|
Home / Internet Marketing / Site Promotion / Building Traffic
Stop Sabotaging the Sales Experience
By:Michelle Howe
As business owners, we all want to have a successful sales experience with our customers. But sometimes we tend to sabotage that effort, because we try too hard to sell (both on our website and in person). Do you recognize yourself in the following scenarios?
*At a networking meeting, you talk too much about your business.
*When you are meeting with a client or prospective client you do all the talking.
*Rather than listening to what customers have to say, you are busy thinking about how you're going to sell them something.
Have a Conversation
Selling is all about communication, and in order to communicate we need to take turns talking and listening. Unfortunately, when some people get in the "sales mode" they forget about the listening aspect of conversation and they do all the talking. In their excitement to sell you on their product or service the conversation becomes a one-way street.
Rather than trying to sell somebody something, take the time to find out a little bit about them and their business. Ask probing questions that give you an idea of what kind of problems or concerns they have regarding their business. Only by asking questions can you discover whether they have a need for your product or service. And try to use the 30/70 rule when you are networking; listen for 70% of the time and talk for 30% of the time.
People appreciate the opportunity to talk about their business and talk about some of the challenges that they might be having in their business. You may not be able to solve the problems for them, but at least you are being courteous enough to listen.
Speak to Your Customer
Some of these same ideas about selling and listening can be applied to the content of a website. It may seem strange to think about a website as a way to converse with your customer, but it's true. A website is actually your best salesperson. If you think of your website as a salesperson, then the content you create for it needs to speak directly to your ideal customer.
Notice that I said "speak" rather than "sell." Don't think of your website as just a sales tool, think of your website as the starting point of a conversation between you and your potential customer. You want every website visitor to feel comfortable navigating throughout your website. Your headlines should ask questions that gently probe for answers. Let them know that you understand the problems or challenges that they are experiencing and that you have a solution to their problems.
Instead of trying to sell something, offer your product or service as a solution to their problems. After all, most people are looking for information when they come to a website. Take the time to give them information that would help them in their buying decision. They may not need your product or service right now, but they certainly could come back later to make a purchase.
Years ago I was driving a car that had very squeaky brakes. I was worried that I couldn't afford the cost of new brakes. Nevertheless, I went to a popular auto repair place, and they put my car up on the hoist and took a look at the brakes. I was ready for bad news, but instead, the mechanic said my brakes were fine. Of course I was delighted with his diagnostic abilities, but I was even more impressed with his honesty. He could have easily had told me that I needed new brakes and I would have believed him. Yet he chose to let me drive away without giving him any money.
Today I realize that not only was he an honest man, but he was also a very smart businessman. I was so impressed that he didn't try to sell me something I didn't need that I told all my friends about this auto mechanic. He may not have made a sale with me that day, but he made many future sales with the people that I sent to him in the months that followed.
Make it your goal to create an honest website that truly listens to your customers. Don't be too concerned about whether you are making a sale whenever anyone visits your website for the first time. Instead, focus on building a relationship with your potential customers and making them feel comfortable doing business with you. You want repeat visits and you want your customers to send their friends to your website.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: website, website selling, sales experience, communication, salesperson
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Michelle Howe, MBA, is an expert in online copywriting and author of the popular book, Turn Browsers into Buyers. Visit her website at http://www.InternetWordMagic.com for the FREE report, "Five Steps to Article Success."
|
|
| Top Building Traffic Articles |
|
|
- 2). Buying Quality Traffic on the Internet for Your Website By : Brian Mears
Purchasing traffic from online businesses can be very difficult. There are many of these websites selling traffic, but it is not easy to decide who to buy from. Many of these websites can be found by doing a Google search for "buy website traffic", or something similar. Most of them are resellers who buy traffic from wholesalers and redistribute the traffic at a higher price to webmasters.
|
- 3). The Top 2 Points You Must Definitely Consider About Tag And Ping To Get Masses Of Traffic To Your Site By : John Evans2
Have you heard all the buzz about Tag and Ping? Tag And Ping is the latest craze hitting the net - bringing immediate exposure and back back links to sites. A whole new way of finding information, and a whole new ballgame for webmasters to play!
Tagging is a new way to mark things on the internet. In the old days search engines would spider a page and decide what it was about; with tagging, people decide what the content is about and "tag it".
|
- 4). Google Patent Application - User Data As Part of Ranking Process By : Halstatt Pires
In this third article, we continue to dig into the patent application of Google regarding the method used to rank sites in search results. Interestingly, Google asserts in the application that it “might” consider user data as a factor in organizing search results.
What Is User Data?
Without being rude, you should already know what user data is as part of your site evaluation.
|
- 5). How To Get All The Traffic You Can Use? By : Kirsten Hawkins
The best traffic-generation ideas combine the better sources of free traffic with some paid advertising. I propose three methods that will boost your traffic. If you remain dedicated to these three methods of advertising, you will get all the traffic you need.
