Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons)

Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons) : by Jason Li 2013 ©

Call to Actions (CTA) are really important...

In fact critical...

Whether it’s on a web page, sales letter, or email...

Get this wrong and sales conversions will be low...

Get good at it and your enquiries and sales conversions will allow your business to grow.

How else does Call to Action affect business?

Call today to register for the ‘Annual prize draw’ ***01234 5678910*** It ONLY takes 40 seconds! Registrations end 5pm this Friday 31st

·         Call to Action affects how many enquiries you get.


·         Call to Action provides better qualified leads.


·         (It’s unusual – but yes, Call to Action) Reduces labour costs. You see, sales people spend lots of unprofitable time cold calling or visiting prospects at the very earliest stage of the sales cycle with no idea if the prospect is ready to go all the way to conclude by making an order; especially in business-to-business and complex sales. This means working with a prospect at the low interest/enquiry stage leads to low response rates and makes the business inefficient.


·         Call to Action brings forward interested buyers because they are not sold to. Buyers can sniff out a sales pitch all day long... because they get pitched all day long. But after reading your copy, prospects that contact you have decided they want to seriously consider working with you. Otherwise, why would a CEO of a business with legal, operational, human resource, turnover, logistics, product, brand, Inland Revenue issues, and so on make an enquiry?


·         Call to Action provides your sales people more productive time on working on seriously interested prospects.


·         A good Call to Action can determine whether a prospect makes an enquiry today or in 6 months. (However, you may need to provide an incentive to bring forward an enquiry.)


·         A good Call to Action motivates interested prospects to consider if they are ready to take action now (or very soon after assessing their own situation on the spot.)

Case study: Email Campaign business-to-business using Call to Action

I manage an email campaign to certain businesses. Many businesses that receive emails from this campaign usually have a professional gatekeeper (I call them pro gk’s – I imagine if they had goalie gloves they would be brilliant because nothing would get past them). Therefore by telephone the owners are always out of reach. (It’s like trying to contact Richard Branson you would think sometimes for some sales people due to well trained gk’s.)

As the email is genuinely targeted at business owners (or directors as a minimum decision making level), the emails have to be excellent in getting their attention and them to read it (and we can’t use Meercats because they don’t work for this campaign).

Criteria for success from the email campaign:

·         Business owners get 100s of emails... so they must be very interesting to get read... I can’t emphasis this enough.


·         Ensure owners see the value of the product and services.


·         To drip feed value over a series of emails.


·         Ensure the whole offer is of better value and differentiated from competitors.


·         The email is viral enough to get passed around.


·         Different decision makers see value in the email (this allows the buyers to assess the email content and if the products and services really are compelling enough for the board room to make it a priority).


·         Generate enquiries from serious prospects (The general buying and thinking process of buyers will be to go on the website, look at competitors, speak to friends – even the wife), and carry out internal investigations.


·         Get the company in front of decision makers at an early stage and build up a relationship... even if the prospective buyers already have long standing relationships or in a contract.


·         Be a means to build up a relationship with decision makers where cold calling and sales reps can’t due to little success leaving messages and voice mail with admin staff.


·         The sales staff earns more commission and have better holidays as they are spending time on closing not speculation.


·         Sales staff are travelling less miles and in better health as time is organised with serious buyers only... bordering on order taking as much as possible.


·         After all this... the call to action must draw out interested buyers to call this company, not another, and to call sooner rather than later.

So here are some Call to Action observations:

Due to writing direct response sales copywriting, and taking part in a number of marketing communications campaigns, I have gathered some interesting titbits of knowledge about Call to Actions which may be of interest (Please note your own A/B split tests can give different results):

WIIFM Value: Your Call to Action should answer why your prospect should take an action. Remember, humans are inherently selfish. Your Call to Action must answer “What’s in it for me?” better than any other competitor.

It’s easy to do: Even if your product or service is complicated. Simplify the starting process so that prospects can get up and running in a matter of seconds. (If you struggle, some tips are in the beginners guide book ‘The Goose Bump Effect’ in the top left above Services.

