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From the desk of Roy Furr, February 27th, 2009
Almost everyone who tries to teach you the sales process will make it too complex.
The reality is… Sales is simple.
And once you understand the basics you become a sales superman (or superwoman) who can sell anything worth buying.
Here’s the secret…
It’s all about finding out whether you have a good prospect. And once you have a good prospect whether they’re going to buy from you.
So how do you do that?
Here are the three questions that will take you from the initial conversation… to having a qualified prospect you know will buy from you as long as you make purchasing easy:
- What are you looking for in … ?
- How will you know when you have that?
- If I could show you how to get that, could we move forward and get you the solution you’re looking for?
From here you walk them through how your solution gives them exactly what they’re asking for (and admit while minimizing where your solution doesn’t meet their needs). Then simply ask them for the order.
Presto, you’re super! (Now get off your duff and use these questions to make more sales!)
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From the desk of Roy Furr, January 28th, 2009
We spend our whole life making excuses.
Why we got a bad grade in school. Why someone else got picked over us for the team. Why we haven’t gotten a promotion yet. Why we’re getting fired (or shouldn’t be). Why January’s not even over and we’ve already botched our New Year’s Resolution.
And…
Why I have to say “no” to the salesperson (who’s really pretty nice)… Or ignore the ad (which is really pretty compelling).
In fact, we have a whole arsenal of excuses at our disposal for every little situation in life.
We know just what to say to justify poor performance. We know what to tell others (and ourselves) to skirt our indiscretions.
We’re like Houdini with our ability to get out of taking responsibility for things in our life.
And one of the things we’re particularly good at is getting rid of a sales person or sales message (of course if we weren’t good at saying “no” we’d be dead broke and have warehouses full of junk we’ll never use).
The list of excuses given to a salesperson is endless. However, there are six common objections that come back over and over again — that must be addressed for any sale to take place:
- Not enough time. I don’t have enough time to deal with this right now. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to even think about making a buying decision. Even if I had your product I wouldn’t have the time to use it.
- Not interested. Well, I really don’t see how this is for me. I mean, it’s not really what I was looking for. I don’t think it’ll meet my needs.
- Not a unique solution. Oh, this is just like what Fred’s selling down the street. I know I can get this somewhere else, so I don’t need to buy right now.
- Don’t believe you. Those are some pretty big claims you’re making and I just don’t see how they could be true. Sure, you can promise the moon, but I need evidence… I need proof you’re going to be able to give me what you say.
- Not enough money. Oh, I can’t afford to put money towards this right now. That’s too expensive (for the benefits I expect to get from it). Is this really going to be worth it? How am I going to justify spending this money to (spouse, friend, relative, etc.)?
- Don’t need to decide today. I don’t have to decide today. I can always buy that later. If I don’t buy today it’s not a big deal, I can always get it later.
Sit down with your product, your advertisement, your sales script and seriously think about how to answer each of these objections.
Build the answers into your sales message. So even as the objection comes to your prospect’s mind it’s already been answered.
This greases the skids to the sale and will turn many wavering prospects into happy customers.
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From the desk of Roy Furr, January 19th, 2009
I got an email from Perry Marhsall this weekend that laid out the 6 essentials of a profitable internet business.
I’ve known these things for just about as long as I’ve been doing marketing (and implemented them many times over). But never have they been laid out as clearly.
If you’ll do these — and do them right — you’re almost guaranteed to profit.
Miss a step or two along the way and it’ll quickly chip away at your profits — and even pull the foundation out from under your entire business.
Here, for your benefit, are Perry’s 6 essentials of a profitable internet business, with explanation:
In my experience, the foundation of a stable and profitable
Internet business is having six systems in place. Just six:
1. Market Research
2. Properly built Pay Per Click campaign
3. Conversion Tracking
4. Split testing of key sales elements
5. Seductive copy
6. Automated Email follow-up
That’s it. Just six. You can build a $1 million business, or
in some markets, a $10 million business, with just those
six things.
What do you think?
Posted in Business, Copywriting, Marketing, Marketing Testing, Persuasion, Sales, Website Design | No Comments »
From the desk of Roy Furr, January 7th, 2009
Want a simple way to be successful in business, sales, and marketing (negotiation, too)?
It all boils down to this:
“Find out what customers want, and give it to them.”
Simple enough idea, but how do you do it?
How about setting up an AdWords campaign to drive customers to a survey where you ask them what they want?
