Are People Hungry For What You Offer?
July 25, 2010
You LOVE what you do. You are GREAT at what you do. Then how come your business is slower than you’d like it to be? Are you 
not so great, or what’s the problem?
Here’s the deal….it’s your job to satisfy the hunger in others to have their problem solved. You have to use language that is emotional, not logical. People buy on emotion 100% of the time. They then justify what they have bought with logic.
This is why talking about the features of what you offer makes their eyes glaze over. They DON’T care that your jewelry is 100% sterling silver and comes with a year long guarantee. They DO care that your jewelry will make them feel sexy and pretty when they have been feeling tired and ugly. They care that your jewelry will get them an admiring glance from a husband who hasn’t notice them very much lately.
So, if you want to create sales, create hunger. Tell a story about what your jewelry has done for someone. Show pictures of smiling women wearing your stuff. Demonstrate how someone can place that necklace just SO and it will match their come-hither look. If you can show someone that your stuff creates what they crave then you will make money and even better, your customers will be happy because their problem is solved.
Here’s how to create sales conversations or sales copy that creates hunger:
- Talk about your customer, not you
- Offer clear contrast (before/after or with/without or fast/slow)
- Use tangible examples “more dates, more desire, unbreakable”
- Talk about the beginning and the end only (before/after) don’t talk about the PROCESS that happens in the middle (you choose jewelry, you wear jewelry….not what the order process is like in between)
- Use visual stimuli (pictures) which creates interest 40 times faster than hearing does.
Changing your conversations or sales copy to solve what your customers are hungry for will feed them and you. That kind of satisfaction is just as good as the satisfaction you feel after a good meal, and lasts longer!
Do You Need To Use Worry About The Osborne Effect?
July 3, 2010
Back in the early 1980’s Adam Osborne, who created the Osborne computer, made the mistake of giving a sneak preview of a newer, lighter model called the Osborne Executive. This decision cost Osborne his business, because buyers wanted the less-weighty computer (25 pounds!) so they quit buying his existing computers and waited for the new one to become available. The story goes that the company essentially died on the vine, for the cash flow from new sales dried up while customers waited for the newer model.
Osborne’s big mistake was to introduce a new piece of technology before it was available for purchase. Tech buyers will immediately cease to buy an older model and wait for the newer one once the word gets out…if you don’t have it ready to sell, your sales plummet. This became such a famous case study that it is still known today as the Osborne Effect.
It is always wise to forego advertising a new model until the model actually exists for purchase? It depends on your industry. The movie industry always advertises new movies before they are released, looking to drive up the buzz and make big hits at the box office on opening day. But that’s a different biz model, because they’ve typically already squeezed sales out of the previous releases long before the new movie is out. (Think Harry Potter or James Bond.)
Generally, though, if you sell a product (jewelry, luggage, clothing, air conditioners, etc.) you don’t want to get stuck with a lot of existing inventory because you have started to market a “new, improved” version of the same thing. And you don’t want your sales of existing inventory to tank when word gets out that in a few months the “new, improved” version will be available. A few months can be a long time to wait for cash flow!
Think about your own products and be aware of the Osborne Effect. Plan wisely for releases of newer “models” of what you sell, and don’t create a thirsty crowd if you don’t have something to sell them. Osborne eventually declared bankruptcy. You and I can learn from his mistake.
Is Your Business At The Bottom Of Your To-Do List?
April 25, 2010
If you are a female solo professional, chances are that your business is not making as much money as you’d like it to. Perhaps when you got the thought to go out on your own you held a vision of more flexibility, a freer schedule, and making at least as much money as you were making working for someone else. Perhaps you even secretly thought that you had the chance to make it big, pulling in much more money, paying off your mortgage, easily paying for a child’s college education.
Let me ask you…..where is your business now, compared to that vision? Where is it compared to your secret thought of making it big? Have you given up on that dream?
