Do You Have to Be Aggressive to Make Sales?

Do You Have to Be Aggressive to Make Sales?

by: Ari Galper

A few weeks ago I was onsite at a company that had hired me to train their sales team on how to stop using traditional selling and start using the Unlock The Game™ sales approach.

After one coaching session, one member of the sales team came up to me and said, กAri, your approach makes complete sense but Iกm afraid Iกll lose sales if I stop being aggressive and start being passive!ก

Whenever I hear a comment like that, I want to scream, because it means that the person just doesn’t yet understand that removing pressure from the sales process doesn’t mean being passive!

But…I didn’t scream. I took a deep breath and then explained that Unlock The Game™ is the reverse of passive.

Rather, itกs an active attempt to create pressurefree conversations with prospects.

However, to do that we must eliminate behaviors and language that prospects can perceive as กaggressive.ก

We all know what these are continual email and voicemail กfollowupsก in which salespeople try to pin down the status of a potential deal is one common example.

The problem is that prospects react to aggressive, or perhaps we should say กoveraggressiveก sales behaviors by withdrawing and evading us.

We could say that Unlock The Game™ actually takes the กmiddle groundก between passive and aggressive by being authentically unassuming, yet effective and that this is the most stressfree and effective way to sell.

What do I mean?

I mean that you have to shift away from assuming that every prospect is a fit for your solution.

Itกs sort of like the legal concept of กbeing innocent until proven guilty.ก

We can’t afford to make any assumptions about กfitก until our conversation with the prospect indicates that weกve mutually arrived at that conclusion.

The aggressiveness that turns off prospects sets in when you assume, every time you pick up the phone, that you have a solution for them.

Your tone of voice and language gives them that message long before theyกve even had a chance to agree that they have a problem you might be able to help them solve.

But if you can manage to find that middle ground of not assuming anything while also communicating in a lowkey, unassuming manner, youกll discover a whole new effectiveness you could never have imagined.

Can prospects sense when you’re assuming too much?

Sure they can because most of us have been conditioned to present or talk about our solution as a way to engage prospects so theyกll reveal their problems to us.

But that logic is completely flawed, because when you launch into your solution to someone who doesn’t trust you yet, all you do is allow them to pigeonhole you as a stereotyped กsalesperson.ก

So how do you make this concept of being unassuming but effective a reality?

First, learn to start conversations by focusing 100 percent on generating discussions around prospectsก problems, rather than pitching your solution the second you hear an opening.

Second, learn to begin those conversations by converting the benefits of your solution into problems that your solution can solve.

Third, after you and your prospects have identified a problem or problems, you can then engage in a discussion about whether fixing those problems is a priority.

Itกs only at that point that prospects have finally given you implicit permission to share your solution with them.

Jumping in with solutions prematurely will only land you back in the trap of being perceived as กaggressive.ก

About The Author

With a Masters Degree in Instructional Design and over a decade of experience creating breakthrough sales strategies for global companies such as UPS and QUALCOMM, Ari Galper discovered the missing link that people who sell have been seeking for years.

His profound discovery of shifting oneกs mindset to a place of complete integrity, based on new words and phrases grounded in sincerity, has earned him distinction as the worldกs leading authority on how to build trust in the world of selling.

Leading companies such as Gateway, Clear Channel Communications, Brother International and Fidelity National Mortgage have called on Ari to keep them on the leading edge of sales performance. Visit http://www.unlockthegame.com to get his free sales training lessons.

This article was posted on December 19, 2004

by Ari Galper

Profiles of Success Issue #79 : AllPiercings.com

Profiles of Success Issue #79 : AllPiercings.com One Year Later

by: Tiffany Banks

Beginning with issue # 28 (see http://www.homebusinessnetwork.com/profiles28.html) we profiled a brandnew internet startup called AllPiercings.com. )http://www.allpiercings.com) A couple (Erik & Dawn Olsen) were launching their first venture selling กphysical productsก online, and allowed us a glimpse into their thoughts and challenges involved in starting such a business on a shoestring. This is a followup one year after launch…

Tiffany: Well, Erik…youกve lasted a whole year (which is itself an accomplishment for a new business)…how are things going?

Erik: Super! We completely blew away our firstyear goals and are currently gearing up for our 2nd holiday season. Considering our sales shot up roughly 400% for the month prior to Christmas (and the fact that we have about 390 more designs than last year), we’re pretty excited to see this yearกs holiday numbers.

Tiffany: Thatกs great! But…there can’t be all sunshine, right? What are some of the กchallengesก you’re having to overcome?

Erik: There are a number of them. Right now, the biggest is our free search engine rankings. For the first three months or so after we launched, we were steadily climbing in the SERPS (ed: search engine result pages), but at the end of march, we suddenly fell like a rock. Although there hasn’t been a penalty, and we still get allot of free traffic (about 2000 visitors a day), our rankings are just now starting to climb back our of the cellar.