Then developing a product based on the results of that survey?
Then using the same AdWords campaign to drive traffic to the product page for this new product?
Then you can even test other related traffic sources to see if they’ll be profitable too.
Sure, there are more details to this. But it’s a simple and reliable way to break into a new market or to follow a new off-shoot of your current market.
Another option is to ask a subsection of your customer list to take a similar survey.
All you have to do to find out what people want is to ask. Then you can find a way to give them exactly what they’re looking for (and having trouble finding elsewhere). They’ll reward you handsomely for your efforts.
And the best part — once you have an effective system for doing this, you drive your chances of failure to almost nil.
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From the desk of Roy Furr, December 12th, 2008
Once you get the attention of a potential customer, there are a few objections to overcome, a few questions to answer, and a few sales pitches to make…
But there’s one very specific thing going on in the mind of your customer that you have to rip right through or your sale is doomed.
And you better work through it fast…
Because until it’s been worked through… Each question you answer remains partly unanswered… Each objection you overcome is not quite overcome… And each sales pitch you make falls on half-deaf ears.
So what is it you need to work through with each customer, before the sale can be made?
Skepticism.
It will hold up any sale, unless you address it.
How?
I’ll give you a two-step strategy for taking care of skepticism. From here, you can plug your skepticism-reducing and skepticism-eliminating tactics in and go — and make the sale!
STEP 1: Show sympathy for your prospect’s skepticism. Without sympathy, there’s no way you can minimize and work through it. They want to feel noticed, to feel like you’re paying attention. And the best way to do that is to say…
“I recognize that you probably have some degree of skepticism about this offer. After all, you know what they say about ‘too good to be true.’ But if you’ll just suspend your decision until I’ve had a chance to prove why everything I’m saying is true… And until I’ve had a chance to prove that my product will do for you exactly what you want it to… I think you’ll realize you’re making the right decision. Now here’s the reason why my product can do exactly what I’m telling you that it does…”
STEP 2: Prove it! Support every claim you make with an overabundance of proof. There are a number of different proof elements you can use, not limited to demonstration, risk reversal, case studies, explaining the mechanism behind why your product works, showing success statistics, and so on. We can’t cover them all here, but they’re a good start.
Once you open up someone to letting go of their skepticism by recognizing it and showing sympathy for it, you can pile on the proof and melt it away.
And that’s how you work through skepticism, straight to the sale.
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From the desk of Roy Furr, December 12th, 2008
Mark Twain once said, “There are two reasons a man buys anything. The reason he can tell his wife… and the real reason.”
In that spirit, here’s a list of the real reasons. Figure out which one is relevant for your product, and you’re in good territory. Subtly weave it through your sales pitch, and you can leverage it straight into stellar sales.
Here’s your list, in no particular order:
- Fulfill greed
- Get a better deal than others
- Have more or better sex
- Attract love
- Experience intimacy
- To be healed or stay healthy
- Self-improvement (career, social, personal, spiritual, etc.)
- Avoid loss
- Gain respect
- Feel pleasure or enjoyment
The list looks simple, but this is valuable stuff. Use it wisely, my friend.
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From the desk of Roy Furr, December 3rd, 2008
I’ve been listening to a lot of radio recently. Especially talk radio. It’s a good way to keep your finger on the pulse of our culture. Flip between conservative, liberal, “middle way,” Christian and any other stations you can find on the dial, and in just a few hours you know how most of the country thinks.
Listening to the radio also has me listening to something else.
Radio advertising.
On the radio you find a lot of direct response marketing — a little hook to get you interested, along with an offer and a call to action. In fact, I think radio has a higher ratio of direct response to brand marketing than any medium other than the internet. Which alone is another good reason to listen to radio, if you’re in marketing and advertising. There’s a lot of great inspiration.
But that’s not the only reason I’m writing to you today.
I want to tell you about which type of radio advertising gets results!
It’s been known for a long time that editorial-looking advertising in newspapers and magazines get 5X higher readership. And when responses are tracked, the difference in response is similar and sometimes much greater.
So… Shouldn’t the same work for radio advertising?!
… (Dramatic music) …
It does!
Here’s two ways to take advantage of this.
