What if you could spend less money, time and effort to get the same or even more people to buy your products and/or services?
You’d like that wouldn’t you? Well, so would many others who are just like you and me.
The question is how can one make that happen – especially on a continuing basis? This article offers lessons from a 4 week sales prospecting experiment I recently concluded, for you to consider.
To Stay In Business, You Must Keep The Sales Coming In
As a profits focussed business owner, probably the most important activity that should dominate your thinking is generating sales leads, and converting them.
Even a poorly managed business is likely to remain profitable if it makes regular sales.
It is however crucially important to always look beyond your revenue, to quantify profit margins accruing from sales you make.
Without substantial and sustained profits, any business will struggle to withstand unexpected market changes e.g drops in demand, hikes in costs etc.
Making Regular Sales Requires A Reliable Sales & Marketing Strategy
How do you currently go about finding buyers? Your adopted approach will most likely depend on what you sell…and where you sell it.
For instance, my main income generating products are my feed formulation handbook and software.
But unlike my counterparts in other parts of the world, the relatively lower Internet awareness amongst my target population here in Nigeria/Africa, makes it necessary, for me, to go the extra mile to win each prospective buyer’s trust.
This requirement makes the process of selling potentially tiring!
And that’s why my use of an intelligent Web Marketing System (WMS) to generate prequalified sales leads, has been massively time, effort and cost-saving.
Basically, what this means is that I’ve setup a self-sustaining network of web based resources that almost literally “herd” people most likely to be interested in buying my products to me.
And I’ve found over the past five years or so that closing sales with prospects that come through this channel is at least 4 times easier and faster. That is compared to when I have to deal with a prospect I initiated contact with.
The results from my recent little experiment (described below) are the proof I need to justify sticking with using my WMS to make buyers come to me, over going out to “chase” potential buyers who’ve never heard of me or my offering.
It’s MUCH Easier To Sell, When You Make Buyers Come To You
And if you can setup a system to make the above happen, your sales conversion rate will dramatically improve, even as you do less work to make it happen e.g fewer phonecall or email follow ups, shorter explanations to convince prospects etc
Like I’ve said above, I use a WMS that I periodically tweak, based on the results I get, to make the above happen as frequently as possible.
Of course, when a good opportunity presents itself, I still seize it to close sales through other channels.
The truth is however that up to 90% of the sales of my above mentioned handbook and software happen via leads generated by my WMS.
Little wonder that I am so generous in investing my time, efforts and resources in diligently nurturing this low cost but high impact marketing system on a DAILY basis!
Proof That You’ll Close More Sales If You Make Prospects Come To You (My 4 Week Sales & Prospecting Experiment)
Sales results show clearly that people buy more readily from a person they approached by themselves (after studying her/her offering). And they are significantly less willing to be sold, when the seller (you) is the one who makes first contact.
You can put the above knowledge to use, in a way that boosts your selling productivity.
Recently, over a 4 week period, I conducted a little field experiment that lends credence to the argument I’ve made above.
What I did was to “work through” two different lists of potential buyers for my feed formulation handbook and software.
Group 1: Comprised over 200 past visitors to my Farm Business Ideas website, who had taken the step of submitting a request via the web contact form provided.
I should add that some of those on this list had already purchased at least one product from me in the past.
It is also worth noting, that in using the contact form, they’d agreed to have their email addresses added to my mailing list. Which meant they had be receiving my regular article and newsletter email broadcasts.
Group 2: Comprised a mixture of over 300 fish farm business owners, aquaculture consultants, as well as equipment and feed suppliers.
Their professional and contact details were published in a PDF Directory compiled under the auspices of the USAID and made available for free download online.
Neither group had any idea of what I was doing. Indeed I must confess that I did not start out to conduct this comparison.
Here’s how it happened:
You see every December/January, I normally run a special promo in which I offer my opt-in newsletter subscribers discounted prices and bundled product packages. In the last 2 years before this it’d been quite successful, with over 30% of subscribers taking up my offers.
When I stumbled upon the USAID directory, I felt those listed there would also be interested in my products.
So I decided to contact a selected number of them directly with a variant of the offer I’d prepared for my subscribers for this year end.
It was only after the second week of weirdly long and mostly unproductive cold calls and follow up sales conversations that I realised members of this group were not as ready as those on my website database.
I recalled that closing sales with persons who’d contacted me (via phone or email) after exposure to my WMS often took no more than 2 conversations.
Yet, after two weeks, NOT one of the 20 USAID prospects I’d chosen to “cold call” two weeks earlier had placed an order.
That was when the idea came to me to push my offer to both groups and compare their responses in terms of orders placed.
Below I Discuss Some Of My Findings
1. Number of Phonecalls Before Order:
For every single call I placed to a prospect chosen from Group 1, I had to place at least four to each prospect from Group 2.
2. Duration of Sales Conversations:
Group 1 candidates typically required a maximum of 3 minutes to listen to, and ask questions about my offer.
Prospects from group 2 often “hemmed and hawed” a lot as they asked questions about the offer. They typically took 3 to 5 minutes to speak to.
3. Follow Up:
Both groups readily consented to having me email full details of the offer to them.
However only amongst group 1 prospects did I get positive responses to my attempts to follow up with them.
In over 90% of group 2 cases, after getting the email, they stopped taking my call.
That was a huge contrast to group 1 respondents who even called back (or sent SMS via phone) for payment details. And they went on to pay too.
The 10% in group 2 who did take my calls and/or called back never went on to make payment, even though they said they would.
Understanding The Contrasting Prospective Buyers’ Attitudes
The obvious reason was that the former (Group 1 prospects) were already familiar with my work.
For one thing, they had read up about my products and services when they’d first discovered me online.
Indeed, some had made hefty purchases at first contact with me (to show how powerful a WMS can be!), after which they became subscribers.
Others started out for a few years as subscribers before later making purchases from me.
In contrast, the Group 2 prospects had to evaluate my offer for the first time over a few weeks, towards taking a buying decision.
In other climes, that would probably not have posed a problem.
But in my peculiar socioeconomic environment (where gaining the trust of others to make them part with money can take years),it can be quite a tall order!
Little wonder that nobody in group 2 was convinced enough to buy in 2 weeks of follow up, while about 5% of those I’ve spoken with from group 1 have already taken it up!
Spend Less Money, Time & Effort To Make Sales: Use A WMS To Make Buyers Come To You
The above details clearly illustrate how effectively a WMS can help you achieve marketplace credibility, even as it boosts the reach and long term impact of your business promotion efforts.
You need a consistent web marketing platform to build relationships with potential buyers, and to command attention, interest and credibility.
If you want help setting a WMS up for your business, submit the contact form on this blog or email me via tayo at tksola dot com.