Urgency: Create a time limited offer. Such as 40% discount or a free matrix/chart worth £20 if you register by X date.

Bigger is better: Generally, if your Call to Action is larger than the surrounding copy and designs... your Call to Action has a better chance.

Easy navigation: Prospects who are interested will want to get going now. If they’re sat on the fence, making it so simple to start now will also help you persuade the ones who are just “so close to registering.”

Remind them what to expect: Ideas include: download a file, request information, add a product to shopping cart, subscribe to a newsletter, navigate the next page, download a trial, submit form, request a call back, register for prize draw, and so on.

Stong guarantee: Humans are risk averse because they don’t like change. We’re programmed to avert being hurt. A strong guarantee reduces this worry.

No links, ads or cluttered text (on web pages) next to the Call to Action: Humans cannot multi-task. Humans cannot focus on two complicated things simultaneously.

F-shaped Call to Actions: Humans start at the top left (in the Western world) and move the eyes to the right, then down a bit, then across again, and then down again. If your Call to Action can mimic this, if will catch the prospects eye.

Simple Products have Call to Actions above the fold: You can have the Call to Action right at the top if it is a very simple and universally known product. Many prospects won’t need to read the copy or look at the pictures to ‘get it.’

Complex products have Call to Actions delayed: The more complex and more you have to educate, add value and differentiate, the further down you should have your Call to Action. Putting your offer and what you want to be paid too early reduces your chances of success because prospects can’t understand how you are worth the value.

Colour: Orange or Red against a contrasting background can assist conversion rates. Red colours generate a feeling of aggression and increased heart rates. This is where marketing consumer psychologists will tell you that many people make decisions based on emotions. You can use red for strong actions such as ‘buy’ and soft actions such as ‘request contact’ (and use a blue colour for trust).

Copy: The wording makes a big difference to response rates. If you just have a simple ‘buy’, you are risking leaving this open to the 100% convinced only to buy this product, and from you, and right now to take action. Sometimes an 80% convinced prospect is ready to go to 100%, and your copy has to take them there.

Of course... if you’re just another HR payroll software, plumber, interior designer, or tax accountant who provides great service or other commodity out there, a Call to Action alone won’t help you too much.

Spend a bit of time improving the product so that you are more helpful (of value) and differentiated than other competitors, and your conversion rates will naturally improve.

My call to action to you: Share this with another person who likes business articles about sales conversions right now. 

Time to do this: only 30 seconds so start right now.

Karma points: plenty (and you’re friend might be delighted you thought of them too.)

Further reading:

How a counsellor like Oprah Winfrey will outsell a salesperson: trust and buying psychology

Read more ...

Send Me An Email Sales Objection: The Ultimate Way To Handle It

Send Me An Email Sales Objection: The Ultimate Way To Handle It: by Jason Li 2013 ©

The send me an email sales objection...


It happens to most businesses...

Sometimes it can happen ten times a day...

The “send me an email” or “send me some information” sales objection...

Or they’re never in when you call over-and-over again and you can only send an email...

But don’t worry; there are ways around the objection...

(Like making threats or funny noises down the phone – on second thoughts don’t do this)

And there’s one great way to improve long-term conversions even with this objection.

What sales people are taught to handle the send me (some information) an email sales objection

(Or something along these lines)

1.       We have lots of literature, what exactly is of interest/ suits your needs/ are your problems and I will be happy to send the relevant information to you? (And then try to re-pitch. If the prospect refuses and asks for email – don’t send email.)

2.       If I take 5 minutes of your time I will be happy to send over the exact info you want which will save you hours of reading time. (If prospect won’t accept your offer, don’t send email and move on to next prospect.)

3.       I’ll only take a minute, and if it’s of interest we can carry on the discussion if that’s all right with you? (If prospect won’t even entertain a minute, don’t send an email and move on to next prospect.)

4.       How about I schedule an appointment as it is easier to explain than to read lots of information? (If prospect says no then don't send an email first. Move on to next prospect.)

5.       Perhaps I can call another time if you are busy as it will save you lots of time? (If no then don’t send an email.)

