In this post, I am going to show you how to sell anything (and for a great price too!)  This means not only making a sale or gaining a new client/customer – but making that sale or winning that contract in the most profitable way possible.

Overview

People often tell me that once they get ‘in front’ of a prospective client, they are pretty good at converting the prospective client into a paying client.  The problem is; they just don’t get in front of enough people! If this sounds like you or someone you know, here’s the solution.  By the way – forward what I am about to share with you to everyone you know that might find it useful!

If you are finding it hard to sell something, the temptation is often to lower the price, especially during a tough economic climate.  This is almost always a REALLY bad idea! Ironically, when we speak with buyers we find that price is not primarily what they base their buying decision on!  We find that quality, support, utility and back-up are ranked higher than price.

Before writing this article I held a poll where I asked people, which of the following were most important to them; price, quality or backup & support. Overwhelmingly, price came back as the least important! In fact, there is a lot of data to suggest that lowering prices actually reduces sales.

Price only becomes a hurdle when the cost of something is greater than its perceived value!

To make something sell, you need to make the perceived value of it higher than the asking price.  For example, a £100 item with a perceived value of £200 will sell very successfully; however, a £200 product with a perceived value of £100 will really struggle.

The bottom line is that people need to believe they are getting a great bargain.  If they do, they will happily spend their money with you.

What is ‘perceived’ value?

Perceived value is the value that someone places in a product or service, based on what they believe it to be worth or their perception of its value is. Whenever you find yourself looking at the price of something and thinking it’s a great deal, it’s because your perceived value of it is higher than the cost.

This is why successful sales and marketing is based around making the perceived value of something appear as high as possible, so that the offering seems like a real bargain when you learn the price.

Sadly, the marketing used by most businesses does very little to increase the perceived value of their products or services (herein called products).

Therefore, these businesses focus on reducing their prices; so that the price matches the low perceived value of their products.

In other words, they end up selling a great product for less than it’s worth – and make far, far fewer sales too.

OK – Enough about how ‘THEY’ sell and market themselves (that’s their problem not ours)  Here’s how YOU can sell more than ever before! (I really am too good to you!)

Firstly, focus on the benefits of whatever you are selling and make those benefits sound as valuable and irresistible as possible.
It is not enough to say something generic like ‘our service saves people money’ – you must give an example of how you saved someone a ton of money and then compare the cost of your service to the saving it achieved!  For example, when I was marketing my services in the 1990′s, I would send a prospective client  my quote; along with a press clipping of how I helped a business triple their turnover in just 120 days – by helping them get the biggest contract in their history!  It worked really well, because it showed people the value of my service and made my fee seem an outstanding bargain!

My competitors sent their quote in with a business card and their fingers crossed!

Failing to clearly show the true value of your products in your marketing will cost you a fortune.  Back in 2005, I met with an Accountant whose practice was in real trouble.  After looking at his marketing material and website, I explained to him that there was no mention anywhere as to the value of what he did; how he could help people pay less tax, make bigger profits and hold onto more of their hard earned money.

Here’s what he replied;
“Jim, if people are too stupid to work out for themselves what an experienced accountant like me can do for their business, that’s their problem!”

“No it’s not” I explained! “It’s very much your problem – because they will take their business elsewhere and you will go broke!” Within 18 months he had lost his business and was working for a former competitor!

Secondly, you need to add ‘bonuses’; things that people will value but which cost little to provide.
For example, I give away a free ebook and free mainland postage and packing to people who buy my Motivation Master Class Audio CD’s.  The ebook version of this programme is worth £9.99 and the free postage and packing is saving my customers a further £4 – making the programme exceptional value.

Thirdly, because value is always relative, you need to look at the perceived value and price of what your competitors are offering.
One of the ways a potential client decides what value to attach to your product, is to compare it with what your competitors are offering.  You must, therefore, research what your competitors are offering and then make your product more valuable than theirs.

For example, my friend Cheryl works in London as an Estate Agent; specialising in selling homes worth over £1.5 million.  The very first thing she does when she takes on a new client is show them around the other homes in their area that are being marketed at the same price.  This way, her clients can see what their home is being marketed against – how it measures up against the competition. Cheryl is then able to encourage them to make the improvements required to make their home stand out against its competitors.  The end result is that her client’s homes always sell very quickly and for a great price!

Fourthly, review your marketing material.
Take a look at your marketing material, everything from; your sales letters and advertisements to your website, blog and any marketing emails you might use.  When you read them, does every sentence and every paragraph pump value into your products and your business?  If a potential client reads your marketing, is it going to motivate them to take action, call, email or meet you?  Is someone reading your marketing material going to feel compelled to call, meet or email you?  If the answer is no, you are losing a fortune in sales.

