We have some amazing automation tools at our disposal for making sales online these days.
But remember – nothing will ever beat 1-on-1 follow up for helping people to make a buying decision.
I saw this very early on in my career. Almost by accident.
It was 2011, and I was selling my first continuity program for $97 / month… which I called the ‘Inner Circle.’
Back then, it was a collection of IM products.
As a bonus for buying, I’d then call back the new customer for a 30 minute 1-on-1 consult.
Keep in mind this was a long time ago – today I don’t do consulting for anything less than a few grand per hour, and I don’t actively seek consulting clients because it’s a very unleveraged use of my time.
But back then I was willing to throw in some time to make my offer as irresistible as possible.
One the first few calls I did, I’d focus purely on offering value. I’d find out where that person was at in their business, what they needed, what challenges they were having, then I’d offer my advice.
I was operating under the false belief many new online entrepreneurs have; you can’t sell and provide value at the same time.
I now know this is dead wrong.
You actually can do both at the same time – and the best marketers do.
Anyway, on one of those calls back in 2011, I was talking with a customer from Sydney. I got to the end of the call and it was obvious he would benefit from a new $2000 program I had just came out with.
It was so new that I still didn’t know exactly what it was! But I had a vague idea. I just needed a few more weeks to put it together.
He started asking me about it, so I obliged and went into detail. Shortly after that, he decided to buy. So this forced me to get it completed and ready, within about 48 hours.
Now here’s my main point: at that time, I was getting maybe 5 or 6 of these $97 sales a month.
So that’s only a few hundred dollars in revenue. My long term hope was that as the earlier customers kept being billed monthly, I’d be able to build this up to several thousand dollars a month – but that was going to take some time.
To now make a $2,000 sale more than tripled my monthly income – so this was a huge moment for me. I saw how selling just a couple of these 2k programs would completely transform my business.
From that moment on, I began working on the sales process I used to take a $97 buyer, to a $2000 buyer.
Within a month, I was selling 3 or 4 of these 2k programs.
My first $8000 month was a huge deal – that represented a six figure annual income. A few months later, I was doing $15,000 a month… then $45,000 / month… and then I just grew it from there.
I put all my focus on developing additional offers for my clients, and on the sales processes / systems I’d leverage to sell those offers.
Within a year, I was operating a company comfortably cranking out 7 figures annually.
MOBE, like all successful info-marketing business’s, was built on the back of effective sales funnels.
As an online entrepreneur, few activities are worth more in $ / hour, than creating, launching, and optimizing sales funnels.
And for the last 10 days or so, that’s what I’ve been working on with a small group of clients, here in Cancun, Mexico.
We’ve been doing an intense workshop called the Diamond Mastermind, where we practically build an entire sales funnel from scratch for each client.
A few days back, someone asked me over dinner, “now what? We’ve got this entire sales funnel built – what’s the next step to making sales?”
They’d got their sales funnel built with us here, and were now wanting to know the next step to actually start making money with it.
Diamond member Ernest Lim with his first and brand new ebook, completed for him at the Diamond Mastermind.
So far, their sales funnel consisted of an ebook product I’d co-authored with, a sales letter and sales video to sell it, email follow up, an automated sales webinar with myself and them selling a $2000 program, and also their very own high-ticket coaching program they could sell for $2000 – $5000. Plus banner ads, professional branding photos, professional branding videos, a blog, a video blog, and a few other things.
I told them to put all their focus on selling the $9.95 ebook.
They have a great sales video to sell it, so as long as they are getting steady and half decent traffic, they’re going to get sales.
Then, I told them to call back every single buyer…
…and say something along the lines of “hey Bob, this is [your name]. I noticed you just got a copy of my book, Online Profits Breakthrough – great decision. Have you had a chance to read it yet?”
Most likely, they’re going to say ‘no.’
Building sales funnels for Diamond Mastermind clients.
Most customers who buy information products never go through them in full.
“Ok, well make sure you read pages 19 and 27. Also… I’m hosting a webinar in a few days… where I’ll be discussing… [main topics on webinar].
I’ll be summarizing what was taught in the ebook – over the course of about 90 minutes.
Are you interested in attending?”
Of course, they’re going to say yes – most customers will prefer to watch a webinar rather than read 67 pages of an ebook.
I then told her to get a solid commitment from them they’ll be on the webinar.
By the way, this ‘webinar’ was actually the automated sales webinar we’d built for the client here. It was selling a $2000 product, at 9pm every single night (it’s actually a recording). So this did not require any additional effort from the client – the system was doing the majority of the word.
Diamond members Bill and Michelle Pescosolido shooting their branding video on the beaches of Cancun.
I told the client to also send them a text or email reminder 1 hour before. Don’t over do it – you don’t want to sound desperate. If you do sound desperate, it will undo all the positioning you’ve built by being the author of your own ebook.