6.       Sure I can send an email. Should I call this afternoon/tomorrow morning 9am to discuss the email? (If prospect says no we will contact you, don’t send and move on to next prospect.)

7.       You might know more useful and better qualifying or schlickkkk sales objection handling phrases.

A story about how a really good sales pro lost a sale (Yep, it was a genuine send me an email)

Let me tell you a real story... and I still shake my head when I think about it (not quite like the characters in the film Jacob’s Ladder.)

So this professional sales person cold calls me. He’s selling leads b2b. He's well trained.

From a cold call starting at “who are you?” he’s got me talking and interested... (I can hear Viper from Top Gun saying in the background: “This kid’s gooood!”

I’m interested for the business who I was working for at the time, and he’s like... asked me 10 questions and taken up loads of my time (WTF). Three times I’ve said send me an email, and he keeps on asking (Maybe I should have tapped the phone to make sure he could hear me?)

But I give him a chance because I’m interested.

He calls me on my busy project day... doesn’t he get it, we don’t make money answering sales calls (I bet he makes little money answering every sales call). We could do this all day long and make no money at all.

So I finally said send me an email and I’ll reply at the end of the week (Da da... gold dust – you now have my email address plus my telephone number. I bet he was high fiving his colleagues in his sharp shiny suit at this point.)

But can you believe it... he doesn't send me an email.

To compound this, my boss at the time was very interested in making more money. My boss spends if you can add value to his business. There was a need for more clients, to grow, for better conversions.

We were prime beef with stickers on our heads; with the words PRIME BEEF printed in capitals.

OMG (first time I’ve ever wrote this as I hate this Hollywood high school phrase).

OMG... I feel so much better now so I wrote it twice because this deserves it.

Yes we would have spent time looking at your website and looked on Google at alternative solutions, plus asked friends who they’ve used or what they thought... but you know what, we would have paid you... and not just once if you were good.

But hey, tell me which business does not look at the whole market before weighing up which vendor will be the supplier.

“SEND ME AN EMAIL Goddamit Mr Cold Caller.”

And if his product was good, over time I would’ve been happy to refer to others about how good they are too.

So why did this happen? How can a business ensure there will be better long-term sales conversions?

(You can stop cringing now if you’ve realised your business daren’t send an email for whatever reason. This article might help sooth that problem – if you really want better sales conversions over the long-run.)

The prospects point of view and why they say send me information on an email sales objection

As sales people, it has been taught to understand the prospects needs and objections. One advantage in sales is that after having conversations with so many prospects in your target market, you do get a feel for their needs and common objections.

Taking this onboard, here are some reasons why people say send me an email, and I’ve tried to do this as if a cold caller called me for during different days and times in the week.

1.       I’ve some interest and want to see what it is so I can learn about it myself at my own pace. You see it’s new to me.

2.       I never buy on the first cold call – have you ever had someone ring you on a Wednesday night after work and then on the first call given your card details over the phone to a cold caller? Really?

3.       I’m interested and just going into a meeting, out on an appointment, need to carry on with my project and look at the subject you’re talking about after this. What’s the rush... are you leaving town next week?

4.       I need to look at what you offer to see if it genuinely helps me, the business, clients, and absolutely adds value, not because you said it’s good and you’re friendly and likeable like all sales people we speak to.

5.       There’s more 100s of more reasons and you may think of some reasons why you can’t take a call when you’re in the bath or making a brew.

Yes, I’ll send an email with information for you

If you genuinely want higher conversion rates over the long-run, then consider this:

1.       You know this already as you work in sales or business development: Only contact people who are in the right target market and are the right type to buy your product, and will find it’s of value in what you offer. Don’t waste time, money, energy, and your good morale on bad target prospects.

2.       If they are not ready now and want an email, don’t be too pushy. Just think of when someone cold calls you after work like the above.

3.       Send an email to people who want an email and keep a relationship with them. You can always ask their thoughts on the email at another time. People have 100s of objections and 100s of unusual reasons to want to buy.