1. Come up with a script for the host of the talk show to read during a commercial break (or better yet, record, send to you for approval, then play during multiple commercial breaks!). This script should go something like this:
“Hi, this is [host name] back with an interesting discovery I made recently. I don’t know if you’ve dealt with [insert problem here] recently, but it’s something I’ve had personal experience with. And I’ve found that [insert product name or solution description here] from [insert your company name here] was able to help me pull through. In fact, [give a very compelling statistic or other proof element here].”
“They’ve put together a 30-minute CD explaining how you too can overcome [problem], including a really important tip regarding [small but important part of solution] that you can apply to ["feel better"/"make more money"/"live a better life"] right away with very little effort.”
“You can get the CD by calling [insert your phone number here]. That’s [repeat phone number]. Again, this is [host name] telling you to call [your company name] to get a free 30-minute, content-rich CD on how to deal with [problem] — their number is [phone number] and you can call 24/7 to leave your name and address to get your free 30-minute CD.”
One huge benefit of this approach is you inherit the credibility of the show’s host, and all you have to do is ask (and usually commit to a certain amount of advertising budget — but be sure there’s a clause that says you can get out of this commitment the moment the advertisements stop working).
Another benefit is because the advertising is done in the voice of the host, most listeners will think the show is coming back on, and listen long enough to absorb the brunt of your advertisement. And those that are interested in the topic or need the problem solved will listen long enough to hear your offer. A high percentage will respond, too.
2. If the host is not available or will not agree to read your advertisement, all is not lost. You can get another recognized name (celebrity) to read the same basic script, with almost equal results. This borrows the celebrity’s credibility, and it’s often hard for the listener to identify up front if this celebrity is a guest on the show or if this is an advertisement. So you’ll get listeners and response.
3. If you’re not able to get or afford the host or another celebrity, one more choice is to make your advertisement sound like an urgent news broadcast. A low-price voice-over actor will work to read the script — as long as they’re convincing as a news announcer in the context of the surrounding program. Leave out the hype — you don’t want your advertisement to actually sound like an advertisement, it’s supposed to sound like news content.
4. Finally, treat yourself like a celebrity. By this I mean get on the radio yourself (meaning, record your own advertisement) and tell about your personal story of dealing with the problem and what you’ve done to create a solution… Because no solution out there was quite good enough for you. Again, invite listeners to call for more information in the form of a 30-minute content-rich CD.
The key to making any of these strategies work is to make them sound as much like helpful editorial as possible.
Advertisements have music in the background — important editorial is voice only. So pick voice only.
Advertisements sound excited — important editorial sounds serious with a need to communicate. So sound serious with a need to communicate.
Make all your decisions on the basis of…
“How can I make this sound more like an important editorial announcement up until the point we’re asking for action?”
Then make it easy and painless for listeners to raise their hand and express interest, by doing something such as requesting a free CD and information packet.
That’s how you’ll create effective radio advertising that sells!
Posted in Business, Copywriting, Marketing, Persuasion, Sales | 2 Comments »
From the desk of Roy Furr, November 14th, 2008
I gotta get this off my chest before I explode.
If you haven’t changed the way you speak with customers and potential customers in the past 6 weeks or so, you better.
Or this recession is going to turn into something much, much nastier for you. (This headline from yesterday is telling: “Soros says deep recession inevitable, depression possible.”)
Take this lead for a letter I’m writing for a product that has nothing to do with investing or the stock market:
It’s no joke. We’re in tough times.
As I write this, the Dow’s been pummeled — it’s down 59% off its 52-week high. Major tech player Cisco’s stock is down 54%, despite sales increases. Microsoft is doing worse than Cisco — down 56%.
The banks that aren’t bankrupt yet are too scared to lend. And all our houses seem to be losing value by the day.
And the economy’s biggest gurus are saying we’re either headed for recession or depression.
Is there any bright spot?
Listen.
All this crap going on with the economy is what’s on people’s minds. It’s on your mind. It’s on my mind. And it’s on our customer’s mind. It’s likely these last 6 weeks or so have been hard on your business. And the next few months aren’t going to be easy either.
(It’s a completely normal human reaction to cinch those purse strings tourniquet-tight when you’ve just lost 30% to 50+% of your nest egg. That’s real dollars, folks — most of your customers have lost between $10,000 and $100,000 in the past 6 weeks.)
But now is also a time of incredible opportunity for heads-up marketers and sales people.
Right now you can bring your tribe, your group, your teeming mob in close.
You can speak to them in the language they’re using. You can continue the conversation going on in their head right now.
And they will listen.