I read a story about makeovers in a recent edition of O magazine that made me think about how women so often put their business at the bottom of their to-do list. We do it to ourselves and our businesses, actually. We think we’re being unselfish and giving, taking care of others before ourselves. But are we, really? Listen to one comment from the O makeover article:
“With the new looks came a new attitude. What a makeover does for all of us is point out that there are BIG possibilites for us all. Maybe we’ll get the idea that from a makeover, we can take another step toward change in other areas of our lives.”
Lack of attention to one’s self is no way to teach our children to stand up and be counted, is it? Making sure that everyone else has new clothes while we schlep around in last year’s sweats only makes us both look and feel at the bottom of the barrel. Paying for private lessons for our children while refusing to spend the money to take a workshop for ourselves sells ourselves and our business short.
Think about it. If you fail to give yourself and your business the nurturing you both deserve, you send a silent message that you are not worth your own time and care, and that your business isn’t important enough to make a difference in anyone’s life. Is that the truth? I doubt it. But you are showing how little you believe you can make it really big when you continue to play safe and small. You are refusing to serve others with your business, in a way that only you can uniquely serve.
When you really tune in to your business vision what does it look like? Have you forgotten about your early enthusiasm? How can you get it back? And if you did, how much cleaner and better would you see the way to that secret vision you have? How much more freedom would you have to be with your friends and family? How much less worry over financial matters would you have? What kind of example would you set for family and friends and other entrepreneurs if you kick-started your business again and made it provide for you at a high level? It would be a powerful message, wouldn’t it?
That’s just not going to happen if you take care of everyone else’s current needs first. Take care of yourself and your business, so that you have the wealth needed to take care of those you love. You aren’t here to serve your family and friends everything on a platter. In fact, if you do, they will learn directly from you to lean on others rather than themselves. Is that what you want? I heard a quote last week that really made me stop and think. “A strong focus now creates a different future later.”
How do you focus now on your business, so that you can have that different future? Here are three ways:
- Change your lifestyle and your schedule around so that you are spending at least two hours every single day building your business. No excuses. You are in business for yourself, right? Two hours a day is a bare minimum. Otherwise, your business is nothing more than a hobby. You can work part time, but you can’t work no time. Two hours, minimum, every day.
- Create a calendar for the entire year. Plan in your vacation weeks, at least three long weekend retreat times for yourself to focus solely on your business, and time for learning what you don’t know and need to know in order to build your income. If you are running out of hours in the week, get help for the low-level stuff and keep your eye on the stuff that creates future income.
- Get a mentor or a coach. Do I say that because I am one? Nope! Virtually every single wealthy business owner works with someone who can pull them out of the weeds when they need it, give them perspective, and save them a lot of time in mastering new tasks. No excuses. Don’t tell yourself you can’t afford it, tell yourself the cost of doing without is much higher than what you’ll pay. Think return on investment, not cost. That’s how a business owner thinks, after all. Are you one, or not?
Why Do Your Customers Buy From You?
April 11, 2010
Here’s a fun way to figure out why people are willing to get out their credit card to buy. Ready? Sit down and think about why YOU bought the last dozen items you spent money on. You might be surprised at your reasons, and you can use the insight to help structure the offers you make to your own customers.
I just spent over $200 on Magellan’s travel supplies website. Why?
- I got their new spring/summer catalog in the mail. Magellan’s used a direct mail piece, their timing was right (I have several trips coming up), and the catalog renewed my TOMA (top of mind awareness) about Magellan’s. The key here? Timing! I regularly receive Magellan’s catalog and usually throw it out without looking. But I’m excited about upcoming travel, and I needed to refresh a few things. LESSON LEARNED: Keeping in touch with your customers over time is critical, even if they haven’t bought from you in a while.
- A notice on the catalog’s front cover offered free shipping on orders over $100. I figured almost any order would come to that amount, and free shipping saves me money. A deadline on the free shipping (May 9th) spurred me to take action now rather than lose the catalog on my desk. LESSON LEARNED: Make your special offers time-limited, with a relatively short time frame.