Tiffany: Iกm sure that problem is common to almost all online business owners. What are you doing to improve your rankings?

Erik: Well…a number of things. About 4 months ago, we started a very selective linking campaign to trade links to sites that tightly fit our focus (i.e. body jewelry, and/or the jewelry industry). This has had a twopronged benefit. One, it has started to give our site a boost in the SERPS, and two, weกve actually been getting sales as a direct result of those links.

Tiffany: Not to get too specific, but how are the numbers? You know our readers REALLY want to know about the $$$.

Erik: Specifics aside, we tripled our first year goals. Iกll leave it at that.

Tiffany: Fair enough. What other challenges have you been up against?

Erik: To be honest, our biggest challenge this year hasn’t even come from the business. Weกve had a rather nasty medical problem crop up in my immediate family which has been dominating my time for several months now. This has made me realize having a home business, while a blessing, can also be a doubleedged sword. When you run your own business, thereกs no one to กpick up the slackก for you. Iกve been doing as much as I can with the business via laptop from a hospital, and shuttling back and forth handling orders. Itกs been a real challenge, but I think thereกs light at the end of the tunnel. In six months or so, I hope that things will be back to กnormalก.

Tiffany: Definitely sounds like youกve had your hands full. Ok…aside from all the bumps in the road, youกve obviously got a hit on your hands. what are your plans for year #2?

Erik: They are almost too many to mention. Further expansion of our affiliate program (through the recruiting of specific partners), increased search engine traffic (which of course leads to more sales), a HUGE expanse of our product line (weกve got over 1000 new designs on order already), as well as expanding into other related product lines.

Thatกs just a few…as for the others…there are a number of marketing ideas Iกve some up with that no one in the industry has tried yet, so I hesitate to name them here, as I know they will be กadoptedก by my competitors.

Tiffany: That brings up a good point. Is competition a problem?

Erik: Yes and no. There are a few (and I mean only a few) competitors our there who are giving us a run for our money, but I don’t really see them as a problem. Unfortunately, some of the areas where we innovated in the sales process have been latently copied by those competitors.

Tiffany: For example..?

Erik: For example: We offer free shipping on orders over $25. That in itself is not such a revolutionary thing However, when I was having our system custom built from the ground up, I had our developers add a feature that would กencourageก a customer to spend at least $25 by telling the กSpend just $X more and get free shippingก. This feature didn’t appear on a single other body jewelry retailers site. Low and behold…a few months after we started gaining market share, this feature was quietly กaddedก to a competitors site. I guess imitation is the best form of flattery. Aside from that, the only กcompetitionก come from people building dozens of sites all pointing to the same product database. The good news is this is against Googleกs (and other) guidelines, and weกve been very successful in reporting these กnetworksก of sites, which has resulted in their getting banned from the engine(s). Iกve got no problem with competition, as long as they play by the same rules that we do. If they’re trying to game the engines by setting multiple keywordbased domains, weกll report them for as long as it takes to get them banned.

Tiffany: So…with your first year under your belt, what advice would you give to anyone who was considering ‘taking the plungeก into their first home business?

Erik: RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. Know the market you want to get involved in. Our niche was VERY crowded when we launched (and remains so). The only reason we were able to capture the kind of market share we have now is because we had both the USP (ed. Unique Selling Point) and the finances to both act and look like a player from day one. The days of putting up a site that looks like it was designed by your paperboy are long gone. If you want to compete, you have to LOOK like you can compete. In this day and age, no one want to purchase something from a site that APPEARS to be run from a garage. The good news is, with just a bit of startup capital (Iกd say $5000 is a good number to have on hand), you can build a site that from day one gives the perception that it can deliver the goods. Perception is everything.

Follow that up with awesome customer service (not a single support email has gone more than 18 hours before being answered), some great marketing twists (we sent over 200 Tshirts out a couple of months ago, which generated 3times their cost in sales), and a strong affiliate program (ours now generates over 50% of our sales), and youกll have a winner.

Tiffany: Thatกs great, Erik. Thanks for ‘talkingก to us, and weกll definitely check back in 6 months!

Note: Weกll be following up on Erik & Dawnกs progress in the coming monthกs. Stay tuned!

Note: You can visit the site referenced in this article at http://www.allpiercings.com

About The Author

Tiffany Bankกs is the Editor in Chief of the Home Business Network website.

http://www.homebusinessnetwork.com

This article was posted on September 24, 2004

by Tiffany Banks

Creating Trust

Creating Trust

by: Mari Peckham

It can be difficult, at best, to do business on the Internet.

Okay, you and I LIVE out here. We have grown to rely and trust the Internet. We have friends. We shop, we bank, we do business.We order take out, we even fall in love. We have found ways to do almost all of our daily tasks out here in cyber space. We hear daily of all of the people signing on for the first time.

So how could it be so hard to sell our wares?

Well, itกs the trust factor. Jupiter Communications, one of the leading providers of research on Internet commerce, recently revealed studies that showed 64 percent of online consumers are unlikely to trust a website.

