Tag Archives: sales process

How to create more effective calls to action

By Aaron Hoos on April 11, 2013 in Business

Any interaction you have with a lead, a prospect, or a customer will likely have some kind of call to action or desired outcome attached to it. Those calls to action or desired outcomes are key to how well your business runs today and how successful it will be in the future.

Here are some desired outcome examples: It might be about educating them about your amazing product or service so they them further down your sales funnel. As they get closer to buying something, your desired outcomes might be to take action and buy now. Once they are customers, you might interact with them and end with desired outcomes of deepening your understanding of them or perhaps asking them to refer you to someone else.

Calls to action help to propel your prospects and customers forward and, ultimately, they help to propel your business forward. So doesn’t it make sense to improve your ability to create better calls to action? In doing so, you’ll improve how your marketing and selling abilities, your networking, your copywriting, and more!

Creating an effective call to action is about understanding what your audience is looking for and showing them how the desired action you’re describing will help them find it. (This is really basic sales stuff and you probably know this part already).

But there’s another aspect to creating effective calls to action that I never really thought about before now: You also need to understand exactly what you are asking the person to do — what behaviors you are asking them to change. Are you asking them to take action once (“buy now!”)? Are you asking them to hire you for some service (“let’s work together!”)? Are you asking them to make a permanent change (“stop smoking!”)?

I stumbled across a really useful tool about this. The tool is called the “Behavior Grid” and it was created by BJ Fogg of Stanford University. The behavior grid is useful for many applications (and I first noticed it in an article about improving the user experience in web design). But I realized that this tool is really useful to help you create powerful calls to action in your marketing and sales efforts (including interactions and copywriting).

Click here to check out BJ Fogg’s Behavior Grid (opens in a new window).

Screenshot of Behavior Grid websiteThe Behavior Grid shows the 15 different types of behavior changes someone could make. Down the side of the grid are the three possible scopes of change — one-time, over a period of time, or permanent (from now, on). Across the top of the grid are the 5 possible types of change — do a new behavior, do a familiar behavior, increase behavior intensity, decrease behavior intensity, and stop existing behavior.

So when you are thinking about the call to action you want to ask your lead, prospect, or customer to do, you would figure out the scope of the change you are asking them to do and then you would figure out the type of change you are asking them to do. “Buy now”, for example, is a one-time new behavior if you are asking a prospect who has never bought from you before.

Once you’ve figured out the scope and type of behavior then click on the intersecting square in the grid to get more information about the change and tips about triggers and motivation to help you compel the action.

Click here to check out BJ Fogg’s Behavior Grid.

Empower your staff to do deals!

By Aaron Hoos on February 3, 2013 in Business

I get calls from time to time from a carpet cleaning company. They’ve cleaned my carpets in the past and periodically they call to ask if I want them done again. Normally I don’t like these calls but it’s a good reminder to do my carpets and they are a good company so I’m okay with it.

So recently I received a call from the company asking if I wanted my carpets cleaned, and telling me about an “amazing” 3-room deal for some fixed price. The telemarketer gave me a few more details and I agreed, and then said: “I have 6 rooms I want cleaned. How much is that?”

To her credit, she was very professional but she said something that alarmed me a bit. She said: “One moment and I’ll pass you over to my manager.”

Her manager!?! I wasn’t asking for anything crazy. Heck, if she just doubled the deal, I would have been fine with that.

Anyway, the manager came on the phone right after and confirmed my question then punched his calculator and came up with a number that, to my benefit, turned out to be less than double the deal (huzzah!). So I ordered and they showed up the other day and cleaned my carpets and did a good job.

But heck, why doesn’t the company just empower its staff to do their own deals?

Presumably these are minimum wage staff who are perhaps paid a bonus or commission for every deal they close. So empowering them to do their own deals will most certainly give them more money.

On the other hand, I get that there’s a risk that the company will give away the farm. When I first started in sales, I asked my manager to put together the deals for me and finally he got sick of it and empowered me to do the deals myself. I was freaked out but at first I ran the deals by him to make sure I wasn’t giving something away for too little. Then I gained some confidence. And when I became sales manager, I did the same thing to my staff.

