
Focus on the Customer and Make the Sale
Sam had a similar experience house hunting in Florida. He and his wife got in touch with a realtor who’d been referred to them and described what they were looking for in detail before they headed south.
When they arrived in sunny Florida, the real estate agent took them on a whirlwind tour. She had 15 houses she wanted to show them in one day. After seeing the first five, Sam and his wife called it quits.
The realtor hadn’t listened to them. She was showing them homes that didn’t match what they’d told her they wanted, and they were frustrated looking at homes they had no interest in. The remaining 10 houses on the realtors list were just more of the same.
On a return trip a few weeks later, Sam and his wife met with a new realtor. This one asked them detailed questions and then showed them just 3 houses, one of which they now own.
You get the picture. Focus on the customer’s needs and make the sale.
Want to avoid losing customers and close more sales? Use this proven strategy >>
Diagnosis Before Prescribing
When you’re in your doctor’s office describing the pain in your back that’s been killing you for two weeks, you want her to hear the whole story. You don’t want her making a diagnosis before she has all the information about when and where you feel pain and how it all started. There’s a diagnostic side to sales, too.
Before you present a solution to a client, before you try to get them to spend a dime, help them define the problem they are trying to solve. Ask your prospects questions to find out what their needs are. Then use the information they provide to advise them about the best solutions.
People aren’t looking to be sold. They’re looking for help buying what they want. Help them, and you’ll make a lot more money.
It sounds incredibly simple, but over 60% of the salespeople Sam encountered weren’t using this simple strategy to succeed. Most small business owners, marketers and salespeople don’t ask the key questions that will help convert their prospects to clients
I know you’re smarter than most, which is why I’d like to show you marketing tips for the fastest way to close more sales >>
– Charlie
P.S. Want to know which questions to ask your prospects and which to avoid? This important topic was covered in detail on this month’s Monthly Marketing Membership Program. If you’re not a member yet, sign up today to get the insider strategies that will help you succeed this year.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0c570e43-ca45-48fe-9a5e-1b5bf77e018c)