Our customers don’t have the advantage of seeing our trustworthy faces. Getting to know us. Developing a relationship with us.

Then how do we go about alleviating the fears of our potential customers? Here are a few suggestions bound to set you on the right path.

BE HONEST.

Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, or claims that you can’t back up.

MAKE THEIR INFORMATION ACCESSIBLE AND UPDATABLE.

Make sure that your customers know what information you gather at your website and what you do with it. If you store profiles at your site, make them accessible to your customers or give them away to update it or make changes.

HONOR YOUR CUSTOMERSก PRIVACY.

If you sell directly from your site, it is important that you know, and adhere, to consumer privacy practices. Make sure that your customers understand your secure sales process and that they know what you do with their information (particularly credit card information) after the sale.

COMMUNICATE!

Publish an ezine or newsletter to help customers get to know you better. Host chats and/ or discussion boards and promptly and accurately answer your Email. (This means that you should actually READ your Email before replying!)

EDUCATE YOUR CUSTOMER AND OFFER IMPECABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Make sure that they know how to use your product. Offer quick and responsive support and guidance. If a customer has a problem, don’t try to sweep it under the rug! Take care of it as quickly and as graciously as possible. It is a fact that 98 percent of people will continue to use a business even AFTER they have had a problem, if their problem was resolved in a prompt and courteous manner.

GUARD YOUR REPUTATION!

Stress the benefits of your product over another without insulting the other product. Stay clear of the dirty politics tactics. It doesn’t do much for your reputation.

OFFER MONEY BACK GUARANTEES,

whenever possible, then honor them quickly.

MAKE TESTIMONIALS AVAILABLE,

and encourage visitors to check with other customers before they purchase products or services from you.

BE CLEAR AND COMPLETE WITH YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION.

Include your business name, address, and phone number. Adding names and pictures of yourself or your employees can help visitors feel more confident and comfortable.

How can we alleviate the fears of our potential customers? Trust is something that takes time to earn. But the more you concentrate on your customer service, and the more responsible you act with their information and concerns, the quicker you will build a loyal customer base.

Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are successful and worthwhile businesses! Give your customers a reason to trust you, and they will!

About The Author

© Mari Peckham

Mari Peckham is the President of Peckham Enterprises and webmistress of PowerPromoPlus, your online advertising solution at: http://www.powerpromoplus.com

To subscribe to her online advertising tips, tools and techniques ezine, Advertise_Online, send any Email to: [email protected] or visit: http://www.powerpromoplus.com/advertise_online.htm

This article was posted on January 20, 2002

by Mari Peckham

Is Your Email Address กBlacklisted?ก

Is Your Email Address กBlacklisted?ก

by: Jim Edwards

A lady emailed me yesterday very upset over the fact that her friendกs Internet Service Provider (ISP) wasn’t delivering important email messages.

This lack of delivery caused a real problem for the two of them with ruined plans, missed appointments, and just plain inconvenience.

If you don’t use email, this might not sounds like a กbig deal.ก

But this problem of nondelivery has dramatically affected the way businesses use email and is now about to reach epidemic proportions for consumers using email.

To put things into perspective, imagine if every time you dialed a friendกs phone number you had no idea whether it would ring or not.

Now imagine how frustrated you would feel over time if you kept dialing the same number and it never rang for you, but others could get through and your friendกs phone number never changed.

Thatกs exactly how youกll feel when your personal emails start getting blocked for seemingly no reason.

The problem of legitimate email messages not getting through stems from the uncontrolled and unstoppable onslaught of spam that currently grips the Internet with seemingly no end in sight.

The fact that viruses can now กspoofก email addresses and make it look like someone sent a virus to thousands of people doesn’t help matters either.

In an effort to cut down on spam, ISPกs implement a number of countermeasures, including: text filters, spam databases, and IP blocking.

If your email message doesn’t get delivered, most of the time it means you inadvertently got caught in an ISPกs กdefense system.ก

If you ever find your email messages don’t get through, or if youกd like to head off problems before they occur, the following tips should help.

Encourage all your email contacts to กwhitelistก your email address in their email program.

Just like you can say which email addresses you don’t want to get messages from, you can specify a list of email addresses you always want accept.

In Yahoo or Hotmail you can set up your filters to accept email messages from a certain source regardless of the subject line or content of the message.

It takes a little patience to set up, but it pays big dividends by not losing important messages.

With Outlook and Outlook Express, you can set up message rules to always accept messages from certain senders.

If you send messages to people who use AOL, try this technique. Get them to add you to their address book กsafelistก or กapproved senders.ก

This helps AOL identify that the message recipient กknowsก you and has a higher likelihood of actually wanting to receive your message.

Email AOL tech support for help on this if you encounter a problem.

If filtering and กwhiteก listing don’t work, then your friend needs to contact their ISP to sort out the problem.