Empowering your staff to do deals is easy and it will free up your time to do other things. Here are some tips to help:

  • Give them parameters. In some cases, you can give them a maximum and a minimum to work in. In some businesses, it might be as simple as just giving them a metric to use. In the case of the carpet cleaning company, the manager should have said something like: “The deal is $100 for 3 rooms. Sell that. But if they want more rooms, we’ll do $25/room” (or something like that; I have no idea what metric they charged me and maybe THAT is why they don’t tell their staff).
  • Educate your staff. Help them to know the value of doing more deals and offering to do additional rooms. Even if they don’t get a direct financial benefit from each additional sale they make (although I think they should!) help them to see that more sales increases the likelihood of job security and it makes the business stronger, which adds even more job security.
  • Role play. Give them a few scenarios to practice. In very short order, they will be able to do some of the most common deals without breaking out the calculator and putting the client on hold.
  • Reward them. Sales is hard work. People should be rewarded for the effort. Even if you don’t pay on commission, a bonus structure (heck, even some earned time off) is a good way to motivate people to do more deals.

Fall in love with ‘no’ — Follow-up post

By Aaron Hoos on January 30, 2013 in Business

Recently, I wrote a post about why business owners and sales people (and especially financial advisors) should fall in love with no.

You should go read the post but, to summarize, I suggested that “no” isn’t as bad as we tend to make it out to be and a bunch of “no’s” are just part of the journey towards “yes”!

Shortly after writing that post, I spotted a link on Twitter about someone who has created a technique for falling in love with no. It’s pretty awesome and I think you should read it.

His name is Jia Jiang and he owns a company called hooplus.com and he blogs at a site called entresting.com. His blog is built around a concept of “Rejection Therapy” in which he is attempting to make 100 odd or even audacious requests with the “hope” of becoming immune to rejection. He writes:

I am going through 100 days of Rejection Therapy, aiming to have one rejection per day by making crazy requests. My goal is to desensitize myself from the pain of rejection and overcome my fear.

Among his requests so far, he has tried to borrow $100 from a stranger, ask a girl out to dinner, slide down a firepole at a fire station, challenge a CEO to a staring contest, have Jeff Probst sing a song to his son, make an announcement on a Southwest flight, and more. Some are weird, some are way out there, some are pretty awesome. You can see his rejection scorecard here and following along on his blog here.

I think this is awesome because Jiang has correctly identified the importance of desensitizing himself to the pain of rejection… which goes along with my assertion that we have to fall in love with “no” instead of fear it. A sales person could very well create his or her own “Rejection Therapy”. You don’t have to just become immune to the fear of “no” in a sales setting… why not become immune to the fear of rejection in any setting? Surely that will have an effect on your sales efforts, too!

Improve your copywriting with Oren Klaff’s ‘Pitch Anything’

By Aaron Hoos on January 25, 2013 in Business

I’m in the middle of reading the book Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. It’s a great book!

Klaff has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture cap money during his career. Not surprisingly, he has honed his presentation skills into a science and in this book, he shares that science with his readers.

As someone who has read a TON of sales and selling skills books, this one is unlike anything I have read. Most selling skills books will cover the basics like AIDA, handling objections, asking for the sale, and so on. Yet Klaff handles the topic quite differently. I don’t want to give away a lot of his info (you should just buy his book and read it) but he covers a lot of helpful ideas that go quite beyond the scope of what you might normally read in a sales book.

I can’t help but read the book through the lens of a copywriter. (I do some copywriting work at CashMachineCOPYWRITER and at Real Estate Investing Copywriter. So copywriting as at the top of my mind and so much of Klaff’s book has valuable applications to copywriting.

One of my favorite chapters with the most obvious copywriting application is chapter 5. Again, I’m not going to give away much of Klaff’s secret sauce, except to say that he closes his pitches with a formula that can also work for copywriters. I’m summarizing a bit here and taking out words that might not make sense out of context (if you haven’t read chapters 1 through 4) but here is the formula Klaff suggests:

  1. Intrigue: Tantalize your audience with the beginning of a story, particularly about a person. You should place a person in a difficult situation and then raise the question about how they will extricate themselves from it… which will be revealed later in the pitch or the copy. In effective copywriting, this can be done throughout the copy and will help to rivet the reader’s attention.
  2. Prize: Instead of coming across needy and begging your audience to buy, take the opposite approach and become the prize. Be the pursued, not the pursuer. This is such a refreshing change of pace from a lot of copywriting that tries to go for a hard sell but ends up coming across as too needy.
  3. Time: This element of copywriting is already familiar (although not always well used) and Klaff says to set a time limit and stick to it. Unfortunately, many copywriters create false timeframes (“this page can be taken down at any time!”) and most buyers can see right through it.
  4. Moral authority: This is Klaff’s way of describing how the pitcher (or copywriter, in my case) needs to be positioned as the person with the highest amount of authority in the room. He uses the example of the President — someone with a lot of moral authority — becoming instantly subordinate to his doctor — someone whose moral authority supersedes even the President’s.

