| A recent news article in the Toronto Star discussed how people’s buying decisions have been radically changed by the Internet. No longer are people “just” driving to their favourite store or mall, no – long before this they are researching on the Internet. |  |
Today’s consumer (whether they’re looking for a product or a service) is using the Internet foremost to locate, shortlist and then select a solution. People can check reviews, compare prices, find the closest store, or even buy online and avoid the mall or store trip entirely!
Brick-and-mortar locations are not dead, but the purchasing experience has changed forever. The challenge facing today’s business owner, or anyone who sells a product or service, is whether they have taken the necessary steps to be found and be noticed online.
Sadly, many businesses will not survive this shift, but it’s not all gloom and doom, on the contrary this new media affords the savvy business person entirely new ways of leveraging classic sales principles. For instance, one key component of any sale is the establishment of trust.
You’ve probably heard “People buy from those they know, like and trust.” Online it is incredibly easy to build the necessary content and other media assets so that you are found, you are believed which helps you build trust.
When trust reaches a tipping point a transaction (or action) takes place. The challenge is that each of us usually has a different tipping point and simply keeping track of the various messages, communications and other interactions we’ve shared with a potential prospect soon becomes unwieldy (this is why many sales people target low hanging fruit and often overlook the other leads!)
Again, technology and the Internet come to our rescue. But before I discuss how this can happen, you need to stop and answer a simple question: “Have you modelled your sales process?” Better yet, “Have you modelled your perfect prospects buying process?” (TIP: the latter is superior to the former.)
Armed with a clear picture of the steps or stages your perfect prospect takes as they become aware of you, as they evaluate you and finally as they choose you enables you to take that model and automate it online through content creation and sequenced message delivery.
I should state I’m not advocating using technology to keep yourself distanced from your prospects, I am however suggesting you use it intelligently to support the process in a way that is both natural and authentic.
And if you think this all sounds rather technical I would suggest it’s not as challenging as you might imagine. Take for instance the importance of creating content that gets found during the early stages of a prospects search. The perfect piece for this is an article. In truth, you want to create many articles over time establishing you as an expert and a thought leader.
Article content is search engine friendly, allows you to give quality information that helps prosecutes evaluate you, and if you apply the right strategy with your article or content creation you will support the sales process too.
Next up are the sequential messages. Remember the sales and buying process I spoke of earlier? Well, this is where it comes in to play. Now you can create a series of messages that mirror the process. And the best part, you don’t need to remember when to send what message to which prospect if you use a simple piece of email technology called an email auto-responder.
Simply put, you can create your messages, upload them into this email auto-responder and when someone starts the sequence the system handles the delivery – and times it perfectly. The best part is this, intelligent auto-responders exist whereby you can move a prospect from one sequence to another if they take the right kind of actions.
For instance, lets say you had a prospect on a lead sequence and you ask them something that would suggest they might be closer to taking action than you thought. You can automatically stop the messages from the lead sequence and move them over into a hot prospect sequence and maybe even make a trial close! The potential is incredible. Can you imagine the difference it makes to your bottom line?
Today you need to have a presence online – no matter your business. Remember, we’ve been sharing opinions before the Internet ever came along so all we’re seeing here is an evolution of a natural human desire to connect and share. Don’t fight it, embrace it and as Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right tracks and you just sit there, you’ll get run over eventually!”