Let’s look at what I ordered and my reason for each purchase.
- Spill-proof pouch – because the last time I was on a plane one of my face care products leaked out into my cosmetic bag. This pouch SOLVES A PROBLEM.
- Electronics travel case – I didn’t go looking for this item, but I saw it browsing the catalog. I’m thinking “Hmm, I’m sure tired of all my various chargers and USB cables getting into a big knot at the bottom of my briefcase, so maybe I’ll try this.” This purchase SOLVES A PROBLEM and was a win for Magellan’s because of 1) A GOOD IDEA and 2) SUGGESTED SELLING.
- Personalized luggage strap – This is actually a gift for my husband. His luggage looks similar to many, and more than once he’s picked up someone else’s at the airport. The strap WORKS AS A GIFT and helps SOLVE SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEM.
- Extra-large mesh pack-it cube – These things are hard to find in large sizes, so Magellan’s gets a star for carrying them. They allow me to pack clothing inside my rolling duffel luggage and quickly pull out what I need without digging around. If I get stopped for inspection, I can easily pull these out without re-shuffling and wrinkling my clothing. I’ve used 2 gallon kitchen zipper bags, but the zippers don’t hold up to being open and closed over and over again, and the 2 gallon size is now hard to find. These mesh cubes SOLVE A PROBLEM but also GIVE ME A FEELING OF LUXURY. I get to graduate from packing my clothes in baggies.
- Blackberry pouch – When I’m sight-seeing I try not to carry a purse, but I often need my phone and camera with me, and my pants usually have no pockets. This handy little pouch hangs around the neck and will hold both my Blackberry and my small camera. Perfect! Again, solves a problem and makes something easier for me.
- Walkstool – One of the downsides of having a new knee is that it’s still hard for me to stand on concrete for very long without pain. This innovative product offers a sturdy, foldable instant stool but weighs very little, and can hang off a belt, a backpack, a purse, or my shoulder. Next time I think I better not go on a walking tour because we’ll stand and listen to a guide for 15 minutes, I’ll be able to go and know I can sit when I need to. HUGE problem solved for me and a solution I can live with (not too heavy or too bulky, small and easy to pack).
- Inflatable neck pillow – I use one on planes, and foolishly over inflated mine a few trips ago. POW! It burst at 30,000 feet and that was the end of that! I’ve looked around in airports but balked at paying $30.00. Magellan’s had one on sale for $12.99. What sold me? REASONABLE PRICING and PROBLEM SOLVED.
As you can see, I’m a buyer who will spend for solving problems. I also respond to suggested selling and to the feeling of having something a little fancier for myself. But these are not the only reasons Magellan’s got $200 from me. They are smart in how they set up their web site, too.
- Their website is easy to maneuver and loads quickly.
- They offer customer reviews of their products, which talked me into the stool and the Blackberry pouch.
- Their page for each item tells me immediately that the item is in stock. (One of my pet peeves is ordering online only to find that the item isn’t due in for 30 days or so.)
- Their page for each item offers more pictures than the catalog, allowing me to “look” at items in detail.
- Their check-out process is easy.
Take a look at what you’ve spent money on and list the reasons why you bought. You can then look at what you offer to others and think about whether your offers are attractive for those same reasons. If they are not, tweak them and your sales copy, and see if your sales improve. I bet they will!
(c) Sue Painter
Why A Solopreneur Can Offer Less But Make More
March 28, 2010
One of the most surprising things for solo professionals to find out is that their prospects (potential customers) actually will more often make a purchase when they have less choice about what they can buy. It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? I’ve seen more than one solopreneur run herself ragged, trying to finish many different “product lines” because she believed it was the way to make more money. In other words, if you have 3 e-books to sell, 12 e-books is better because there are four times as many chances that you will make a sale. Or, if you have bookkeeping services to offer, and you also add personal concierge services and web design, you will surely sell more over a year’s time.
