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MenuHow do I get an interested prospect to take action (= buy an online course)?
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I love this topic and I know it all to well ;)
I work with small businesses Building Brand influence to increase sales on social media but I also Market info products like yours. I would ask: Do you have a specific process that people go through?
There are a few specific things I want to suggest off hand.
First and most importantly, though, is asking for the sale.
You have got to get comfortable stepping behind the cash register so to speak.
This question makes me smile and I had to reach out to you because I know exactly what you are talking about.
There are people that do well without having specific processes in place, they do it intuitively and without much skill. Those are few.
Most of us have to break through some self-limiting beliefs and hop behind the cash register and say/do some BOLD things simply because: People need to be told what to do.
It's great that you are talking to prospects and they are sounding eager. One small tweak that will most likely increase conversions is to simply say, "Okay great, are you by your computer now? I'll stay on the line to help you through the checkout process."
Schedule a follow up time or just call back in 3 days to "See how it's going." ;) Even if you KNOW they didn't buy. Sometimes people need reminded or something came up as soon as they hung up. If you look at it as a kind gesture, so will they. :) Have you tried this yet?
There are tons of directions we could go with this. I'll wait to see what your reply is.
Have a great day!
When people don't buy (even after they've expressed "interest") it generally means there's a problem with one or more of the following:
1. Product Positioning
2. Creation of a compelling (aka irresistible) Offer
3. Proper Pricing
4. Clear identification of your Market
To "sell" your product (i.e. to get more sales) you need the right message put in front of the right market with the right offer and priced properly in order to have the greatest probability of them buying.
There are always other factors (such as where they are in the buying cycle - for example perhaps they are just "shopping") but your strategy should take that into account.
And once you've figured out how much you can afford to acquire a customer (and other such key metrics) you are well on your way to growing your business.
My best advice is to consider that you don't "get" a prospect to buy. Get to know your market so well that you deeply understand what they want - then position your business and products to provide that to them.
In other words - Build a strategy around HOW your market buys and then make it easy for them to do so.
I'd be happy to walk you through the steps you need to take to create this strategy in a call.
In any case - I wish you the best of luck!
This is a super-broad question and there is enough to say about it to write entire books on.
That said, you've got a few basic tools at your disposal that, combined with some expertise in lead life cycle management, can really help you optimize your funnel and help you help your prospects help themselves.
The fundamental tools you have are messaging and your own ability to sell (even when it's a soft sell).
By getting smart about understanding the funnel, and using tools like marketing automation systems to implement lead nurturing and to start making sure that you're getting targeted content to prospects at the right time... And most importantly to make sure that you're always reminding your prospects why they signed up with you in the first place... You can seriously boost your engagement and help people get over their personal hurdles.
One of the biggest challenges in online marketing is the concept of friction vs momentum.
What you're talking about is leads who you felt had great momentum and were pushing towards the sale... What happens offline (where you can't see) is that life throws a bunch of friction at the which slows them down and they lose their momentum. When this happens the lead falls back into their routine and moves away from making a change (which is actually what you're hoping to get them to buy).
What you need to do is strategically apply some grease to your prospects to help them slide on through to the goal of changing their situation (by purchasing your course)
The good news is, the process if building this out will really help you understand your prospects, your customers, and as a byproduct your own business... Which is really cool :)
If you want to increase your conversion rate offer a buy now option. Or there could be some holes in your value proposition/offer.
I agree with the other folks here that something's likely wrong with your offer and you need to dig to figure out what that is.
BUT, I also sell online courses, and you should know that conversion rates here, like for everything we all sell, are low. You have to get a high number of people to a landing page to convert enough of them to make it worth your time. Even if you have a relatively high conversion rate, you need a lot of eyeballs to make it work. So just keep that in mind!
Related Questions
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How to write effective follow up messages?