4.       If you’re afraid that your email or link to your website/product/service won’t get a sale, then don’t blame the prospect or your sales technique. You’ve got attention and interest. IT MUST BE THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE THAT'S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH OFFER. Think of it this way, if your target market is interested in a smart phone and your offer is pretty much an average performing smart phone, you’re going to have a low conversion rate.

Remember, you will only buy a new car, new tablet, go to a fancy restaurant, sophisticated pen, plain steel toe capped boots, new software if you find it genuinely adds great value to your life.

Bravado talk such as don’t blame the product/service because it’s you the sales person does not help improve the business or future conversion rates.

Many great businesses innovate year-on-year so that their product/service/packages are absolutely the best and differentiated from competitors. (Yes you read it here. Take the sales hat off and work on creating value. It's like cause and effect theory and the equation is simple. Create more value than competitors and use better marketing differentiation tactics = more sales conversions. A bit of KISS philosophy.)

5.       Why do McDonald’s add new products to their menu and do a refurbishment every few years? So that their seating and furnishings look nicer, more modern and more comfortable; even though they are already the market leaders. It’s because adding more value and marketing differentiation equals more willing customers and higher conversion rates.

I’ve met people who hate McDonald’s then reveal: “Although I do go if I can’t see any other food place to my liking, even though I hate everything they stand for!” I find this really funny that McDonald’s has the potential to convert McDonald’s haters because the sandwich shops or cafes in the area don’t offer enough value, whether it’s the food served, or no wi-fi connection, prefer McDonald’s comfortable seating or whatever the prospective buyer is looking for.

If you add value and differentiate from competitors in a number of ways, once you have made your prospects aware of your business, if they are the right target market then what are your chances of conversion when they are ready to buy?

What are your chances if your product or service is very similar to other competitors which includes a very nice and friendly sales/client relationship manager.

(It happens. I went to a networking meeting and met four different accountants, all very nice, well presented, knowledgeable, and all promised they are in fact the best service in the area. As Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men says: “You want the truth... You CAN’T handle the truth)

So if your business targets the right prospects, knows what makes them happy, and continuously adds genuine value and develops better marketing differentiation than competitors – why not send the email and keep in contact? You’re already a much better choice for your prospect than your competitors, aren’t you?

Not everyone buys today, tomorrow or next week. But if you truly know your market and which are the right prospects, then you are likely to be keeping in touch with people who will buy at some point.

At least with your efforts you will have better conversion rates over the long-run.

Or you can just not send the email and let the prospect not see what you offer, how you can help them and let them forget about you within the next 48 hours.

Send an email now to find out what’s in their interest

Can your business offer continuously more added value and improve like McDonald’s or do you try to flog a run-down cafe and try to entice people to a place where no-one is willing to sit at the table?

Send an email for feedback

From a marketing prospective, if you get no response, don’t worry. Not everyone is buying today.

But you can call back to get their thoughts. Feedback will let you know how you stack up in helping your target market, and where your offer needs to improve.

If you don’t want feedback and don’t want to improve to make conversions easier for yourself, don’t send the email so you’ll never know the truth – SIMPLES.

Further reading

Creating value: if you're not creating value, you're not going to create a sale.

How buyers use ‘Prisoner’s dilemma' game theory to negotiate

Ebook: The Goose Bump Effect. A Practical Beginner’s Training Guide to Marketing Differentiation Tactics and Value Creation.

Read more ...

Scaling up your business for multiple lead generation

Scaling up your business for multiple lead generation: by Jason Li 2012 ©

If you are a small business and working all hours of the day, but want more revenue as your reward, then scaling up your business is the next step.

Here are some answers if you’ve been wanting to generate a few more leads or customers every week for your business.

In fact, from what I’ve seen... being good at lead generation is vital to business success.

To help you scale up in terms of offering more for new and existing customers...

So that they can spend more money with you without adding much costs to you.

Scaling up

Scaling up your business is the way you can keep increasing your business so that it expands and brings in more revenue. So I’m going to share a several secrets that I’ve seen – and best of all they are all practically doable without needing too much training.

This can either be done yourself, or by working with other people.