Guess what? Neither neuroscience or marketing research backs this up! I remember one of the first things I heard from Ali Brown a few years ago, and I’ve now heard it repeated by several other top Internet marketers. “The confused mind doesn’t buy.” Ali applies this to several situations. She’ll say, for instance, that if your prospect isn’t crystal clear about exactly what next to do to place an order on your website, you will lose the sale. But she also means it when she works with you in creating what you offer. “Don’t make it too complicated, keep it simple and streamlined,” she’ll say. “The confused mind doesn’t buy.”
Sometimes this is tough to take for a solopreneur who is good at many things. Those types of people tend to fight narrowing down their target market like tigers fighting over the last piece of carrion. But the truth is, if you say you are good at everything, you do make people wonder what, indeed, you are best at. It’s wise to narrowly focus, knowing something very well and sticking to offering products and services around that thing. Later on, when you’ve met your market and built credibility, you can add another target or create another offer.
Professor Sheena Iyengar, who teaches at Columbia Business School, has been studying the science of decision for years. If you want to pick her brain on this topic, get a copy of her newest book, The Art of Choosing. She first discovered that children were happier when they were given only one toy to play with rather than a wide choice. Over time, she came to understand that what matters to us is the number of options we have when we make a decision, not just the options themselves.
Another researcher, a professor at Princeton, discovered that after about five to nine items our ability to choose becomes too complicated. This is one reason I teach my business clients to limit packages to three offers for their customers. We can easily wrap our minds around three. If you are a wedding planner, for instance, and you offer a bridge and groom 3 main types of packages, they will choose one and go happily on, perhaps asking you to customize one of the packages a little bit for them. But if you offer that same couple 27 packages, it becomes too complicated and overwhelming. They may well walk away, trying to decide. And BAM! Someone comes along with a simplified version of what you offered, they sigh in relief, and pick one – from the smarter wedding planner.
Here’s my best advice to solopreneurs who are wondering about how to showcase what they offer.
- Keep your offers very simple and clear. If you have several different categories of products and services, label them very differently.
- Offer no more than 3 options of any one category. You can always charge more for customizing one package if that is requested.
- Keep your payment plans simple. Depending on the price point of what you offer, provide options for a single payment and perhaps a two-pay or three-pay installment over one or two months. Keep in mind that you want to collect your money before your product or service is entirely consumed, however.
- Use a matrix (a chart) to show what options are included in each package. People can then see at a quick glance what they are purchasing, and what is not included. It makes choosing easier.
Keeping your selections simple also goes for how you offer your products and services, but that’s a topic for another day. Don’t overwhelm your potential customers, and don’t overwhelm yourself, either. You will make more money in less time, and you will also have more satisfied customers. It’s a win-win all the way around! Less choice = more sales. Strange, isn’t it?
(c) Sue Painter
7 Ways To Get More Clients To Attend Your Events
March 11, 2010
One of of my clients who lives overseas is in the midst of marketing his year-long high level Mastermind group. We’ve been through setting up the sales copy for his website, and he’s pulled together some introductory workshops to give his potential clients a taste of what he does and how he works. Still, he wants to do all he can to maximize enrollment, so he asked if I had more suggestions for him. Sure do! Here are 7 ways to fill your events:
- Be clear about how many people you want. What size does the group need to be to function well, let connections and bonding take place, but still remain manageable? Share this number with your potential members, and spend a little time actually envisioning the group in your meeting place. See the faces as you look around the room. Clarity and visualization are two ways to manifest what you want.
- Leave yourself enough lead time to schedule more than one “preview” workshop for something that is as big as a year-long higher priced offering. Choose a different location. It’s rare to attract all the people you have potential with for just the one single day you have planned.
- Schedule at least one teleseminar, and preferably 3. Use these hour-long open and free calls to provide valuable, useful content to your listeners. Have them sign up to gain access to your call through your website, so that you gain their name and e-mail address in return for sharing a sneak preview of your content. Talk about the what, but not so much the how. Take a break before the end of your call to spend a full 5 minutes making your offer for the big event. Talk about the benefits, not what you plan to do. Talk about the pain points you feel your listeners have and what can happen when these pain points are eliminated from a person’s life or work.