1. Writing and distributing articles
This is my favourite way of driving traffic to my sites.
|
- 6). Do Reciprocal Links Work To Increase My Page Rank? By : David Fishman
Reciprocal links work like this. You will put your link on someone else’s website and they will be able to list their website on yours. It is a trade off. But, there has been a lot of controversy about these links. Do they work to help improve your page rank in search engines? Do they hurt your page rank? Should you bother investing in them? To answer these questions, take a moment to consider both sides of the coin.
|
- 7). Web Promotion And Web Design Tips For Free By : blueboy
I hope you find this article beneficial and interesting. I am going to explain and give free web design and web promotion tips.
Cheap web design services.
You may think you need to spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds to have an internet prescence. Due to the amount of people offering the service of web design, this certianly does not have to be the case.
|
- 8). Link Popularity By : Juan Figueroa
If you are new with Web Hosting and/or Web Design there's some things that you need to know before you think about link exchange or link popularity. First if you don't have a domain name or you don't have a web hosting you need to go and take a look to this article Things you should know about Web Hosting. If you have your domain name and you already choose a web hosting you need to know a little more about Link Exchange, Inbound Link and Link Popularity.
|
- 9). Google is Not the Only Phone Company in Town! By : rebecca
If your sales depend only on Google traffic and Google adsense or adwords then you could be in for a big dissapointment. Constant search engine rankings can make or break you. I know. I've been there. Riding high on Google rankings then dropping like a 2 ton rock in the Altlantic ocean.
Do NOT put all your eggs in one basket. There are several other ways to drive traffic to your site and depending on just one, like Google, is just plain bad marketing efforts.
|
- 10). Increase Web Site Visitor Return Rates By : Halstatt Pires
Every visitor to your web site is a precious potential client. It was hard work to get that site visitor there in the first place, so you should make every effort to encourage the potential client back.
The bottom line is that if the visitor found what they were looking for quickly and easily, they are much more likely to come back to your site. Here are six additional techniques you can use to help bring visitors back to your site.
|
| New Building Traffic Articles |
- 1). Drive Guaranteed Traffic to Your Web Site By : Bill Briggs
Promoting your web site is a daunting task. If you do it well, you will get a lot of visitors to your site and most likely make a lot of sales. Otherwise, you may experience a lot of frustration. Here are some useful tips to help you succeed with promoting your web site.
|
|
|
- 3). Blogging For Traffic By : Loretta Miller
Blogging is a great way to obtain traffic to your site. It can also be a way of obtaining free traffic if you choose one of the sites that offer free blogs. By maintaining a blog, you can increase your exposure on the internet.
|
- 4). Blogging For Sales By : Loretta Miller
Whether you are an affiliate marketer, or have a website or an online store, blogs can be a fantastic way to draw traffic and people interested in your product.
|
- 5). Five Proven Strategies to Increase Traffic to Your Site By : Patricia Tomaskovic
There are so many ways that you can promote your online business or website that it can seem overwhelming. Some methods are more effective than others. So how do you know which ones will work. These five methods are proven to generate traffic to your site as well as generating income for you.
1. Offer a Freebie.
One thing that appeals to everyone is "free.
|
- 6). Submitting Your Website To The Search Engines By : Tanya Swithins
Proper website promotion is becoming increasingly important. There are literally billions of web pages on the Internet, which makes getting noticed online a very difficult task. The first step to getting your web page visited by your target audience is to submit the page to the search engines. You may think that the search engines, like Yahoo, Google, Altavista, or Excite, somehow search every document on every server to find a match, but that is not the case.
|
- 7). Where To Get The Traffic You Want By : Halstatt Pires
Not all traffic is the same. Getting a gazillion hits is great, but not if it is from random subjects and subjects. You want to focus on traffic that has a reasonable chance of converting.
Where To Get The Traffic You Want
Many sites make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. It is far better to stick to a specific service or product than it is to offer limited options to customers.
|
- 8). Traffic, Web Traffic Is The Key By : Josephine Stungger
In the internet business there's a saying that goes something like "traffic is the key." As you know in order to make sales you have to have customers. On the internet the only way to have customers is to have visitors to your web site. And how does this happen? Well it CAN happen in several ways BUT some are worthless. Let's talk about those first.
|
- 9). Top 5 Ways To Generate Low-Cost Website Traffic By : David Hill
The following information in this article should be exactly what you are looking for and I hope it helps you.
There is one tried and tested rule in generating income for your website: A regular stream of website traffic.
If no one goes to your website, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Lots of sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these result in the sites passing.
|
- 10). Why You Must Know Your Traffic! The Power Of Using Web Analytics By : Karra Maxim
Who are your customers? Who is coming to your site and how are they getting there? How many of them are purchasing services or products? How do you know?
If you don't use web analytics to track the behavior of traffic to and on your site, then you won't know the answer to any of these questions! If you don't know the answers to these questions, then you won't know if you need to change your advertising sources, upgrade your products or services, or rearrange the content and pages on your site.
|
|
|
