This article is the second in a series covering the foundational principles in sales and marketing: traffic – conversions – scaling/economics.
Part 1 of the series is about the first foundational principle in sales: getting high quality prospects into your sales funnel. You can read it here.
Part 2 of the series is on the second foundational principle in sales: the ability to influence a prospect to the point that they convert into a paying client.
If your business has stagnated, you may think you have a traffic problem. You think that if you could only get more high-quality leads into your funnel then you would see your bottom line significantly improve.
The reality is that you have a conversion problem.
Your traffic is perfectly adequate.
You’re getting lots of opportunities at the plate but are only converting a handful into hits. To rectify the situation, you need to critically and unemotionally look at your funnel and apply the following principles:
1. Sell benefits not features.
Remember, your prospect doesn’t care about you they care aboutTHEM. So, don’t talk about all the different bells and whistles (features) of your product or service. That doesn’t resonate.
Talk about the benefits your prospect realizes by using your product.
A prospect realizes a benefit because of a feature. For example, “Don’t tell me about your grass seed. Tell me about my lawn.”
Don’t bother to tell me that the seed is grown according to the “highest ISO standards” and “under the most controlled manufacturing processes.” I could care less.
Tell me about all the great parties I’ll have on my luscious, green, maintenance free lawn (benefit).
Tell me about all the memories I’ll have playing catch with my kids on the lawn (benefit).
Tell me about all the extra time I’ll have to spend enjoying my Saturday morning because the lawn requires so little upkeep (benefit).
Those things I CARE about!
(PS: If anyone is selling this kind of lawn seed, let me know! I could use spending less time working on my lawn!)
Here’s an article that more thoroughly describes the different “levels” of features and benefits by master copywriter Bob Bly here.
2. Sell a cure, not prevention.
Remember to always stress the aspects of your product or service that cure a prospect’s specific pain point, rather than stressing the aspects that are designed to prevent a pain point from occurring.
While it is technically possible to sell a prospect a prevention, it’s going to cost you far more in terms of time, effort, and money than selling a cure.
If you disagree, compare how many people buy books on preventing obesity, as opposed to how many buy books on how to look great for beach season by losing weight, quick!
3. Risk Reversal!
There is an unseen barrier that exists in every transaction between a buyer and seller. To make a sale you’ve got to convince the prospect to jump over or break through that wall.
The most effective technique to do that is to utilize “risk reversal.” I’ve already written a couple of fairly extensive articles on risk reversal because it is exceedingly useful. Please read them here (part 1) and here (part 2).
Action Step:
Review your current sales flow and/or marketing materials with a critical eye towards applying these three principles you will see a dramatic improvement in conversions.
1. Sell benefits, not features.
2. Sell a cure, not prevention.
3. Reverse the risk.
To your success!