It is essential to the success of your business that your products are seen as being of exceptional value.  Competition has never been greater than it is today PLUS the consumer has never had so much choice.  If your marketing is pedestrian in its approach, it is hurting your business so improve it NOW.

Finally, review your sales pitch or presentation.
When you speak with a prospective client, do your words add value to whatever you are selling?  Do you identify their problems during your meeting and then sell your product as the answer to these problems?  If not, throw your presentation or sales pitch into the bin and start again!

No one wants to meet with you, to be bombarded with a list of benefits and features and then quoted a price or fee. They want you to inspire them, to show them that you have something that they absolutely need!  They then need to be certain that you are the best person anywhere to buy it from.  Your sales pitch is all about pumping value into your products and your business and then showing the person that you want their custom – not because you are greedy – but because you believe that if they buy from anyone else they will get a worse deal overall.

If you really believe that your products, your service or your business is the best solution for someone, you have a moral obligation to stop them making a mistake! You have an professional obligation to ensure that this person gets to benefit from being one of your highly valued clients.

This message must resonate powerfully through your marketing, your conversations and all your interactions.

Get moving!

Go on – right now, pump the enthusiasm you feel for your product and business into all your marketing and sales messages!  Make sure everyone knows how valuable your product is and how much you want to help them.  Don’t leave anything up to chance.  Tell your prospective clients that you are looking out for them;, that you provide a stunning service and that the only way you can be sure that they will be looked after is if they allow you to service their requirement.

You are a knowledgeable, hard working professional and you want your years of experience to help these people and their businesses!

Now go and make sure that EVERYBODY knows!
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By Jim Connolly
In business, confidence is massively important! I’m not talking here about our self-confidence; but rather the level of confidence that other people have in us, our business and our services.

I would like to ask you a question!

When someone asks you; “how’s business?” – what kind of answers do you tend to give them?

If you want people to buy from you, recommend you or invest in you; it’s vitally important that you always speak in positive terms about your business!  If there’s nothing positive to say about your CURRENT business position, then tell people all about your exciting plans for the future!

What a ‘positive’ answer does

Whenever you speak about your business in a confident, positive way, it causes people to feel confident about you and your situation.  This is really important, because your future success will always be in direct proportion to the number of people that ‘feel’ confident or positive about; you, your abilities, your business and it’s products or services.

If you think about it, the current economic situation is a great example of this.  The direction the stock markets take is always determined by the ‘confidence’ of those, who invest in stocks and shares.  If they feel positive about some news or a rumour – they act positively and the market grows.  If they lack confidence in something they act negatively and the market shrinks.

What a ‘negative’ answer does

Whenever you speak in negative terms about your business, you cause people to lose confidence in you.  This is one of the most commercially damaging things anyone can do to their business!

I have lost track of the number of small business owners I have spoken with over the years, who ALWAYS find something negative to say about their business, no matter how well things are going for them! What they seem unaware of, is that these negative comments about their business can spread like a virus.

Soon, their suppliers, competitors and potential clients start speaking negatively about them and BOOM – they can actually ‘talk themselves out of business!’

For example, there are countless companies who have gone broke, PURELY BECAUSE a false rumour suggested they were in financial trouble.  Very quickly, people’s confidence in the company starts to dip; so they stop using them, (fearing they will lose their money.)  Suppliers stop providing credit to them and all of a sudden, that company REALLY does have a financial problem! That’s how important it is to generate confidence in you and your business!

Especially in today’s erratic economy, make sure the seeds YOU plant in the marketplace are 100% positive.  Make YOUR business the one that people feel positive about and want to buy from, recommend or invest in. Talk only about what you want and not what you fear.

NEVER, EVER FORGET you are ALWAYS just one great idea away from your first (or next) million!

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Whenever times are hard and the economy heads south, people (and businesses) have to think a lot harder before they spend their money.  This is something we have seen time and time again during past recessions.

However, the ‘credit crunch’ has given us a MUCH BIGGER problem, because our potential clients not only have less money than before – they are finding it hard or impossible to access credit too!  As a direct result, generating sales or winning business is set to become increasingly harder, with potential clients understandably extremely cautious about spending their money.  Perhaps more cautious than ever before!

One thing we know with total certainty, is that the marketplace for YOUR services is about to become more and more competitive.

This means your marketing has never been more important!

You must be able to get the attention of your prospective clients and then totally convince them that you offer the best possible option for them.  Any business today, whose marketing is ‘average’, is going to find the coming two years (some say three) increasingly painful. The only solution is to improve the way they sell and market their services.

Why is marketing so much more important now?

During a normal or strong economy, people don’t have to think too hard about making a purchase and are measurably less choosy.  As a result, until recently, even poorly marketed companies were able to generate a level of sales; just by ‘being there’ or contacting prospects at the right time.