If you sell — whether face to face or on the phone or through copywriting (or in some other way), go get Oren Klaff’s book and read it for yourself. You can also read more from Klaff at his site (PitchAnything.com) or on Twitter (@PitchAnything).

The Scales of Purchase: The secret decision-making process that all potential buyers go through

By Aaron Hoos on December 19, 2012 in Business

Imagine a scenario where you are interacting with a potential buyer. It doesn’t matter if you sell face-to-face and you walk them through your showroom or if you sell over the phone or online or you are a real estate professional or financial advisor who sells your services in the comfort of their living room.

Whatever the actual scenario is, it’s you selling to them. And before they buy from you (or sign up or commit to a program or whatever you’re selling), something secret goes on in your potential buyer’s mind.

The Scales of Purchase are weighing!

… will they weigh in your favor or against you?

These Scales of Purchase represent all of the reasons for buying from you compared to all the reasons against buying from you. As your prospect listens to your sales presentation and interacts with your marketing material, they put an imaginary weight on one side of the scale or the other. It’s unconscious and it’s ongoing throughout the entire sales funnel relationship.

For example…

  • They see that the product comes in blue and that’s exactly the color they want… one small weight goes on the reasons to buy side of the Scales of Purchase.
  • They want it delivered immediately but you need to pick up the item from the warehouse so it won’t be delivered until tomorrow… one small weight goes on the reasons not to buy side of the Scales of Purchase. (Unless they really needed it today, in which case it’s one large weight that goes on the reasons not to buy side of the Scales of Purchase).
  • They ask you how much it costs and you tell them. And since price is important to them, and since your price is relatively high… one large weight goes on the reasons not to buy side of the Scales of Purchase.
  • You tell them about your amazing 100% no-questions-asked money-back guarantee… one small weight goes on the reasons to buy side of the Scales of Purchase.

Throughout your entire sales funnel — from the moment the potential buyer first notices your company to the point where their finger is hovering over the buy now button — they are adding unconsciously adding weights to the Scales of Purchase. These imaginary weights vary in size, depending on how important that one particular factor is to the customer.

Your job as a salesperson (regardless of what you actually do for a living, you are a salesperson), is to overwhelm them with many heavy-weighted reasons to buy!

That’s why it’s so important to list your features (small weights on the reasons to buy side) with benefits (large weights on the reasons to buy side). That’s why you should restate your benefits in different ways, since some word pictures might resonate with prospective buyers better than others. That’s why it’s so important to hammer home the concept of value.

But let’s not just stop there! Here are other ways to tip the Scales of Purchase in your favor:

  • By handling objections effectively, you can remove them as reasons not to buy… and in some cases, you can even transfer those imaginary weights to reasons to buy!
  • Customers pay attention to how you talk about price (just like border guards) so make sure that you are speaking positively and confidently about the price of your product or service.
  • Listen to how your prospect describes their problem and the solution they seek and parrot back some of their language to them (only if it truthfully describes your product or service, of course). You’ll more clearly resonate with the exact message they’re looking for.
  • And the easiest and fastest way to get them to add weights to the reasons to buy side of the Scales of Purchase is to ask them questions and demonstrate how your solution addresses every concern they have.

That’s not the only thing you can do to increase your ability to tip the Scales of Purchase in your favor. You can also increase the size of the weights on the reasons to purchase side of the scale by doing this…

  • Stir up a sense of urgency to motivate them to weigh the solution more heavily in favor of buying.
  • Establish a sense of credibility and authority as a thought-leader.
  • Build trust with the customer.

Before every purchase, a customer is unconsciously weighing the Scales of Purchase. You can tip them in your favor with some of these strategies.

This concept is related another blog post of mine — Selling with the Chain of Agreement — because by selling with the Chain of Agreement, you are only moving forward every time the person puts a weight on the reasons to buy side of their Scales of Purchase.

100 small business strategy questions

By Aaron Hoos on May 18, 2012 in Business

Many small businesses are fueled by passion. They start because an entrepreneur has an idea (or is sick of working for a boss), they grow because their ideas solve a problem and somehow that solution is communicated to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, many small businesses fail… even ones that are seemingly successful and make profitable sales. The reason is, they’re simply existing day-by-day, sale-by-sale, without any real strategy or long-term vision to give their existence any direction.