Once you have found a way to begin scaling up, you can just keep on adding more add-ons until your business grows to a size that is much bigger than it is today.

Scaling up small businesses with more lead generation

When you are self employed then you do absolutely everything in the business...

In fact, small businesses with two or three people tend to work this way as well. So it can feel really hard to even contemplate ways of scaling up your business.

So here I’m going to share some kick-ass leverage and lead generation methods for those of you who think it would make a difference – because you’re busy and you want answers now.

Now scaling up a small business is not easy. I have seen businesses that have only one product range or a small amount of portfolio services or products on offer and really wanted to expand. Their only solution at the time was to maybe sell more of the same. An example would be a retailer locating another retail site so that they can now go from having one shop to two shops.

Obviously, this is great if you have a thriving business and can look to get a new retail shop financed with money in the bank. But not everyone can instantly afford to get another site up-and-running. What if you have no money? How long will you wait to get the money?

There is an alternative. I have seen many owners implement ways of scaling up small business in ingenious ways without having to wait years for a new site. In fact, just copying how the larger businesses do it in the following way will do you no harm.

Using ‘leverage’ in your business

Imagine you want to lift a boulder. Remember when you were kids and you came across sitting on swings and you went back-and-forth to get really high up; well in ancient times engineers used systems like these to move boulders with levers and ropes so they could move huge heavy objects that no human alone could move.

We are going to use the same practical method of using a lever to allow a small business or self employed person to leverage their business: so that a small amount of input using leverage will create a bigger output.

Leverage methods

The first and most important is using the internet: If you sell products then find a business that sells products in a similar nature to you on the internet and work out how you can apply it. Stick with this as it’s more than the obvious stated so far.

Let’s say you sell cartons of juice in packs of three, then you can start by looking at other juice etailers. Look at all the various methods they use to scale up. Next, look at businesses who sell other low cost items too that might not be juice but in multipacks; it could be packs of three tennis balls. How did they do things which your business can use as a solution? Look at the packaging, the offer, bundling with other products as examples.

Let’s say you are a dry cleaner, how could you get more passing traffic to stop and drop-off and pick-up? MacDonalds and car wash places have drive through mechanisms. Could your dry cleaner have one side of the business for drop-offs and one side for pick-ups in the shop? Could you even have a drive through for vehicles to pass clothes through a window on one lane, and collections on another window? Could you join up with a petrol station or grocery shop?

Your take away: leverage other business methods to increase your lead generation

Digital leverage methods

There will be a business out there with the same problem that came up with an internet solution that you can implement in your business. Imagine having an ecommerce site that worked in generating orders and leads without having to put money down on retail sites, or not waiting for another site in order to expand the business.

Is it possibly in any way for you to use the internet to leverage what you do? Read on for more ideas.

Digitise products

Is there any way possible for you to digitise what you do? What? Say that again? What I mean is, can you create a digital version of what you do; your products or services? Chefs and restaurants can create ebooks on how to cook meals that sell on the internet, teachers can create videos which students buy as standard lessons, teachers can provide one-to-one bespoke lessons on Skype, and businesses can create audio files to download to offer advice such as accountants, business coaches or nutritionists. These will reach people who have no time or cannot use your services immediately.

What about other products? If you have toys then you might have vlogs – video blogs - to teach kids how to do more such as Lego videos,  for business people on how to turn your smart phone into a business tool, or a hedge trimmer into ‘Average Joe’s’ favourite sculpturing tool.

Don’t just think of your local market, think country wide; worldwide even. Just think, your business could have a customer lying on deck chairs around a pool in sunny Monaco now, and she is telling her friends about your digital product that she can’t get locally.

Your take away: When you digitise, you get more people finding ways to use your products, reach more people, and give customers the opportunity to share with other people who might find your offer interesting.

Partnership Leverage methods

Partner with other product suppliers: Let’s say you are a photographer, could you create a website that includes promoting the photographic studio you use for a referral fee, partner with a wedding planner, partner with a video recording service, or add on a gallery to sell your product and exclusively other peoples stock, or partner with a camera shop to provide camera lessons to enthusiasts, or partner with a walking group, or partner with a site seeing tour.