I am going to begin my answer to this question not talking about writing emails at all, but rather getting at the true source of the problem. Then we'll talk text. The problem with "follow up" messages is they illuminate something is missing in your sales process. Most people fly by the seat of their pants on sales process anyway, believing that only big companies need one. But *everyone* in the field of selling needs a consistent sales process. "To manage we must measure" is a process improvement maxim...and if we aren't consistent in our behaviors, how can we measure? How do you know why you lose some orders and win others? Do you just assume it's your personality, or your price, or your brand? That would be crazy!--and what salespeople do every day. You have given us a single sentence to work with (industry, paths to market, what prospecting/qualifying method you're using now, and other facts would have been helpful). So I don't know anything for certain about your sales process or lack thereof. However, the fact that "following up" is included in your steps and vocabulary indicates to me you are having conversations that go nowhere. If you had a conversation with a prospect and it didn't result in a clear understanding for BOTH salesperson and prospect what the next step was...your process failed. That's what leads to having to "follow up". Every time I see "follow up", the first letter of each word jumps out at me, and that's what I hear it saying directly to me. "FU, Jason. You screwed up." Determining what the next step is, and ensuring it is ultra-clear for both you and your prospect, is YOUR responsibility. It needs to be built right into your consistent sales process. Do it automatically, every time. Otherwise, you end up in this "mutual mystification" situation you're in, where neither you nor the prospect knows what's supposed to happen next. Leading to the plaintive, "Are we there yet?" email. No, we are not. We are nowhere near there yet. If in your qualifying conversation with the prospect you did not uncover the urgent reason they want to buy, do you think you are going to discover it in a "follow up" email? If you didn't find out how important (or not) moving ahead was to them in your live, interactive, back-and-forth dialogue...what makes you think you're going to get the answer in a dull, one-way, inert email? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Having to "follow up" means you're chasing prospects. Stop doing that immediately, and work on qualifying more effectively. Is this prospect In or Out? A Fit with us or not? Do they have an urgent, important reason to work with us now, or not? Uncover this, and you won't have to "follow up". Most of the places selling falls down are where the salesperson and the prospect have left things in this state of "collective confusion". Each believes they understand what the other means and intends...but the truth is totally different. When a prospect says, "Leave it with me and I'll get back to you," at the end of your meeting, what does that tell you? Me, it tells me NOTHING! Except that I'm being "niced out" of the door. These are times to be a little assertive: "I appreciate that. How long do you think it'll take for you to have a look at it? When should we book a talk to discuss your decision or any questions you have?" Don't leave it to chance. In fact, your sales process ought to have you laying out this as part of the ground rules right up front: "Ms. Prospect, we'll meet for about 40 minutes, that's typically what these conversations are, and I'm sure you'll have some questions for me. I'll definitely have some questions for you, because I want to find out more about your operation and determine whether we're really a good fit for you. At the end of that time, we'll know whether we're a potential fit or not. If not, no big deal. No one will get mad at anybody. If we are a fit, we'll figure out what that next step looks like then. Make sense?" And if the prospect wants to add anything into the agenda, they can. Most salespeople never even lay out these simple ground rules. A consistent sales process is a series of steps. At the end of every step, either it's over or it continues. If it's over, you know why: it's not a fit for a specific reason (no need, the problem's not big enough for you to get involved, or the prospect has uncontrollable anger issues, for example). Over is not a bad thing; it keeps you out of trouble and away from The Client From Hell. If you goof up--and I certainly do from time to time, even though I work with this stuff every day; it happens fast and there's a lot to keep in mind--and you must write an email, you must get the train back on the rails. Let it read like this: Mr. Prospect, I appreciate you meeting with me on (date) about (topic). I forgot to make sure of something at the6 end of that conversation, and I'm hoping you can help me out. Turns out you and I didn't figure out what our next step will be. Now you've had some time to go over what we talked about. At this point, there can only be three possible outcomes: 1. You've reviewed everything, and it's just not a fit for you at this time. 2. You have looked everything over, but have more questions that need answering before moving ahead. 3. You are delighted with the idea and want to move forward, and were just waiting for me to give you this quick reminder of the project. Let me make this super-easy. If the answer is the first possibility, will you reply to this email with the digit '1', and I'll know you're no longer interested? If you want to talk further, please reply with '2' and I'll call you about the further questions you have. If you are ready to go ahead now that I've brought this project back on your radar, please call me at ### so I can get things started ASAP...or reply with '3' to this email, and I'll know to call you so we can begin. Thanks again, YOUR NAME ** This message doesn't chase. It gets things back on track. If your prospect ignores it and you don't get an answer, you can safely assume it's '1' and stop trying to "follow up". In sales, "Yes" is good, "No" is good, but "I need to think it over"--making you have to "follow up"--is torture.JK
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I need to sell my Android app project to a company quickly. It is a 3 part education app that is new to the market basics of the situation in details.