They will bond with you.
And they will, sooner or later, buy.
It may not happen in a flood once you connect with them. But building rapport by sharing in their sorrow now — saying “I understand you” without saying it directly — will lead to more sales sooner.
You’ll get the rebound purchases and “stretching the budget” buys that putz marketers still singing jingles like everything’s okay won’t get until things are actually okay again.
Sure, the great depression sucked.
Murderously high unemployment (yes, people died). Failing banks, businesses, and financial futures.
It changed the way an entire generation looked at jobs, money, employment. And then sent shockwaves through the generations as everyone adjusted and reacted to the norms the great depression created.
But even in the midst of the great depression smart companies were growing.
New companies exploded in new profits.
And there were many who actually lived well —
Still eating at fancy restaurants…
Still driving fancy cars…
Still buying fancy houses…
(And actually living within their means while buying these — but that’s another topic for another day.)
There is a calm in the chaos, and opportunity in the desert. It just takes some thinking on your feet. Some adjusting. Some taking a moment to lift your head up, surveying the landscape, seeing where people are still hungry and ready to invest in a good, reliable way to satiate their hunger.
Don’t make the mistake of acting like nothing is happening. Because things are happening. And they’re huge.
Now you get to decide what impact it’ll have on you.
- Roy
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From the desk of Roy Furr, November 9th, 2008
As a player in the local adult hockey league, I occasionally get emails from the league coordinator. And a recent email he sent was accidentally one of the best marketing emails I’ve seen in a long time. I got his permission, and I’m going to break down why I think this is such a powerful marketing email for you right here (using Gary Bencivenga’s “Problem, Promise, Proof, Proposition” Persuasion Equation).
First, the email itself:
Subject: How drop-in helps your game!
Players,
A glance at the 1st weeks stats shows 7 of the top 10 scorers are regular drop-in attendees! Getting sharp on your skills on Thursdays turns into goals and assists on Sundays and Mondays!
Tomorrow is our next drop-in at 9pm-10:15pm. Should have two goalies and lots of skaters, come join us regulars and get your game revved up!
jon
Now here’s why I think this is such a powerful email.
First, let’s look at the internal motivation and emotional state of people who get this email. For most of us, our pride is on the line when we play. We want to win, because we’ll feel good about ourselves. We don’t want to lose, because we’ll feel crummy. And we know the more goals we score, the more likely we are to win.
So here’s where it gets interesting. Proof.
Proof is the hidden factor in the world’s most successful marketing.
I say hidden because most people skim right over it, even as it builds the credibility of the marketer in the reader’s mind.
Plus it’s hidden because most marketers don’t know to include it. And when they do know, they’d rather make a stronger promise than do the legwork required to dig up proof showing they can live up to their promises.
That’s why so much of the marketing you see is stuffed to the brim with promise after promise, with little proof backing it up.
It’s not the number of exclamation points!!! Or ALL CAPS… It’s the overwhelming number of promises — coupled with a proof vacuum — that make most advertising look like empty hype.
But one good solid proof element, coupled with one strong core promise, and your advertisement packs a wallop.
So where’s the proof in this email?
It’s in the first line: “A glance at the 1st weeks stats shows 7 of the top 10 scorers are regular drop-in attendees!”
You can deduce the connection there but let me put this in perspective. There are 6 teams, with 10 possible goal scorers on each team. That’s 60 players. Each week’s drop-in can have up to 20 skaters. So 33% of the league — max — can be a regular drop-in attendee. The real stat is probably closer to 15%. But they made up 70% of the top 10 scorers.
The point is driven home with the next sentence: “Getting sharp on your skills on Thursdays turns into goals and assists on Sundays and Mondays!” That reinforces the proof element, plus contains a promise that if you come to drop-in hockey, your games (played Sunday and Monday) will benefit for it.
But… Let’s not forget the pulling power of a strong promise.
Which takes me back to the subject line: “How drop-in helps your game!” That simple “How to” headline set up the promise for the entire email — which was paid off as soon as you opened the email. (A good way to break through the clutter and ensure your marketing gets read is to make it valuable and telegraph the value in the headline — or subject line, in the case of an email.)
There’s an implied problem that your game is never as good as it could be (an absolute guarantee up to the highest level of sports). The promise is that coming to drop-in will help you play better. The proof is that 7 of the top 10 scorers come to drop-in regularly.
And finally, what’s the proposition?