Their ISP can certainly figure out why messages don’t get through, but it may take some concerted encouragement to get the ISPกs customer service to take the time to investigate the cause.

About The Author

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the coauthor of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? ‘turn Words Into Trafficก reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links… without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

This article was posted on May 05, 2004

by Jim Edwards

One click from answer ?

One click from answer ?

by: Greg Keins

This article briefly describes most popular places on the net where help, advise and answers on required questions can be found. Overview of Search engines, meta search engines, forums, online help boards and more.

1. Search engines

Google.com, yahoo.com they represents one of best known search engines. SEs holds huge databases, for example google currently have more than 3 milliards records, to be able to process this information quantities server farms are used with thousands of computers. Search results contain pages where lookup words were met. Every SE has its own algorithm on what pages best much search criteria but all of them have aim to show most relevant results for user.

SE weighty advantage is that search industry leaders have their databases filled by milliards of records referencing existing web sites on the net, but they require from user to know most part of answer and some search experience to be able to type in correct keywords, otherwise as usually happens with novice users keywords may be really sensible for required lookup, turned out to be not that really used by most internet community in current field. As consequence search results are far from ideal, usually this are sites similar to lookingfor but not that really useful.

Only experience coming with time and hope on search engines will be more intellectual in future seems help. Another way is to spend more time on lookup and parse most of search results (more than first page of results) this will for sure move near to success.

Also exists meta search engines (they don’t have own databases but reuse and combine existing top search engines results together), they provide more optimized results and keep only most relative matches.

Hear is list of most popular search and meta search engines:

Search engines by popularity:

http://google.com

http://search.Yahoo.com

http://search.msn.com

http://excite.com

http://netscape.com

http://iwon.com

http://askjeewes.com

http://mywebsearch.com

http://altavista.com

http://dogpile.com

http://infospace.com

Meta Search engines:

http://ez2www.com

http://kartoo.com

http://surfwax.com

http://vivisimo.com

http://webcrawler.com

2. Forum boards

This is for sure more humanized type of information conception. Any forum board divided into several subjects, where forum users can post questions. Any single question with follow up and answers called thread. Threads keep single post history.

Person looking for help posts message describing problem and usually within one day some body with god will helps. Most forums have possibility to turn on auto notification for new responses, posted by email. Once posted your issue in few or more forums, checking newly email messages will keep up to date with problem resolving. Good sign for forum is number of messages per unique thread, more than 100 is good, as more visitors will see your request as soon you will get required help.

Hear is few popular help forums:

http://www.htmlforums.com

http://www.wordforums.com

http://www.suggestafix.com

3. News groups

News groups is coming from that early times when internet was not worldwide available.

They were available mostly through bulletin board systems and terminal connections.

Now this is forum type help resource but advantage is there are a lot of news groups on many subjects and all messages archived since at least 1994 year. So there is pretty much chances that you will find already existed same problem with few possible solutions.

There are few web interfaces to news groups, most handy for me was Google:

http://groups.google.com

4. Documentation

Every product, service or tool coming with user manual and documentation.

This was always best and most smart way to get issues resolved but major problem is time required to get acquainted with often tens or even hundred manual pages. Not rare cases when person just missing so much time.

5. Online help chat

This is so called human 2 human service. Most major web portals support this type of service for its own needs, example is ebay auction. Any answers get resolved immediately via online chat by ebay support person. Only problem is that ebay works only with its registered users and support only ebay concerning issues.

Online help is best possible service for present day, it reduces lookup efforts from hours or even days to minutes. For today I found one such place and meet there good and prompt support

http://webhelpboard.com

Conclusion

From described above seen that guaranteed direction is original manuals that usually foresee most common issues and pitfalls but it is for sure require enough free time. From the other side human 2 human services online help chat is easiest and most prompt service existing today.

About The Author

Greg Keins, SEO expert

(free reprint article thus far original content unchanged)

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 16, 2004

by Greg Keins

A Hard Lesson Learned ….

A Hard Lesson Learned ….

by: Diane Hughes

Are you like me? I like to handle things on my own so I don’t even THINK about incorporating help with anything I am working on … especially my business as a whole.

Well, I learned something new recently. It was a HORRIBLE experience that actually turned out for the better. Let me tell you my story:

I have a team of about 2000 associates. Since all my sites are hosted at Host4Profit except for the site that their websites are hosted on, I decided to transfer everything over. Well, I have transferred many sites before so I knew how it worked. I knew I would get access to Host4Profit before transferring with my registrar and that all I had to do was upload everything over to the new host while my old host was still active. This would make a seamless transfer. No one would ever know anything happened …

To make a long story short, it didn’t turn out to be as seamless as I hoped and things were a little messed up for about a day. Needless to say, I received TONS of emails!

กWhat happened?!ก

กWhere did you go?!ก

กGive me my money back!ก

กHello? Are you there?ก

Well, I couldn’t ANSWER these emails because I was busy getting the transfer problem fixed. This caused most of them to email me a SECOND time, therefore doubling the amount of emails sitting in my email box! Stress was building as I worked to get the problem fixed ….

