Archive for the 'Marketing & Tips' Category
Whether you are still presenting your products “face-to-face,” or have embraced the benefits of webinars and online demonstrations, here is one technique that continues to drive results: use a script.
Every time you approach a prospect or customer, you should be prepared with a powerful and proven marketing script.
It seems to be unfashionable today to talk about sales scripts, but statistics overwhelmingly prove that a practiced presentation massively outperforms one that’s simply delivered off the cuff. Whether you’re selling face-to-face or online, you need to be flexible and be able to cope with things that crop up, but you should not allow them to divert you from your main flow.
You must remember that your interaction with your prospects is a sales presentation and not a chat around the coffee table with your buddies. The purpose of your webinar, online demo, or meeting is to sell and make you money! And as sales is a process, not an event, your process – your sales presentation – should be carefully planned, constructed, practiced, and delivered. Use a sales script for the following reasons:
- It makes your message consistent.
- The results can be measured and the script improved.
- It systematizes your business.
- You can make a strong first impression (without blundering for something to say).
- It prepares you for any prospect objections, questions, etc. without getting you off track.
One word of warning: Many times people who use scripts sound robotic and unnatural. You can still have a script and be real and in the moment. The script is not meant to be read word for word, it’s there to help you stay focused on what you want to share. And when you do both, you will see an incredible increase in sales!
Leap of The Week: Start small. Before your next client or prospect call, start by jotting down a few key benefits to share and one or two priorities to accomplish during your call and see what happens. The clearer you are about what you want to communicate, the better the results.
Enjoy!
Launching in September 2010, LeapTV™ is a short (5-12 minute), edgy, unconventional, practical, and FREE weekly online TV Show that helps solopreneurs and small business owners get clear, make small but powerful pivotal shifts, and gain momentum by taking action while keeping it simple. It’s the show that shows you that small, intentional and consistent actions lead to massive results.
LeapTV’s™ edge is about TELLING IT LIKE IT IS. This no BS show divulges simple and powerful principles that revolutionize the way you do business. It helps you and your business deliver like a well-engineered, well-oiled machine and makes you think, act and perform like never before. It is the spark plug that small business owners need to kick some serious ass by learning simple, unconventional tools, tips and tricks to win the game of business. LeapTV™ is also about building a great success community by leveraging viewers’ expertise and getting them involved by sharing their experiences, ideas, gems, concepts, insights and results.
By watching the show you can expect to:
1. Have fun learning simple and powerful principles.
2. Increase your level of clarity and efficiency.
3. Gain momentum by learning simple tools and strategies to allow you to grow more effortlessly.
4. Learn what branding truly is and what role it plays in becoming extraordinary to avoid elimination.
5. Increase your overall level of customer delight and loyalty.
6. Learn how to accomplish more in less time (and more effortlessly).
7. Learn methodologies to help you keep it simple and more profitable.
Want to leverage LeapTV’s exposure for your business?
Get involved!
LeapTV™ has amazing sponsorship and cross promotion opportunities for great companies like yours. Are you offering outstanding products and/or services that will not only improve our viewers’ performance and overall quality of life, but will also be in-line with LeapZone’s core brand foundation?. Contact Mavreen David at leaptv@leapzonestrategies.com to find out more.
P.S. Make sure to check out our new teaser video coming soon to www.leaptv.com in August 2010. In the meantime, you can view some of our beta-test podcasts…and try not to laugh!
See you online!
The TV show “The Price is Right®” is a household name for many of us. I even bought the game several years ago to play with my daughter.
In the “real world” of business, determining the right price for your products or services can be tricky. From my experience, when businesses are in the infant stage, they stumble in determining the right price based on a balance between profitability and what is fair.
In particular, I have discovered that women who offer services such as massage or hypnotherapy, will often under-charge and over-deliver.
The first step is to be aware of what your competition is charging. The second step is to look at what makes your service or product different and, ideally, better than the competition. The third step is to clearly define each product, service or package of services (bundle) in writing. Write it out for yourself first to work out the details of what you are offering. By doing this you are outlining exactly what your clients or customers will be receiving in exchange for their payment.
In your write-up, be sure to include the actual deliverables – such as a 60-minute massage – as well as all the possible benefits they could receive in return (release of muscle tension, reduction of stress, better sleep at night).
Once you complete step three, determine your costs, i.e., time, receptionist fees, laundry, merchant fees, massage oil, rental or leasing of space.
At this point, you can then rejig your prices to be in line with your costs and the value you bring through the service or product you offer.
Leap of the Week:
What action can you take today to better leverage and communicate your offering to hear this statement out of your prospects’ mouths: “I would be an absolute fool to do business with anyone but you, regardless of price.”
There is one marketing truth you must understand: People buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell. So, just because your lead is not ready to buy today, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. After all, today’s leads are tomorrow’s customers, or next month’s or next year’s.
Treating your leads like customers ensures they will come directly to you once they are ready to buy.
I’m going to admit something that may sound a little arrogant. I have hundreds of thousands of customers. They just might not be buying from me right now. But, whenever I’m talking to any small business owner, I am thinking, “This is one of my customers.” I don’t even have a chance to tell them what Infusionsoft does before I have categorized them as “Customer” in my head. Many times it is my perceived value of this person that causes them to want to learn more about Infusionsoft…and often earns me another customer!
Similarly, treating your customers like friends is going to dramatically increase your customer loyalty. But, rather than expand upon this concept, I’d like to share a testimonial I received from an Infusionsoft customer (who attended our 2008 User Conference).
“I really feel that Infusion, as a whole, shows that you all care about your customers and really want all of us to succeed, whether in helping us with our business or using the software itself. Infusion makes me feel like “one big family” and you’re not just out there trying to sell us and that’s it.” -Shelley Chu
Customers are often disloyal; friends are usually loyal.
Leap of the Week:
What’s a small action you can take today to get this concept into motion? Re-connect with a past client, follow-up with a few prospects you had given up on, or perhaps, it’s simply calling one of your best clients just ’cause you’re thinking of them. Remember, opportunities come from everyone and everywhere at all times.
Have fun discovering the gold mine that you are sitting on.
One of the greatest concerns of business owners is how to price their products or services. Often, consumers say, “Well I would buy it if it were in my price range.” And, that idea tempts many business owners to lower their prices–just to sell more products.
However, as you already know, price reductions sometimes create more problems than they solve.
For example, price reductions:
- Decrease net profits
- Lead to the purchase of lower quality products
- Increase customer demands to drop the price even lower!
- Require even more sales to make up the difference in revenue
- Need a larger quantity of products
And, in the end, as John Jantsch (author of Duct Tape Marketing) says, “There will always be someone willing to go out of business faster than you.”
Remember this: price is not a benefit. Selling is not determined on the cost of your product. If you truly “sell” your customers and prospects, they will purchase your products/services no matter what price you determine.
If a customer or prospect doesn’t buy…and they claim the cost had something to do with it…you can guess they probably wouldn’t have purchased anyway.
As a marketer, your job is to sell your products and services. The actual art of selling has nothing to do with the price of the product. By the time your contacts find out about the price, they should be determined to purchase no matter what the cost.
So, find “real” benefits (value) to sell to your customers and prospects. Help them to see how great their life is with your product, and you’ve got a customer. Point out their current pain, and your contact will do anything to get rid of it.
Set your prices and hold fast. If you’ve marketed effectively, you will still have customers anxious to do business with you!