- Review the stories of the people who have already signed up for the big event, and ask yourself why they opened their wallets for you. These early adopters can tell you a lot about what other people are feeling, too. Change your sales talk and copy slightly if you need to, in order to cover and emphasis these benefits since you already know that they are strong selling points for you.
- Consider offering a half-price ticket to the spouse or business partner or assistant of someone who has already paid full ticket price for a seat. This can be a very effective way to fill your seats. Essentially, you are upselling the already-registered client. It’s a great benefit to them to bring someone along, and a great benefit to you to have another person at the event. (Be sure, however, that you are covering your costs with this 50% person.)
- Be wise in the use of experiential work in your one-day workshop previews. People buy on emotion, not logic. So bring the emotion up at these workshops and when it is high, make your offer.
- Make sure that your offer is time limited. You can offer the half-price “second person” ticket for a limited time. You can offer an early-bird discount for a very brief time. You can offer a bonus but only if the person registers for your big event within the next 24 hours.
Filling the seats at your events and longer-term programs takes persistence and the use of multiple marketing strategies. Using these can help you gain visibility and build excitement for your big event. Let me know how it goes!
(c) Sue Painter
Entrepreneurial Passion, Problems, & Desires
March 8, 2010
Here’s a really short video I did for you today, just before starting 3 1/2 days with Ali Brown, James Roche, and my fellow Millionaire Protegee Club members in Marina Del Ray. Think about this for YOUR biz!
Matching Your Target Market – A Lesson From Mexican Entrepreneurs
February 16, 2010
How to reach your peeps is just about always on my mind – it comes with the territory of being a marketing therapist. So here I was, two days ago, lounging around on the public beach in Puerto Vallarta. And I ended up, no big surprise, watching the vendors who sell up and down the beach. It is a great case study of how to figure out what to sell to a specific target market.
In the space of two hours we were visited by quite a number of beach vendors. Here’s a list of the items we were offered:
Cooked skewered shrimp, topped off by one of the limes hooked onto a separate skewer.
Heavy blankets in various colors that could be used on the beach or as a rug at home.
Brightly colored large pitchers that looked like ceramic but were actually wood.
Toys and gum from a basket.
Tuba-tuba, which is a chilled coconut drink served into a cup from a huge hollowed out double gourd.
Lace shawls.
All sorts of jewelry – silver, shells, beaded.
Elaborately carved cold fresh fruit, your choice, from a head-balanced platter.
Music from a 3-group band, complete with voice and instruments (including a bass fiddle)
Music from a two-person steel band percussion group, a 4-foot long instrument that unfolded and sat on a table, complete with sound system (battery operated).
Sunglasses
Bracelets hand-woven with your name on it
Straw hats
Large silver and mother of pearl fish which are jointed throughout the body so that the fish “swim” when wiggled.
I’m not quite sure this is everything, but the list covers most of the vendors we saw drifting by.
OK, let’s say that your job is to be a beach vendor on a warm Mexican beach. Some of your potential customers will be sitting in chairs under palapas, some will be already sitting in restaurants along the beach. Your job is to sell as much as you can from what you are offering. Can you name the top two things to sell? Can you name the bottom two things to sell? Remember that your target market is beach goers, some of whom are foreign, some of whom are locals, all of whom are on the beach, and some of whom are eating or drinking in restaurants. What are your picks for the two best things to sell to this market, and the two worst things?
Keep in mind, too, that you have to carry what you sell, walking in the sand, up and down the beach for miles and hours a day.
My two picks for the worst? The brightly colored large pitchers, which look like ceramic but are made of wood. They are awkward to carry, the vendor can’t actually carry more than about 4 at a time, and who on the beach wants one of these pitchers right then? Even if a potential customer was not on the beach, the pitchers are too large to easily carry home if you are a foreigner, and more than likely the locals don’t even use them as they don’t hold liquid. I think the guy who chose to sell the pitchers needs a few marketing lessons!