After the problem was finally resolved, I sent an update letting everyone know what happened. I got back to any emails that I felt needed answering … this whole thing took almost 18 hours of my time and NO SLEEP for me!

The stress and the fact that I had no sleep took itกs toll on me. When I got some really rude emails from some angry customers and associates, I didn’t take my own advice and let it sit until I calmed down. You know what I did instead? I gave refunds to all of them! I didn’t even want to deal with it … as a result, I refunded over $1000 in sales.

I know, I know … you’re asking yourself, กHow could that be a good thing?ก Well, it made me get out of my bull stubborn กIกll handle it allก attitude and incorporate some much needed help. Now I have someone to answer those emails, someone to answer those calls, and various other things. What a RELIEF! Why didn’t I do it sooner?! 🙂

If you answered กYesก to my first question above, heed my advice. Take off those bull horns and find a couple of people that you trust to help with some of your dauntless duties. And if your business is not big enough yet to incorporate help and you’re handling it just fine … don’t forget this advice when it grows right before your very eyes

Copyright 2004 Diane Hughes

About The Author

Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com

FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your BusinessInto A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane

This article was posted on April 26, 2004

by Diane Hughes

If You Don’t Know This, You Might Loose Your Commi

If You Don’t Know This, You Might Loose Your Commissions!

by: Frank Bauer

Are you aware that using certain tools to protect your affiliate commissions might in fact cause you to loose them?

Let me explain you how than can be and what you can do to protect yourself from commission loss…

The other day a good marketing friend of mine, letกs call her Eva, send me an email, telling me about a service that she believed me to be interested in… and in fact, I was.

She wrote: กIf you want to take a look, the link is: http://www.more4you.ws/monก

When I followed her URL, I noticed on that page, that her affiliate ID was missing on the main page, as well as on the order form page.

Since I wanted her to get credit for this, I emailed Eva:

กYour link will not earn you commissions as your affiliate ID doesn’t show at http://www.monopolizer.com/.

I recommend to use a forwarding link instead of placing the site into a frame.ก

She answered me that it worked fine when she followed the link herself. How was that possible you ask? Very simple.

When she originally got the affiliate link, she must have used the link one time directly and this way saved the cookie on her computer.

So I replied to Eva:

กI checked it again… if I visit their site through http://www.more4you.ws/mon, your ID is not shown anywhere.

But if I visit it through http://www.monopolizer.com/index.php?affiliateID=249040817 I can see your ID everywhere.

In general… cookie based systems often have a problem if you place the site into a HTML frame on another domain.ก

This time Eva replied to me:

กWell thatกs got me stumped… I used Covert Affiliate to generate that URL and I just cleared my cookies and tried it and I do not see my affiliate codes on the main page…ก

I actually noticed that problem of promoting through a frame already quiet a while ago. Also e.g. when I use Mikeกs MyViralWebsite system or any other system that displays your affiliate URL inside a HTML frame… itกs the same problem.

The tricky part about it… some programs work if called through a frame (meaning: your affiliate ID will be used) and others don’t.

My rule of thumb is: If I don’t see my affiliate ID on the other page, I will not use a HTML frame.

But for the reason I described before, make sure that you delete you cookies before you give it a try!

This is also the reason why I always use my own Add2it GoTo Pro tracking links whenever I promote another program.

The Add2it GoTo Pro links look e.g. like this:

http://www.add2it.com/go/to.pl?l=ListDotCom

To make that shorter and easier, I created and uploaded another tiny script called see.pl. Now I can use an even shorter link:

http://add2it.com/see.pl?ListDotCom

The last part, the กListDotComก, is what changes depending on what program I want to promote.

The advantage… not only do you get stats on how many people click that link every month, it also simply forwards to the URL you want to promote, prevents this way the กframeก problem while still hiding the ugly long affiliate link and this way it REALLY protects your commission.

Reprint rights to this article are granted, as long as it is not modified and the resources plus signature remain unchanged.

About The Author

Frank Bauer is the owner of Add2it.com Scripts & Services for your Web Business at http://www.add2it.com and the publisher of the More4you Newsletter at: http://www.more4you.ws. To see how he can help you, visit: http://www.frankbauer.name

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 04, 2004

by Frank Bauer

How 5 Easy Tactics Can Seriously Boost Your Websit

How 5 Easy Tactics Can Seriously Boost Your Website Sales

by: Charles Preston

The art of turning website visitors into paying customers depends almost entirely on good sales copy. What is that?

Simply put good sales copy is the content of your copy and presentation of your copy put together in such a way that it increases your visitor to sale conversion rate on a consistent basis.

Itกs an ongoing process in which you will always try to beat your กcontrolก. Beating the control is marketing lingo for engaging in a never ending process of constant improvement to your sales copy in order to beat your last highest visitor to sale conversion rate. The more you practice this the more money you will make!