Please clarify ;) the situation : - do you have a contract with developers ? - do you own the app ? or does it belong to the developers until you pay them ? - why are the developers asking payment ? - do you have a running app ? which needs does it covers ? - did you set a company ? - who are your investors ? why they don't help you ? what do they expect ? - do you have schools using your app (even for free) ? - can we see the app features ? - how many competitors do you have ? what is your unfair advantage ? - why did you spend one year on this without a real customer ? - why are you looking for a company rather than paying customers ? - who are your customers ? - what are the 3 main problems you solve for your customers ? - do you know schools that uses classroom management apps ? which apps ? how much does it cost them annually ? - do you want to stop or continue this project ? - have you ever heard of "Lean Startup" ?LR
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Startup Looking To Hire First Sales Employee - And completely lost. Any advice on compensation structure (benefits?), items that need to be in place?
Instead of repeating the wisdom of others, I'll link to it below. Here is a great blog post on hiring your first salesperson: http://tomtunguz.com/when-to-hire-a-salesperson Also, Mark Suster has written a ton of great post on his blog about startup sales. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/on-selling/CH
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How do you weed out potential clients who won't agree to pay your fees?
That's sales! ahah! I can't count the amount of times I have thought someone was a perfect fit to move forward to learn they are just tire kickers... and some that seemed to be a long shot that closed. If it is not happening frequently then you can stack it up as a anomaly - however that never feels satisfying. What you need to do is look at your sales pipeline and try to understand where things went wrong. Now the best way to find this out is simply ask that lead... Noone really likes to do this, but it works. If you know they have decided to go a different direction then reach out to them with a follow up email to wish them all the best, let them know that if anything changes you will still be there and most importantly use it as an opportunity to ask them why they decided not to move forward with you. Ask what you as a business can do in the future to remedy it! Now if they have fallen off a cliff and you can not get a response you will have to look at your sales pipeline and try to identify similarities between these lost deals that you can improve. This is why it is super important to leverage a CRM.LB
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What do (bootstrapped) startups offer to new sales hires? Commission only? What are some good examples to keep people motivated and still survive?
Generally bootstrapped startups should avoid salespeople, for a few reasons: a. they typically can't afford the base and overall comp required to attract sales people who can actually sell / or afford to support them with marketing, management, etc b. it will be very difficult to find the rare person with the right mix of sales and startup DNA along with the critical domain knowledge, consequently the startup is likely to settle c. the founders need to be very involved in the selling and customers will demand it That said, if the plan is still to hire a salesperson, find someone who has demonstrated sales success in startups and is excited by the early stage in company building. Create a comp plan heavily leveraged on sales results (unless you are in an industry where 100% commission is a common practice, would recommend against $0 base as this creates the false impression that your hire isn't passing time with one company while looking for another job with a richer comp plan - you want your rep focussed). Sell the vision and opportunity to be part of a growth story. I have written a several blog posts on hiring sales people into start-ups. You might find these useful: http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/ceo-question-should-i-learn-to-sell-or-hire-a-sales-person/ http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/start-up-sales-and-hiring-advice-dont-stop-selling-once-you-hire-your-first-sales-rep/ http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/hiring-start-up-sales-reps/ http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/startups-and-salespeople/ Good luck!EB
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