The proposition of this marketing message is that you should come to drop-in tomorrow from 9pm to 10:15pm. The people getting this email know where it’s at, and that it costs $10 to come. All they need is a reminder that it’s happening, and many will go.
And for a final push
You never know with drop-in if there will be enough players and goalies to give you a real-game scenario. So this email concludes ensuring that there will be enough goalies to play, plus enough players that you won’t be stuck on the ice until you’re dog-tired. And it reinforces the promise. All in a single sentence: “Should have two goalies and lots of skaters, come join us regulars and get your game revved up!”
This email is also a great example of how short copy can pack a punch, as long as it hits all the points of a good marketing message. If your market knows you, and the basics of your offer, sometimes all it takes is a little push to get them over the edge.
Which is exactly what this did — because I know that drop-in session after this email was full!
Posted in Copywriting, Marketing, Persuasion, Sales | 1 Comment »
From the desk of Roy Furr, October 15th, 2008
I popped over onto Michael Fortin’s CopywritersBoard this morning and saw a hot thread going in the forums there. The question from Steve aka. Ravedesigns was:
Hey guys,
So I’ve been wondering for a while which is the best approach to take when writing sales copy – talking mostly about what prospects gain from using your product or service – or about what they lose by not using it?
Personally I’ve never been a big fan of advertising that says in effect “all these bad things will happen to you if you don’t take advantage of what we have to offer” so I’m not crazy about writing stuff that’s mostly negative – but I’ve got to wonder if one approach works better than the other?
Have you come across any tests to indicate which is best, or do you know of any marketers/copywriters that say one works better than the other? Do you have any personal experiences using one or the other approach?
I’m curious to know your thoughts – thanks!
Steve
Here’s the answer I came up with — what do you think?
This reminds me of an interesting study I heard about that analyzed how people valued items — both when they didn’t “own” them yet, and after they did “own” them. (I use quotes because it’s hard to simulate ownership in a lab… regardless, keep reading.)
Participants were split into two groups. Each person in the first group was not given a coffee mug — they were just told to sit in a room. Each person in the second group was given a brand new coffee mug as a “thank you” for participating and also told to sit in a room.
Here’s what happened.
The First Group: For those who were NOT given a coffee mug, they were told to approach one of the researchers with the same style of new coffee mug, and try to buy it from the researcher. In order to buy it, they’d have to set a fair price. The group who did not yet own the coffee mug set an average value of $3 on the coffee mug as they tried to barter for it.
The Second Group: Those given a new coffee mug were approached by a researcher who wanted to buy their new coffee mug off of them. Asked to set a value for the mug, this group’s average value for the coffee mug was $20 — nearly 7 times what the first group valued the mug at.
Our lesson?
Something that is “owned” is valued much higher than something which can be gained. Which ties back into fear of loss and desire for gain because fear of loss applies to something which is already owned, desire for gain doesn’t. So from this research (and others cited above) fear of loss is the winner — no matter how we as copywriters feel about it.
Of course, testing is always in order. Because maybe you just write enough better copy around desire for gain vs. fear of loss that for you, desire for gain means more effective copy.
Bonus: How to apply this in your copy…
You want to put your customer in a psychological position of ownership right away. Then, they won’t want to lose the ownership role. Here are some ways to do that:
One idea is tell the story of what your prospect’s life will be like once they’ve accepted your offer. Make them imagine themselves in a situation where they’re already the happy owner of your product — then tear away that vision and tell them the only way they can get it back is to buy right now.
Another option is to pull John Carlton’s recommendation of “I have an account open for you here, and I’ve put $50 in it. The money’s yours as long as you use it on a purchase of…”
Third, get the product in their hands using Gary Halbert’s incredible offer of “Send me a check post-dated 30 days, and I’ll send you the product right away. Take those 30 days to decide whether the product is right for you. If you don’t send it back, I’ll assume you’re happy and I’ll cash the check once the 30 days are up. If I do get it back I’ll write VOID real big right across your check and mail it back to you. Either way, you have nothing to lose by ordering now.”
Those are just some ideas, you’re a creative bunch so I’m sure you can come up with your own as well.
I wrote it fast so it’s rough around the edges… but the idea is rock-solid. Try it in your business, and let me know what you think.
To your success,
Roy Furr
Posted in Copywriting, Marketing, Marketing Testing, Persuasion, Sales | 1 Comment »
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