Your take away: partnerships give you multiple ways of generating revenue and more touch points with potential clients.

Cash flow

Digital products allows you to scale up without having to spend lots of money upfront.

 In partnerships, as customers use other partner products and services, you can be promoted to them as a trusted partner. Doing it this way might be of no cost to you when using partners.

If it really succeeds, then it also provides you great feedback, and much more revenue. If you have a channel (partner) that brings in plenty of new customers then you will know what this type of customer likes. So if your leads keep coming from a walking group and they want your photography expertise you can expand on this area.

So how much can you scale up your business to a higher level from these ideas and practical methods?

Will any new lead generation ideas bring you new streams of income and more revenue? Will ideas like these add value to your business?

If you know of any businesses that may find the information here worth reading, please Pay It Forward.

Read more ...

Free business tips: Ready to create a stampede?

Free business tips: Ready to create a stampede? : by Jason Li 2012 ©

Free business tips, we all love them...

I do. I like to read ideas that can help me...

And I pay for ideas that work too.

In fact, there are some products I’ve bought...

Just after finding the free version provided great value...

I would never have seen value without learning about them from their free business tip.

Take the great sales gurus Gitomer and Brian Tracey; I initially read a few articles they wrote, and watched YouTube videos for free to know what value they could bring to me. Since taking the free information and actively trying some of the ideas I have found they worked really well; and so I went on to buy products from them.

Picture taken from www.Telegraph.co.uk.

Iceberg theory: Sample business tips will prevent losing prospects interests

How many prospective customers do you speak to? Or if you hire sales people then how many do your sales people speak to, or your whole business including website, leaflet ads, newspaper ads, word-of-mouth – how many do you speak to? It could be hundreds per month. As you may realise, there are so many ways new prospects are interacting with your business without you as the owner knowing about it.

Another problem is how many of these prospects are interested or would be happy to start using your products and services and haven’t: “Because of just one thing....”?

It is usually because of that “one thing” that prospects don’t turn into customers, they walk away; and you won’t know why because no-one in your business spoke to them about your offer - so how could you know? They saw your ad and were keen to buy - apart from just one thing. “Oh come on, give a business a chance,” I hear you say.

At this point you didn’t even know they were ‘in your shop’, so-to-speak. In fact, the sales process started when they saw your ad or heard about you from a friend, not in your shop or your forecourt or on the phone. Selling started before any human interaction.

Imagine an iceberg, and think of a huge one as you will like this. The actual people you speak to are possibly only 1 – 3% of the conversion of a direct mail or newspaper ad campaign. That means up to 99% of your target market you rolled out your marketing promotions campaign to did not personally speak to your business. But in fact, your business did speak at them, when they read your ads or listened to a pitch by a friend who recommended you.

1.       So the prospects you did not speak to in person are the rest of the iceberg.

2.       Your potential revenue are prospects that your business has spoken at so they know you exist: but not yet truly convinced and engaged in person.

Offer sample business tips to your iceberg

Not everyone likes to buy on the first chance meeting, even if you are a known brand. I’ve been there myself. I knew about Golf cars since I was a kid as my dad is a car fanatic who loves What Car magazine and Top Gear. He always said buy Golf for good fuel economy, then remind me a few weeks later how Golf’s are great for safety and so on. But my I never bought a Golf for years. And then I got a free test drive (all test drives are free) while at the garage, and I liked it.

You see, I was interested, but was never ready to make the leap. Your prospects are maybe the same, they’re kind of ready to do business, but also kind of not as inertia (can’t be bothered to change due to hassle etc) stops people doing things.

‘So what you can do is break down the big change to a very tiny little minimal change by using a way for prospect to try a sample business experience from you and start to get prospects used to using your products and services.’

Online business tips

I have covered before in this blog the availability of using website resources to generate and move prospects through the sales funnel. (See Start Here for new ideas.) In the age of the internet, it is worth finding a way to allow prospects to visit your website to learn more about your business.