My second choice for the worst to sell, although a close race, is the steel band percussion. The instrument was huge to carry (requiring both persons) up and down the sand, hard to set up, and had to be hauled along with a fold-out table and the battery-operated sound system. That’s a lot to set up and take down for just one song, even if you had good luck selling the music to a lot of people. Plus, many people besides the one person who paid for the music can hear it, so you aren’t exactly going to sell music to the next person, are you? And frankly, most beach goers are busy sleeping, reading, riding the waves, or walking up and down the beach…..they don’t really have hearing live music on their minds.
My two choices for the best things to sell? Straw hats, because lots of beachgoers get to the beach thinking they won’t need a hat. But when they get there, they realize they do! The hats are relatively light to carry (I saw one vendor with a stack of about 50 straw hats on his head). As I watched him sell to someone on the sand, I realized he also had an upsell! He took leather braided bands out of his pocket and offered to add one to the hat for just a few more pesos. Smart guy – beach goers need hats, and they didn’t wear him out to carry.
My second choice for the best thing to sell is the cold, fresh fruit. It both gives a beach person something to eat and quenches thirst. It’s colorful and appetizing, and very noticable since most of the fresh fruit vendors carry the trays on their heads. It’s not expensive, it’s healthy, and even the kids seemed to like it. It’s probably one of the easiest things to carry on the beach, and the tray actually gives the vendor a little shade as he walks.
The point to this is that there are many things to consider when you are deciding what and how to sell to your target market. You do have to consider the pound of flesh it takes out of you, the costs you have in obtaining the product, and, of course, what you believe your market will want.
This doesn’t apply to the beach vendors as much as it does to you, but one way to quit guessing what your market wants is to ask them! Use a brief survey, talk to a subset of your prospects now and then, keep your ear to the ground. You’ll be more apt to design something that is wanted and needed than if you just put something on your back and start walking.
(c) Sue Painter
Can You Really Describe Your Ultimate Target Market?
February 7, 2010
One of the real “rookie” mistakes made by new entrepreneurs is to completely fail to know her target market. This is something that is very easy to spot. A few of the signs are:
- Her business is not thriving, meaning she needs more customers and she is not financially successful.
- When asked who she works with, she replies “Oh, I work with just about anyone.”
- If asked to thoroughly and completely describe her target market, she is flustered and can’t give more than a sentence.
The “Oh, I work with just about anyone” response is one I’ve heard from both new and not-so-new entrepreneurs many times. So many times, in fact, that it now drives me a little nuts. When someone says that, they are setting no boundaries for who they work with, which is a deadly thing. Let me ask the “just about anyone” entrepreneurs these questions:
1. Does it matter to you if a customer stiffs you?
2. Are you open 24/7?
3. If you were, for instance, a seller of curtains and blinds, would you drive 400 miles to sell a set of blinds to someone?
Of course, the answer to each of these is almost always NO! And that’s a good, thing, because that entrepreneur has just started on a path of better describing her target market. Her target market are people who have the money to pay for her products or services, she works with those who contact her during specific days and hours of business, and she has a limited geographical area in which to sell her blinds. This isn’t a complete description of her target market, but it is a start.
You can picture the creation of your target market as setting fences and gates around a specific group of people with whom you really want to work. You might not be as blatantly obvious about it as the gatekeepers are at hot night clubs, where one must stand outside on the sidewalk and get personally picked to go inside, but that is one very good example of a business who is very picky about who they want to serve.
I’ve learned about finding your niche and describing your target market from 3 or 4 of my coaches and mentors, but the one who made me work the hardest to describe my market, hands down, was Suzanne Falter-Barnes. She has a very long list of questions that one must answer to get through one of her platform building classes. The first time I saw that fat list of questions I just about fainted. In fact, the document she proposed I fill out to describe my market was 17 pages long! Still, Suzanne knows her stuff and I was there to learn, so I plowed into the questions. At the end, I felt like I’d invented something akin to a kid’s secret playmate. I started getting actual pictures of how my target market person looked, how she dressed, what she spent her money on, and more. I got so familiar with her in that 17 pages of ruthless questioning that I decided I knew her well enough to name her, for Pete’s sake! And that is what I strongly suggest you do, too.