This article will give you 5 quick tactics to get you started in playing your own game of กbeat the controlก which in turn will put you on the road to higher sales conversion and more money in your pocket.

Tactic #1 Know your numbers

I am always surprised when I speak with clients who wish to increase their sales from their websites and when I ask them how many visitors they are getting per month, how many sales per visitor, average unit of sale, etc they don’t know. You must be able to measure results and that begins with knowing where you are at currently. Below are the most important factors you need to be tracking …

How many unique visitors do you get per month. This is not the same as กhitsก. Most hosting companies provide a stats package that you can log into and see how many unique visitors you get each month. If they don’t I suggest switching to a hosting company that does.

How many sales do you get per 100 visitors. This gives you your conversion rate in percent. The average according to shop.org is around 1.82% or roughly 2 sales for each 100 visitors. I have found that this number can be dramatically improved by making even the smallest changes to your website copy and or layout.

What is your average sale price. Take all your online sales each month add them up then divide by the number of sales.

Tactic #2 Move the big guns up to the front.

Statistics show that you have about 10 seconds to entice a website visitor to go deeper into your site before they click the back button and forget you ever existed. Remember that your online prospects are looking for information to solve their problem and if they don’t see anything on your homepage immediately upon arriving that leads them to believe that you understand their problem you lose.

You must greet your visitors with a large headline that says something to the effect of กwe know what your problem is and we can fix it better than anyone else hereกs why…ก. Then in your copy give them as many reasons as possible as to why your company is the better choice out of all your competitors. Give them testimonials, and other kinds of proof that you or your product gets results.

Tactic #3 Use simple language.

Speaking to your online prospects in a conversational tone increases conversion rates. Avoid the tendency to try to sound professional using corporate sounding gibber jabber. Remember these are real people and they respond to real language being spoken by a real person. Be authentic and forget about what your competitors are doing. Find your own voice and I guarantee that more of your prospects will respond to that than to the same old tired impersonal ivory tower cliches.

Tactic #4 Put the emphasis on what you can do for them

A lot of businesses make the mistake in thinking that potential customers actually care how long they have been in business or how much they say they value customer service and so on. Avoid platitudes like the plague consumers are immune to them now. Your copy needs to be written in terms of not how special you think your company is but in how good you are at solving problem x for the visitor and then back it up with all the proof you can find. Try using the word กYouก more often than the word กWeก.

Tactic #5 Lead your visitors to the call to action.

So if you have done a great job at enticing the prospect to keep clicking deeper into your site from the homepage with a compelling headline and copy that speaks to the prospects problem and the rest of your website copy does a good job of convincing the visitor that you are the obvious choice to do business with your job is still not done. You need to ask for the sale or lead the prospect to the call to action. At the end of any page of copy or maybe even within the main body of your content you need to tell them to buy your product or contact you today! If itกs not a high priced item or service this is all that is required but if you are selling something over $100 you might need to break your sales process into small steps by offering the visitor a free report or free trial or sample of your product or service just to get them into your sales cycle. Make it easy for them to build a relationship with you and give them a good incentive to do so.

The copy on your website sells your product or service. The website itself and the graphics are their to support the copy. The copy needs to be easy to read (break it up with headers, short paragraphs and bulleted lists) use conversational language, give the visitor substantial reasons to do business with you as soon as possible on the homepage.

Try different headlines and free offers. Keep track of your conversions and see whatกs working and what doesn’t. There is always a better formula that will make you more money and by beginning the process of searching for that formula you will be gaining a significant advantage over your competition.

About The Author

Charles Preston is President of Click Response a website design company that specializes in Business Website Design that increases online sales. http://www.clickresponse.net

This article was posted on September 10

by Charles Preston

Guide To Safe Online Shopping

Guide To Safe Online Shopping

by: Randy Laduron

Online shopping can be a little frightening to people who are new to the internet,but as long as you follow a few easy rules you should have no problem shopping online.

What are the rules ?

First before buying from an online store find out what that online stores return policy is. If you wait till after the purchase of a product you make find out returning it is almost impossible.

Second ,now days itกs good to know what the privacy policy of any website you fill out forms on is.If you don’t want your information spread all over the internet.

Third,Now for the purchase itself,When filling out a form to order something make sure all your information is correct,email adress must be right itกs important,your postal address must be right and your credit card info must be correct.If any of the above is wrong your order may not go through.

Fourth,Most online stores will send you an order confirmation email to confirm your order was received,this is very important file it away if you ever have a problem with an order you will need the information contained in the email to get it corrected

Finally, Most stores will let you know when your order has been shipped

What if I have a problem with something I ordered at an online store ?

If you have a problem there are a few easy steps to having it corrected if you followed the rules above.

If you want to return something,if you checked what the online stores return policy is ,refer to that and follow thier instructions

If you have a question about your order look for a link to either the online stores customer service section where in most cases you can find a form to fill out or an email address

If you find a form fill it out completely,the more completely you fill it out the better your problem with your order can be solved

If you find an email address send an email explaining your problem with a copy of your order confirmation either attached or the information from it added to your email

Remember to be polite in your email,it doesn’t help to be rude it only will make the person who recieved it mad and less likely to care about your problem.