If you’re an entrepreneur, answer these 100 small business strategy questions. The answers will help you to highlight areas of opportunity that you can exploit and areas of concern that you can mitigate. Bookmark this page and come back to it regularly to work through these questions every 3 to 6 months.

With your answers, create a list of to-dos that you can act on until you come back to these questions again. [Note: Since publishing this list, I have written individual posts about some of these strategy questions so I've updated this list with the links to those other posts.]

  1. What does your business do?
  2. What does your business sell?
  3. What does your business stand for?
  4. What parts of your brand truly reflect your current business?
  5. What parts of your brand do not (or no longer) reflect your current business?
  6. What are the top 10 benefits your business provides?
  7. Who is your perfect customer?
  8. How are you adding value?
  9. What are your products’ or services’ biggest flaws?
  10. How do you define a lead?
  11. Where are your leads coming from?
  12. What demographic are your leads?
  13. How are you creating leads?
  14. How are your competitors creating leads?
  15. How will lead creation change for your industry in the future?
  16. How do you define a prospect?
  17. What is your lead-to-prospect ratio?
  18. What demographic are your prospects?
  19. How is your prospect demographic different from your leads demographic?
  20. How are you turning leads into prospects?
  21. How are your competitors turning leads into prospects?
  22. What objections do your prospects have?
  23. What objections do you NOT have an answer for?
  24. How do you define a customer?
  25. What is your prospect-to-customer ratio (close rate)?
  26. What demographic are your customers?
  27. How is your customer demographic different from your prospect demographic?
  28. How are you converting prospects into customers?
  29. How are your competitors converting prospects into customers?
  30. What has caused you to lose a sale?
  31. How do you define an evangelist?
  32. What is your customer-to-evangelist ratio?
  33. What is your evangelist demographic?
  34. How is your evangelist demographic different from your customer demographic?
  35. How is your relationship with your customers?
  36. What were your 3 most successful marketing campaigns?
  37. What were your 3 least successful marketing campaigns?
  38. What marketing and sales activities are you using in each stage of your sales funnel?
  39. How do you measure company-wide success?
  40. How do you measure personal and/or employee success?
  41. How are you improving your relationship with your customers?
  42. How can you improve the process for receiving and acting on feedback from customers?
  43. How are you encouraging repeat sales?
  44. How are you encouraging upsells?
  45. Who else can use your products or services that you aren’t currently serving?
  46. What is your business model?
  47. What other peer-businesses use the same business model?
  48. What can you learn from peer-businesses that use the same business model?
  49. What other businesses (in other industries) use a similar business model?
  50. What can you learn from businesses in other industries that use a similar business model?
  51. Who are your top 3 competitors?
  52. Who/what are your indirect competitors?
  53. What does the most successful businesses in your industry do that you don’t do yet?
  54. Why would someone buy from you instead of your competition?
  55. When should someone buy from your competition instead of you?
  56. What are your competitors doing differently?
  57. What are your competitors doing better than you?
  58. What are your competitors doing worse than you?
  59. How are your relationships with your suppliers/vendors?
  60. How can your supplier/vendor relationships be improved?
  61. What does your organizational chart look like and what strengths/weaknesses are the result?
  62. What are the next 3 roles you need to hire for?
  63. What was the last thing you tested in your business?
  64. When was the last time you tested a price change and what were the results?
  65. What political changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
  66. What economic changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
  67. What social changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
  68. What technological changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
  69. What financial best practices have you implemented?
  70. How have buying habits changed in your industry?
  71. What trends are influencing buying habits?
  72. How will buying habits change in the future?
  73. How has your industry innovated in the past decade?
  74. How has your business innovated in the past year?
  75. Where does your business plan to innovate this coming year?
  76. How are you investing in your business’ growth (i.e. innovation, new equipment, etc.)?
  77. What is your plan to scale up your business?
  78. If you had to get rid of 90% of your customers, what 10% would you keep?
  79. If you kept 10% of your most profitable customers, what would that demographic look like?
  80. How can you increase your ideal customer base?
  81. How can you decrease your less-than-ideal customer base?
  82. Where are people talking about your business online?
  83. What are people saying about your business online?
  84. What is your plan if your industry suddenly received a lot of bad press?
  85. What is your plan if your business suddenly received a lot of bad press?
  86. What is your plan if your marketing went viral and you suddenly had 10x the customers?
  87. What contingency plans do you a have in place for natural disasters?
  88. What would happen to your business if you were unable to work?
  89. What has changed about your business since you started?
  90. How has your income trended since you started?
  91. How has your profit margin trended since you started?
  92. What plans do you have to increase income next year?
  93. What plans do you have to increase profits next year?
  94. Where do you see your business in 1 year?
  95. Where do you see your business in 5 years?
  96. Where do you see your business in 10 years?
  97. What strengths/assets can you leverage for growth?
  98. Where are your blindspots?
  99. What are the top 3 problems keeping you from advancing to the next level in business?
  100. What about your business, industry, or customers keeps you awake at night?