My suggestion is to sit down with your computer or a piece of paper and describe a “sample” person from your target market as if she (or he) is a character in a book you are writing, and it’s up to you to fill your reader’s head with a detailed, specific, colorful image of the character you are writing about. Describe age, education, the kind of work she does, where she lives, her likes and dislikes – anything you can think of that will add to the picture in your head. This may lead you to dig around on the web for demographic or other information.
Spend quality time here, for it pays off in the end. Ask yourself (with pen and paper or keyboard nearby) “who is the most perfect customer for me?” If you have a hard time doing that, prime the pump by listing the characteristics of your most favorite or best customer so far. From there, dream on. Who would be delightful to work with? Who would you dread working with? What characteristics drive you crazy? Who have you worked with who bugs you so much you hope she never calls you again? You get the picture – and that’s whole point. For here is a secret about financially successful entrepreneurs:
Those who describe and visualize their target market well have started the process of manifesting exactly that type of customer for themselves. You now have a vision of who you want to attract, in detail. Put that right on your business vision board and keep it in your mind’s eye, for who you focus on tends to come your way.
Having this vision and description on hand also makes it easier to walk away from business that isn’t right for you, doesn’t truly interest you, and has a downside to it. (The downside being that while you are spending time with uninteresting client A, you cannot very well be also working with or running into very interesting and exciting client B. This is called “opportunity cost.”) Realize that it actually COSTS YOU to work with the wrong customer, for you are giving up the opportunity to work with who is just right for you.
Taking the time to dream up your ideal target market person makes finding that type of person much easier. You now know where to focus your efforts. If you are spending a lot of time and money networking in a group of direct marketers, and these are not your target market, it’s time to make a change. Pull your time and money from the wrong group, and go find the right group. You’ll find more and better business in the new group and waste less of your precious time.
When you are creating marketing plans, writing sales copy, or pulling together a presentation you’ll be able to keep your secret target market person right with you, writing to them. There will be less agony over creating these things.
And finally, when you have the opportunity to build a relationship with a potential customer, you will be much more at ease because, after all, you will pretty much feel as if you know that person in a way. You’ll be confident that you’ve spent time with someone who has a much higher chance of needing what you offer. This will shorten your sales cycle and make you more money faster. I don’t know of any entrepreneur who doesn’t want that!
So, get that blank paper or computer screen and get going. Breath some life into your target market, and you’ll breath new life into your business, as well. It’s a win-win for every entrepreneur.
(c) Sue Painter
How To Craft Sales Offers That Work Easily and Often
December 4, 2009
You might recall the old saying “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” I’m not sure that holds true for everything, but I do know that it’s the truth when it comes to crafting your sales offer. Many different studies using split testing have proven that changing the marketing message changes the number of sales. So what’s the secret to crafting sales offers that work easily and often?
The biggest mistake that I see business owners make is trying to sell on logic rather than emotion. Logic tells but emotion sells. When people say they buy on logic they are almost always mistaken. We buy based on our emotions, and then we proceed to justify what we’ve just bought based on logic.
I saw a great example of this just recently when I was in Mexico with some friends. They have long held negative feelings about the many timeshare offers proffered along Mexico’s beaches, stating over and over again that they would absolutely never do a timeshare deal. For at least 4 years now they have visited Mexico’s beautiful beaches and attended numerous timeshare presentations, taking the free gifts offered but never biting on the presentation. But this time around, they bought! I was shocked at first, but then I began to apply what I know about sales offers to what happened with them. Why they bought then became crystal clear.