However, during a bad economic climate, people think far harder before they buy anything!  As a result, we are seeing people and businesses now shopping around for the best offer before they spend a penny.  Thus, they end up buying from the best marketed businesses, because these are the businesses who know how to grab their attention and make their offer sound the most attractive or compelling!

Today, good timing and hard work is no longer enough. You must learn how to out-market your competitors if you want to survive – let alone thrive!

Marketing provides an answer – Thankfully!

Amid the doom and gloom, there’s always a ray of light.  You see, as well as receiving a massive number of emails from readers who are really struggling right now – I have also received a small number of emails from readers who are experiencing their best year EVER!

When you understand why some businesses are doing so well right now, you will have an opportunity to do the same!  But first, you need to know what ‘the average’ business does when faced with an economic slump.  This is really important.

Most businesses do nothing

The ‘average’ business today will continue to sell and market their services as if nothing was happening!  Sure, they will moan about the economy and their lack of trade; but they will just keep on doing the same ineffective marketing they always did.

They pin their hopes on things ‘just getting better’ before they run out of money!

In essence, they will stay inside their comfort zone and refuse to move, as if they were a 60 foot oak tree!

But some businesses take action!

Some businesses realise that there is a real opportunity here!  They know that when times are tough, prospective clients always look for value – and making your services look more valuable is all about GREAT marketing.  So, they decide to get serious about their marketing and thus they reap the rewards!  The rewards are far greater than you might imagine!

Marketing lessons from recessions

We know that during past economic recessions, the businesses that improved their marketing and marketed their services the most successfully, managed to gain a disproportionately large share of their marketplace!

Also, when the economy improved, they were in the perfect position to continue growing at a super-accelerated rate!  If you choose, you can turn the credit crunch into a springboard for your business!  You can grow at the same time as your competitors shrink.  You can use the coming months to transform the future of your business and your life – but only if you take action and do the right things in the right way!

So – what next?

First of all – STOP!

If your business is currently finding it a struggle to generate the volume and quality of sales it needs – Stop whatever marketing you are doing immediately!

Because…

If you keep using the same kind of marketing, you will keep getting the same results.  Your sales, profits and turnover will not ‘just get better!’  In fact, as the credit crunch continues, your sales, turnover and profits will drop unless you improve things.

Five steps to beat the credit crunch

Step one

OK – as I mentioned above, the first step is to stop all marketing activities that are not making you money!  No matter how ‘comfortable’ you are with whatever you are doing, if it’s not working STOP doing it.  Either find a way to leverage better results from it or discontinue it completely.

Here are two guides on how to use leverage in your marketing:

Guide One
Guide Two

Step two

Start getting tons of business through your website! It’s a fact; a fully-optimised website is both the most effective and the least expensive way to generate sales, leads and enquiries! Your website can (and should) generate leads and enquiries for you all day every day.

I know people in just about every industry who now get the vast majority of their leads and enquiries via their website.

You can reduce your annual marketing costs by 90% and increase your sales by 100’s% (or more) at the same time!  Almost all of all MY marketing is now done online.  However, before you start enjoying all those leads and enquiries from red-hot prospective clients, your website needs to tick two important boxes:

• Firstly, it needs to look professional and have all the functions you need in order to collect enquiries, collect email addresses and make sales etc.  If you want to know why some businesses get leads from their websites on an hourly basis (or better), whilst most websites generate almost nothing, you need the second and most important element…
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• Secondly, your website MUST MUST MUST be Search Engine Optimised!   The reason most small and medium sized business websites fail, is because no one can find them!  So, you will need to get an SEO expert to make your site the one that people find when looking for whatever type of services you offer!

This is the most important step, yet hardly any small business websites are professionally optimised.  Interestingly, 100% of all large company websites are optimised.

Getting a website optimised, is like picking up a shop, that’s located down an old dusty road with no passing trade – and placing it BANG in the centre of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue!

Step three

Read the sales and marketing posts and articles here on the blog.  Everything is written by me, based on what’s proven to work.  I put the blog together because most small and medium-sized businesses rely heavily on free marketing advice – and as a marketing professional, the marketing advice I found online was often pretty awful.  I found that much of it was either shockingly poor , or very out of date. Look at this.

Step four

Download and listen to this FREE audio program.  It will tell you how to get regular referrals, recommendations & leads.

Step five

There are some superb ideas waiting for you right now at TheIdeasBlog.com.  It has often been said that you are never more than one good idea away from achieving a massive breakthrough – so take a look!

The credit crunch is really hurting a lot of businesses right now.  If you have found this credit crunch marketing report useful, please forward it to as many people as possible!

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