Personally I would never do this now (call back $10 buyers) – it would not be worth my time, and it would also it would not be good for my positioning in the market place.
But, if I was just getting started in this industry, with hardly any sales to my name – then I absolutely would. These are the kind of things I’d be spending the majority of my time on; revenue-generating activities to the right people.
Someone who just paid $10 for a product is a buyer lead.
And the fact they’ve bought my own ebook makes them a great lead for me to call – they know who I am, I have good positioning in place, and in most cases they’ll be extremely open to hearing from me.
So the $10 ebook buyer then attends the webinar.
I have no doubt in my mind, that 1/3 of all the attendees that are invited to that webinar on the phone, and then followed up with another phone call, are going to buy the $2000 program.
Especially with all the bonus’s offered on the webinar, to help the attendee make a buying decision.
One of the bonus’s we put together for the Diamond client is their very own high ticket coaching program. They got to choose what price point they wanted to sell that coaching program for (most said somewhere between $2000 – $5000).
A sales letter and video was put up online presenting this offer and building it’s value.
Diamond member Raena Lynn recording her segment of a sales webinar we did together.
Now, largely this sales letter was put in place to build the perceived value of the coaching program, so when it’s offered for free on the sales webinar to anyone to buys the $2000 program, it’s a much more attractive offer.
Building the value of your bonus’s is important; the market is so used to seeing over hyped and grossly over valued products (anyone can put a price tag sticker on something is worth 5k), that they tend to become blind / deaf to those kind of statements.
But, if you show them a sales page like this…
…which we put together for 2 of our Diamond members Bill and Michelle Pescosolido… and the viewer reads the entire sales letter… which does a great job of building the value and supporting the price point – then they think, “Yes – this is a $5,000 coaching program.”
If we then give that $5000 coaching program (or as I suggested to our Diamond members – a smaller portion of the coaching program) as a free bonus… now we have an irresistible offer.
On the follow up phone call after they attend the webinar, we can mention this to.
The conversation should go something like this:
You: So, what were the main lessons you learned?
Can you see how this solution will make things easier?
Are you ready to get started?
When they say yes (and if you do this right, at least 1/3 of them should be saying yes), have them fill out the order form with you on the phone.
DO NOT just send them the order link and leave it to them to do when they feel like it. This is a rookie mistake. If they’re ready to buy in that moment, complete the sale.
Remember, delay is the enemy of the sale.
I told my client, “you’ve spent all this time putting together that ebook… that webinar… calling them back, money and time to generate the lead… so to screw it all up by not collecting the sale when they are ready to buy is a crime.”
So say something like, “can you go to your computer right now…?” (notice I don’t say, “are you in front of a computer?” – that makes it too easy to say “no” – I just assume they are at one or can get to one).
Filming a video with Diamond member Deborah Robertson
A training session at the Diamond Mastermind
“Great. I want you to go to a website… it’s www.ready-to-order.com… just go ahead and go there now, and let me know when it comes up.”
This whole time, I’m assuming they are going to go along with me and fill out their details. If I’ve done everything up until this point well, then they will.
I used to do this all the time back when I was doing all the sales calls for MOBE affiliates (way before we built the phone sales team we have today).
While they are filling out their details, I’m just waiting on the other end of the line silently.
People often ask me, “isn’t that a little awkward?”
The answer is no. You just say something like, “go ahead and enroll now for me… so I can make sure you’ve got your login details before we go to the next step. I’ll just wait till you’re done.”
Once they are done, I’ll say, “excellent. Now the next step is, you’re going to be getting your login details in the next 5 minutes. If you don’t see the email, check your spam folder – sometimes they end up in there.”
I then will give them some advice on how to get started, and what I expect them to do in the next 24 hours. I’ll tell them to call me back, once they are done with that action steps.
Make sure you get them to complete an action step BEFORE they call you back or come asking for help.
The Diamond Mastermind group…
That way, you’re only spending time with the people who take action. And those who don’t take action aren’t going to whine and complain you never help them, because you set the right expectations from the very start; “you take a step towards me, I take two steps towards you. You don’t step, I don’t step.”
*******
It’s not hard to sell a $10 product. As long as you have a great offer and decent traffic, then you should not have a problem getting sales.
You then just need to focus your time and effort on marketing to your buyers list.
If this all sounds really simple, that’s because it is.
We tend to over complicate this entire business, but it really is simple.
The main lesson here, is that we need to have a sales process in place. A series of steps we do after a certain trigger event takes place (eg. a $10 sale is made). The first few times you do this, it may be a messy process – you’ll be figuring it out as you go.
But once you’ve done it a dozen or so times, you’ll really start to fine tune your process. You’ll develop the best script… you’ll start to make subtle changes in how you say things, phrases you use, questions you ask.
The key is to just get this started as soon as possible – launch your sales process, then optimise it as you go.
Now go make it happen!
- Matt Lloyd