About The Author

This Article was created by the Webmaster of Ultimate ShopThe ultimate online shopping directory directory with over 600 online stores listed on an easy to use directory of shopping http://ultimateshop.us

This article was posted on March 01, 2004

by Randy Laduron

SPIN, Relevant To Both Salesmanship & Advertising!

SPIN, Relevant To Both Salesmanship & Advertising!

by: Daniel Levis

What can face to face selling tell you about online salesletters & advertising?

Plenty, once you understand the basics of direct response marketing. Remember, the Internet is the ultimate direct response vehicle. Using a website, or email as an advertising medium gives you two very important elements that are critical for direct response success.

You have virtually unlimited messaging space, so you can & should tell your full sales story, & you have almost instant feedback. Itกs more like the face to face sales call than any other form of passive media.

That said, let me illustrate some face to face selling fundamentals that you can relate to your online sales efforts.

‘the SPIN Conceptก

Neil Rackham turned the world of highticket salesmanship on its ear. By observing over 35,000 actual sales calls, he scientifically isolated & identified the specific behaviors exhibited by successful salespeople. He called it SPIN selling.

Situation, Problem, Implication, Need Payoff.

It should come as no surprise that one of the things that he discovered was that successful salesmanship means asking a lot of questions, before presenting products. This is just common sense. What would you think of your Doctor if he told you, ขHere, take these Zoloft tablets. By the way, what seems to be bothering you?ข Probably not very much, so don’t ‘show up & throw up’, ask questions.

So far, so good, but what kind of a questioning process most often resulted in a positive result?

Here’s what he discovered.

At the beginning of the sales cycle, good questions about the buyer’s situation were well received, provided these questions were perceived by the buyer to be relevant, and to illicit information that was not easily obtained elsewhere. The best situation questions were those that built on the seller’s research. For example, ขMany of the homes in this area have sump pumps, do you have one too?ข Neil characterized these ‘situation’ questions as being of a factfinding nature (who, where, when, what, how, yes/no). They serve to give the salesperson a frame of reference for the client’s specific setting. The client appreciates being treated as an individual, but quickly becomes impatient with too many of these ‘situation’ questions.

The successful salesperson maintains the customer’s interest by following on with questions that seek to identify or better understand a problem that exists within the prospective client’s situation. For example ขDo you find it worrisome when you travel, wondering whether the power might go out, causing the sump pump to stop working when you’re away?ข Again this shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone, right? No problem, no sale. But Rackham soon discovered that getting a customer to admit to a problem & then addressing that problem in a sales presentation was rarely enough to win the sale.

The sales calls that most often resulted in a sale, or an advance, were characterized by what Neil termed implication & need pay off questions. Implication questions serve to explore the ramifications of a problem. In the examples we’ve got going, the prospect relies on a sump pump to keep water out of her basement. Instead of diving directly into a sales pitch for a battery back up unit, the salesperson exhibiting winning salesmanship would ask additional questions to magnify the problem, before presenting the solution. ขWould you have a flood, if you’re sump pump where to fail?ข ขCleaning up after a flood is not a pleasant thought, but did you know that if it were to happen, it could also result in health threatening molds starting to grow between the framing & the concrete?ข ขCould it put your insurance up, if you were to file a claim?ข And so on.

Before a prospect will spend money on solving a problem, it has to hurt. But people need to feel empowered & confidant when they buy, and that’s where ‘need pay off’ questions come in. Need pay off questions serve to stimulate the imagination. They get the prospect envisioning the pay off that they get by buying into your solution. Here are a couple of examples. ขWould you consider adding a recreation room in the basement here, after we install this battery back up system for you?ข ขWouldn’t that greatly enhance the enjoyment of your home?ข

I submit to you that what Niel Rackham discovered as an observer of thousands of sales calls has a parallel in online advertising. While a piece of media can’t respond in real time to a specific customer’s questions, it should most definitely be based on the most common responses to those questions.

It should be very much like the presentation that the salesperson gives to the customer after uncovering the implications of the problem. It should set the stage (situation), discuss the problem, explore the varied implications of that problem, and create a vision of how much better life could be (need payoff), with your solution.

The most effective online advertising (salesmanship in print) does just this.

These concepts are also present in a winning sales letter. Take a look at some of the parallels that you can find in Robert Collier’s famous ขsalesmanship in printข letters.

The take away point is this. Take the time to survey your salespeople & your customers to uncover the ripple effects of both the problems that you are trying to solve, as well as the solution that you can provide. You might be surprised by what you discover. Then work those insights into your online advertising copy & sales letters to enhance perceived value.