How real estate professionals can use the power of storytelling to sell more houses

By Aaron Hoos on November 2, 2011 in Real Estate

Imagine this scenario: As a real estate professional, you’re walking a potential buyer through yet another home. You’re not sure how many homes you’ve seen with them. It seems like hundreds… or maybe thousands? You’re starting to wonder if they are even serious about buying a home at all (although you’re pretty sure that they are) and you are watching as every minute that ticks by eats into the profitability of your commission.

Here’s a real estate copywriting lesson that doesn’t just apply to the written content on your website, it also helps you to sell more homes to buyers.

People love stories… and stories sell.

People love stories because they help to make facts “relatable” and enjoyable. We all live in our own story and we like to hear stories. We’ve been listening to stories since humankind learned to communicate.

And, stories sell. Stories disarm us with how easy and fun they are to listen to and then they convince us to do something… even if we wouldn’t normally respond that way when presented with cold, dry facts.

When I’m writing real estate copywriting content for my clients, I’m always trying to find the story that will hook the reader and convince them to respond.

So, what does this copywriting trick mean for you as a real estate professional?

It means that you can use stories to help improve your ability to sell more homes faster to more potential buyers. Stories can help you turn “tire kickers” and “looky-loos” into homeowners; stories can help your clients overcome the fear of commitment; stories can help you present a home to a homeowner and help them see how perfect it is for them, and stories can help calm your clients when they have buyer’s remorse.

The reason why it works is because people are more likely to buy when they can picture themselves owning the home. The more vividly they picture themselves in the home, the more likely you will be able to sell it to them.

So your job is to paint a vivid picture of your client living in and loving the very home you are showing to them.

DISCOVER YOUR CLIENT’S STORY

First, you need to find out what your potential buyers are looking for in a home. (That’s an easy step because you’re already doing that!)

For example: Are they social and looking for a place to entertain? Are they a young couple looking to start a family? Are they empty nesters who want a great place to host grandchildren? Are they hard workers who want a relaxing enclave from their busy lives?

Then turn that information into a story.

Here’s what I mean: Take the elements they’ve already described and get them to go deeper. Try to get them to give you as vivid of a picture as they can. I’ve written two examples below. Notice how they go much deeper into more of a narrative than “we want a big dining room” or “I want a place to put up my feet at the end of a busy day.”

For your social client: “We like to have another 2 or 3 couples over to our house. We all cook together while enjoying a bottle of wine. We have a big, late supper that we’ve all had a hand preparing. We’re not meat-and-potatoes people; we prefer slightly more exotic foods. The meal goes late – maybe 10pm. After that, we push back from the table, go to the living room, turn up some jazz, and sip cappuccinos.”

For your busy client who wants a retreat: “We get home from work at 7 or 8 at night. We haven’t been home for 13 or 14 hours but as soon as we walk in, we feel completely welcome and ensconced. We eat a quick dinner and then sit in the family room to watch TV on our big screen TV. Once the kids are in bed, we retire to our own bedroom and sink off to sleep in a deep, comforting mattress. Tomorrow will be just as busy as today so we drink in the relaxation as deeply as possible for the few hours that we’re at home.”

SHOW THEM HOMES WHERE THAT STORY WILL COME TRUE

You’re already finding homes that match their stated needs, so that part of your work doesn’t change. Continue to find homes for your clients that have the features they are looking for.

However, once you start showing your clients around to different homes, don’t just highlight the features. Instead, retell your clients’ story with them as central figures living out that story in the home you’re showing them.

By doing this, you’re helping them to see the features as benefits targeted specifically to them. You’re helping them to look past the inevitable quirks that every house has so they can see the house for what it could be for them. Most importantly, you’re helping them to see themselves living their dream lives in this house.

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