Once I see an ad or hear about a good experience by a friend, I instantly check the business out on the internet. If your website is good, then you can move me through the sales funnel. This is without even speaking to me directly or me knowing anything about your business apart from either hearing a recommendation or a seeing something somewhere on a poster or a leaflet.

So now your content on the website has to use marketing strategy to engage me to desire what you can offer and move me to bridge the gap, from some interest and doing nothing, to maybe making contact or start saving towards buying what you can offer. Your website has to capture and look after your iceberg of prospects.

Download business tips

Allow prospective customers to download special reports or samples from your website. It does not have to be the product itself. 

A good download business tip is to create vouchers to encourage prospects to visit your store or call in. You could go a step further and ask prospects to email in and you can email back a voucher or code for them to use. It helps people who can’t be bothered or teetering on the edge of doing something, known in marketing as the Tipping Point.

In fact, get your whole iceberg into your establishment with a voucher: that would be fun!

In summary:

·         If prospects see your ads or you get recommended by a friend, the selling process has started.

·         Anyone that is aware of your business is in your iceberg.

·         Prospects may be interested but just one thing can stop them buying – and you may lose that prospect.

·         So use a website and the free business tips above to engage and tip the prospect into an action to try a sample of your products and services – the decision is easier and less risky for prospects – so more prospects will come out of the woodwork and volunteer to try.

·         The ones that like the sample will go on to buy the full fat version – which means more revenue for you.

·         Try it this week. And please share this article if you believe these free business tips are helpful.

So don’t miss out on prospective customers who have become aware of your business and not taken it further. The ideas above should stimulate a way for you to develop a way to get more people in your iceberg to speak to you. It’s a new coded language, I know.

Read more ...

How a counsellor like Oprah Winfrey will outsell a sales person

How a counsellor like Oprah Winfrey will outsell a sales person: by Jason Li 2012 ©

I once met a counsellor and told her that a counsellor will outsell a sales person with the right training...

It wasn’t that I just blurted this out at this networking event I went to...

It was just that she was trying to sell me Freedom if I was interested, I just had to go to this entrepreneurs’ event that she was selling for other people.

Telling is not selling

The funny thing is, the people she was lead generating on behalf of for this entrepreneur event had trained her to feature dump me with lots of information.

When I first started in sales I was a blurter, and thankfully I’ve now change. But to help you think of this: Does Oprah Winfrey just speak at people none stop when she is counselling people?

(Picture taken from http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/)

As you know, say too much of the wrong thing and you can lose a sale; and this makes sales scary for many people new to sales as it creates a fear of rejection. It hurts like hell to be made to feel like a snake oil sales person, but being taught bad technique will focus prospective customers attention on your sales skills rather than the value of your offer to benefit their lives.

When selling keep this in mind:

‘Does what you say or do move you closer or away from a deal?’

This is really important in every deal you are involved in. If the prospect has no interest in this, stop trying to feature dump them what you think is right in your mind.

Socratic selling

Then she even employed these shocking Socratic selling tactics on me. Here is an example of Socratic selling, and why some sales people think they have someone right at the end of the sales funnel but are kidding themselves most of the time.

You: “So you know that looking at the sun can ruin your eyes?”

Prospect: “Yes”

You: “You also agree that sun glasses protect your eyes from the harmful sun rays?”

Prospect: “I suppose yes again”

You: “To spend £10 on protecting your eyes must be worth it?”

Prospect:”You’re right it’s not much to spend.”

You:”So it’s sunny today and my £9 glasses will be what you want?” (This is where you think you have an order.)

Prospect: “Let me have a look and think about it.”

What, the prospect said yes to everything. What happened there? Maybe you did not get enough yes’s out of the prospect?

Or maybe the truth is that your glasses are really tacky and cheap looking and a pair of £9 sunglasses do not fit the needs of this prospect? Or it could be that it was impossible for the prospect to not say yes to your questions? And so you fooled yourself because your questions took her down a certain line of answering, and now you believe the prospect is difficult because they said yes all the time but did not buy. How wrong you are in this instance.

Be the prospect now and re-read the dialogue. Is it really possibly not to say yes straight away? Once you said yes, did you feel like you want to buy sun glasses – really?