Copyright 2005 Daniel Levis

About The Author

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada. Recently, Daniel & worldrenowned publicist & copywriter Joe Vitale teamed up to co author ขMillion Dollar Online Advertising Strategies – From The Greatest Letter Writer Of The 20th Century!ข, a tribute to the late, great Robert Collier.

Let the legendary Robert Collier show you how to write words that sell…Visit the below site & get 3 FREE Chapters!

http://www.AdvertisingOnlineStrategies.com/adstrategies.html

This article was posted on March 05

by Daniel Levis

Googleกs Wonderland: Trouble In Paradise?

Googleกs Wonderland: Trouble In Paradise?

by: Dean Phillips

The fairy tale existance of Google is starting to experience shockwaves.

So, whatกs the source of these shockwaves? Click fraud. As my readers know, Iกve written several articles on the subject of click fraud, suggesting that since itกs the market leader, Google should take a more proactive approach with the problem of click fraud.

Until now, Google has been mostly quiet about the subject, issuing this single statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission:

กWe are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks, we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members.ก

So, why isn’t Google doing more about click fraud? In one of my articles, I theorized that with the amount of money involved, itกs actually more cost effective for Google to issue an occasional refund to its advertisers, than to develop technology to eliminate click fraud.

That theory was echoed in a recent article, in which the author wrote:

กGoogleกs primary defense against click fraud has been to refund advertisers their money if they complain and Google sees evidence that fraudulent clicks have occured. The problem with this is that the burden of proof is on the advertiser … and Google knows that most advertisers will not take the time to argue. Therefore, Google has a financial incentive not to deal with click fraud on their own. It not only costs them to deal with the problem but if they do find a solution to stopping click fraud … it will cost Google much more when they don’t get paid for 20 percent or more of their clicks.ก

However, all of that may be about to change. At an investor conference last Wednesday, Google CFO George Reyes stated:

กI think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model.ก

My question is this: What took Google so long to come to that realization? Itกs not like click fraud just magically appeared yesterday. The media has been reporting on the problem for at least the last 3 years.

Smug in its ivory tower, did Google think the problem was just going to go away by itself? Or was it waiting for Overture or one of the smaller payperclick companies to solve the problem, so it wouldn’t have to deal with it?

These are troubling questions, to say the least. Even more troubling is Googleกs passive approach to a serious problem, which in my opinion has been reprehensible.

It should be interesting to see what Googleกs next move is. Google CFO George Reyes statement notwithstanding, Iกll believe Google is serious about eliminating click fraud, when I finally see it!

About The Author

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: [email protected].

Visit his website at: http://www.letsmakemoney.net

This article was posted on December 07, 2004

by Dean Phillips

Spam: The Tasteless Internet Meat of Criminals

Spam: The Tasteless Internet Meat of Criminals

by: M6.Net

Spam. You’ve all heard of the crazy pink meat in a can, but what’s it got to do with the Internet? Well, it’s also the namesake for a major problem in the World Wide Webunsolicited junk email. Problem! We’re talking serious pain in the butt both as a waster of time, space, and money. It is estimated that around half of all email received on the Internet is this sneaky illegal attempt at selling fake consumer goods, pornography, and a whole plethora of ‘helpful’ services. It’s taking up half of all email on the Earth, and it’s costing businesses’ billions in wasted time, as well as filling personal email accounts to the limit so important messages aren’t received. It seems everywhere there’s a leap in technology for humanity, there’s also a group of people who want to stretch the realm of criminal activity to another level.

The good news is that as it’s such a prominent problem, the ‘good guys’ have made it a main priority on their ‘To do’ lists. Software has been created to block Spam and is being updated constantly. Recently Bill Gates, richest human on Earth and selfmade mogul of software masters’ Microsoft spoke of his aim to eliminate Spam by the year 2006. Obviously a lot of people would be quite appreciative if they could achieve this goal.

Supposedly most of the billions of junk emails originate from about 200 people who are intelligent enough to cover their tracks. They have multiple ways of finding out email addresses and then sending thousands upon thousands of unwanted messages to you and I. It usually costs them next to nil so if even one lowquality product sells they receive a profit. That’s why they do it; just another greedinduced means of getting rich quick without working for it like the rest of us.

Well, there’s a couple main ways of dealing with the Spam dilemma. The main one, and most easy, is to just delete the messages or empty your folder (after moving desired messages to another folder) straight off the server without downloading or ‘looking’ at the messages. This gives the ‘evil’ sender the knowledge that you’re not reading the mail and therefore the traffic you receive goes down dramatically.

Another way to block the Spam is to use software like Magic Mail Monitor (http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/) or Mailwasher (http://www.mailwasher.net/), which work well at destroying the unwanted, pink, tasteless, unworldly email meat by showing you the mail straight from the server without downloading it.

So, show the criminals you’re aware and not ignorant and take the first steps to bringing the Spam Empire down. Protect yourself and eventually the Spam will go where all filth is destined, into the trash.

About The Author

By M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

This article was posted on September 09, 2004

by M6.Net