The couple attended a presentation and were asked a question they’d never been asked before. “How do you feel about the hotel you normally stay in when you are here?” That simple question unleashed a torrent of frustrations and complaints from the couple, who had seen their favorite hotel at the beach change from a great resort to an ill-maintained and understaffed property. The crowning blow was the outdoor hot tub, which had been broken the entire two weeks of their stay.
What did the sales agent’s question do? It brought up the couple’s emotions. All he did was sit and listen – and then he led the couple to a five-star, brand-new timeshare unit. Talking to them about the property’s seven-year maintenance program while he showed them brand-new pools, and gorgeous two-bedroom units with big closets and full kitchens, he only had to structure a price and payment schedule that met their financial circumstances to do the deal.
What I noticed, though, was that once our friends came back to the hotel to join us, they didn’t quite know how to explain what they’d done. After all, they’d adamantly told us for many years that no one in their right mind would purchase a timeshare. So, they started telling us all the logical reasons they bought, which to me was comical. This couple did not buy based on logic. They bought on emotion and then tried to justify with logic what they had done. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with buying a timeshare (or anything else) if that’s what one wants and what one can afford. The point is, this was an emotional purchase – and almost all purchases are exactly that.
A second mistake I see business owners make is related to the first. I so often see business owners talk about what they have to offer from a logical standpoint, trying to be professional and without emotion. It just won’t work! You want to make an offer that does one of two things. It either helps the person get what he is passionate about, or it solves what the person is in pain over. Simply, your offer must do one or the other. The most compelling offers do both. An example? Think of a parent whose child is sick. The parent is passionate in their love for their child, and is in a great deal of emotional pain that the child is hurting. Whatever that parent is offered that will feed their passion and cure their pain will be a winning offer!
Often, a business owner can talk about passion or pain from their own perspective, telling their own story and how they came to be offering what they do. “I once had an Internet business that made no money at all, and I was determined to figure out what I was not doing right. I’ve studied, gone to workshops, and spent hours changing things around. I can quickly and easily tell you what you need to know so that your website makes money, too.” That’s an example of a story that evokes pain.
A third mistake I see business owners make is creating vastly different copy (or script) for their offers depending on how the offer is made. But if you stop to think about it, you want to make your offers fit what the prospect wants or needs (their passion or pain) more than you want to change it around based on how you make your offer. If your sales copy “bones” are good, they will work no matter if you are selling one-on-one, from the platform, in a teleclass or teleseminar, or from an Internet sales page. You might change the length of the offer, but the sales copy can remain much the same. If you make the mistake of writing completely different copy for each type of sell, you run the risk of making the simple hard and losing sight of what your prospect’s passion or pain is. It’s important for all your sales methods to showcase a consistent message.
Here’s an easy way to get started writing (or speaking) sales copy. I owe this to John Carlton, who taught me this in a sales copy workshop. Begin by filling in the blanks of this sentence:
I help _____________ to do _________________ even though _______________________.
For example, I help solo professionals build six-figure businesses, even though they have been in business a while and not been profitable yet. Or, I help bald men grow more hair, even if they have been bald for a long time. Or, I help overweight women get fit, even though they may never have exercised before in their lives. The beauty of this sentence is that you already highlight what a prospect may have in his head as an objection, and take it away. Additionally, you begin to evoke emotion! Emotion sells, remember?
Sometimes I work with clients who insist they cannot find any emotional triggers that apply to the product or service they are offering. This tells me one of three things:
1) You don’t have something that is saleable.
2) You are looking at what you have to offer from the wrong angle, and need to change your perspective completely to come at it from the prospect’s point of view.
3) You need help in understanding what you offer and the problem it solves, quickly!
If you are using the right emotional triggers for what you have to offer, sales will move right along. You can check this by thinking about why your most recent customers bought. If they’ve done testimonials for you, review them and make a list of the underlying emotions . Change your sales copy to reflect these emotions and test it out – you will probably increase your sales! Remember to talk about the problem you solve in terms of passion or pain relief, and you are on your way to frequent and easy sales.
(c) Sue Painter