Now at the same time think of other criteria that you would need to make you buy sun glasses, such as a certain brand or to look good for a first date. If you look back at the questions above, it doesn’t seem possible that getting people to yes works all the time in getting people to tell you what they want to buy.

Done that. So you see, it shocked me when this lady used this method to try to get me to go to this conference. I told her I had done lots of business development already for businesses and her methods were obviously taught by some amateur snake oil sales person.

Now I am going to tell you what shocked me the most. Then I will explain why it shocked me so much: she is a therapeutic aroma therapist. Why is this shocking? These people know how to do a proper consultation. Medical people need to know the problem before the prescribe a remedy.

She kicked all her knowledge and skills out of the window to hard sell and feature dump me, with some Socratic selling added in.

I gave her a few tips to use her counselling skills to find out if what she had on offer met the needs of what her prospects were looking for - which she liked. No one likes obvious trickery used by sales people, and she certainly had a bad introduction to sales.

So why are medical people so able to sell?

Admit a problem

When you are with a doctor, they are trained to ask you a series of questions to found out where you have a problem, while figuring out the best solution for you. At no point do they start off with giving you the answer before you even speak. Even if you have a heart attack and someone was there. The doctor will ask the witness questions while doing their own diagnosis.

The amazing thing about a doctor is that they are taught to have counselling skills too. They have to learn how to and put in practice skills in keeping patients calm and help them to be able to work through their problems.

I once had a friend who liked a drink, we all do. This one was drinking a bit more than most and after some persuasion went to the AA and admitted he needed some help. Now the counsellors there don’t force you to admit anything. People at the AA just keep turning up and are counselled by people they meet, and one day the person just admits they are an alcoholic. Now it has been known that getting an addict to admit they need to change and take action is one of the hardest things to do in the world. I reckon not many great sales people can get an addict of any problem to admit they have a problem and take steps to change. Yet a counsellor can. I’m sure you are getting my line of thought here. That’s why I believe a counsellor has the potential to outsell a sales person.

Black box

All living beings have what marketing people call a black box. It’s the thought centre where all sorts of reasons, stimulus, responses, belief, values et cetera are processed. The job of a counsellor is to get into the black box (inception) or draw information out (extraction) just like the agents in the film Inception.

Now even more impressive is that a counsellor can affect the way a person thinks without the patient feeling any pressure too. How many times has a sales person put pressure on you, or you felt they over stepped the mark trying to “close” a deal, or you’ve heard a colleague saying things like: “this offer ends today. Are you buying or not?” kind of pressure?

Consumer decision making theory

If you have a rush of customers constantly waving money at you, then just ignore everything on this page. However, if you have to compete against other products or services for the same customer then you will need to take on board the information on this page.

If you want a better sales performance, you will need to use a bit more counselling skills to understand your customer. You will have to draw out their objections, beliefs, values, reasons to move closer to a sale or away from a sale.

Open questions

By learning more open questions rather than closed questions, you will help you use your new counselling techniques. As clients feel less threatened and trust you, when their guard drops you will start to know the truth about their thoughts, and where you both go from here.

Facilitation

Facilitation and change management experts also use counselling skills to help management and directors in big companies sit around a board table. I’ve done this often. I might have an end bit of information I want to come away with. But I like to get each person to admit what they want, or what they worry about in working with my company too.

Trust

If the decision maker/s don’t trust you then you won’t get the sale. If they don’t trust you then they won’t trust your product, service, company, or what others in their own company think of them for choosing you.

Post purchase dissonance

In marketing, this is the feeling of regret once a product is bought and consumed. The main regret is that the consumption does not equal the expectation at the front pre-sale end. Your job is to ensure that if it is between you and a competitor tendering to a prospect, yours is the one that provides the least regret or downside, as well as most satisfaction.

However, once you ask more open questions and less of a pushy Socratic hard-selling sales junkie, you will get more trust, get more prospects telling you what they want to buy, all their worries, hopes and dreams, and more orders. Think of Oprah Winfrey, trusted by millions and bought by millions.

Read more ...