Category: Customer Service

Here are 4 easy ways you can boost your sales for little or no new expense …and without making major changes in your selling process.

1. Focus on What Your Customers Really Want

Your customers really don’t want your products or services. They don’t even want what those products or services do for them. What they really want is to gain the specific feeling they get after buying and using your products or services.

Keep this in mind when you create web pages, sales letters and other selling presentations. Emphasize the feelings produced by using your product instead of talking about what your product is – or how it works.

Tip: Convert the benefits delivered by your product or service into vivid word pictures. Then put your prospect in the picture by dramatizing what it feels like to be enjoying those benefits.

Example, if you sell financial products, describe what it feels like to enjoy an affluent life style without debt.

2. Keep Communicating With Your Previous Non-Buyers

You’ve heard it before – but I’ll say it here again. Most prospective customers will not buy the first time they see or hear about your product or service. You’re losing a lot of sales if you do not persistently follow up with those prospects.

Your follow up procedure can be as simple as periodically contacting them with a new offer. Or it can be more complex like distributing a newsletter or providing updated product information.

Tip: You cannot follow up with prospects if you don’t know how to reach them. Set up a system for collecting the names and contact information of all prospects who do not buy from you.

Example, offer a special report, a list of sources or some other valuable information your prospects cannot get anywhere else. Deliver it only by email or postal mail so you can get their contact address.

3. Encourage Questions

Questions from prospects may be a nuisance. But answering them can be very profitable.

Prospective customers only take time to ask questions when they have a high level of interest in your product or service. Providing a satisfactory answer to a prospect’s question often leads directly to a sale.

Invite prospects to ask questions when in live selling situations. And make it easy for them to ask questions when they are not …such as at your web site. For example, list a phone number or email address where you or someone else can answer their questions.

Tip: Include a Questions and Answers page on your web site with answers to frequently asked questions. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer individually.

4. Make Buying Easier

Every non-essential action in the buying process is an opportunity for the customer to reverse their decision …causing you to lose the sale.

Look for ways you can make your buying procedure easier and faster. For example, many marketers use a multi-step shopping cart to get online orders when a simple online order form would do the job with just 1 or 2 quick clicks.

Tip: Don’t ask for unnecessary information during the ordering process. Instead, send a personalized “thank you” message after the sale and include a brief request for the information.

These 4 selling tactics may not be new to you. But are you using all (or any) of them? If not, they can easily boost your sales …for little or no new expense – and without making major changes in your sales process.

(c) Bob Leduc http://BobLeduc.com

You’ll always need to find new prospects for your business. But don’t overlook the prospects you already attracted. Many are close to buying. Use these four simple procedures to convert those “almost customers” into paying customers.

1. Make A Memorable Impression

Create a reason for prospects and customers to notice you …and to think of you when they encounter a competitor.

Many prospects who do not buy from you the first time will come back to buy later. Existing customers will also remember you. They’ll come back to buy again — and they’ll send pre-sold referrals to you.

One easy way to establish a memorable identity is to create an important reason for customers to do business with you instead of with your competitors.

The advantage you offer doesn’t have to be dramatic to be memorable IF you promote it aggressively. It can be as simple as delivering faster results, more personalized attention or a better guarantee than your competitors.

Tip: Combine several small advantages like those described above to create a big (and more memorable) advantage over your competitors.

2. Follow Up Consistently

Most prospects do not buy the first time they see or hear about you. But they will if you follow up with them.

Your follow up can be as simple as contacting them occasionally with a new offer. Or it can be more complex such as publishing a weekly newsletter with useful information and articles.

If you don’t already have a way to collect their address, you can get it by offering a valuable gift that you deliver only by email or postal mail.

For example, offer a special report, a list of sources or some other valuable information they cannot get anywhere else. These are valuable to customers and prospects — but they won’t cost you much to provide.

3. Make Sure You Answer These 7 Buyer’s Questions

Prospective customers will not buy from you until all 7 of the following questions are answered. Customers may not consciously think about these questions. But they will not buy until all 7 are answered in their minds:

1: Exactly what are you offering?

2: Why do I need (or want) it?

3: How can I believe your claims?

4: Why should I get it from you?

5: How fast can I get it?

6: What if I don’t like it after I get it?

7: What do I need to do to get it?

Make sure you answer all 7 of these buyer’s questions in your web site, sales letters and other selling tools.

Tip: Present everything in term of the benefit it provides to customers. For example, don’t just list testimonials from satisfied customers (your answer to question 3). Point out that those testimonials prove you really do deliver what you promise.

4. Keep Your Ordering Procedure Simple

Use an uncomplicated and fast ordering procedure. Every additional action you ask customers to perform and every additional decision you ask them to make after they already decided to buy can cause them to reverse their decision.

For example, many online marketers use a shopping cart to process their orders when they could use a simple online order form. Each unnecessary step in the shopping cart process is an opportunity for customers to abandon their order …a sale lost needlessly.

Tip: Don’t ask for unnecessary information during the ordering process. Instead, send a personalized “thank you” message after the sale and include a brief request for the additional information.

Don’t overlook the easy sales you can get from old prospects that are almost ready to buy? Use these 4 simple procedures to cultivate your “almost customers” and turn them into paying customers.

(c) Bob Leduc http://BobLeduc.com