Search Sessions – The Top 2 Sales Techniques Every Business Owner Needs to Know!

We were joined by Boostability VP of Business Development Matt Tennison and Director of Sales Matt Salzl to walk us through the two sales techniques every business owner needs to know and how to take your prospects from seeds to sales! They go over some best practices about sales and experiences they’ve shared working together over the years at Boostability. They talk about how the sales market is shifting. With Covid-19, sales teams are transitioning to more virtual and phone sales tactics to reach their audience. They compare and contrast best practices from both methods and how to tie those together to really see the success and growth within your teams.

Watch the broadcast here, or read on for some of the key takeaways.

The two main types of sales methods are outside sales (face-to-face) and inside sales (over the phone, online). Every business owner needs to know how to sell face-to-face. As well as on the phone or through an online demo. There’s this misconception that there’s a huge difference between the two. Although they may each seem very different, they actually have a lot in common. A salesperson can be equally successful in both methods.

 

The Commonalities & Differences between Transactional & Consultative Selling

Whether your sale is in person or over the phone. You need to take these 5 steps with every sales pitch:

1. Establish trust
2. Discover/Need Analysis
3. Education
4. Sell value
5. Overcoming objections

When you sell in person, you do have the advantage of building immediate trust. When you sell over the phone, you have to do it slightly different to connect and build trust as soon as the call starts. With face-to-face, you generally have permission to proceed with the sale right away. When you’re on the phone with a prospective client, establish quickly what it is you can do to help them and set the expectations.

The biggest difference between face-to-face and phone sales is that in face-to-face appointments you have some type of protected time. Over the phone, it’s likely that your customer filled out a contact form and you are calling them back. This may or may not be an interruption to them while they are actively running their own business. Make sure to drive the value home for them. Take the time to respond to your prospects quickly. Catch their interest fast. Inbound is all about refreshing their memory. Outbound you jump right into the sale and catch their attention immediately.

A person doesn’t start a business because you have no confidence, you start a business because you think you’re the best at what you do. Remind the business owner why they are the best.

 

Controlling the Conversation

Control the conversation from the very beginning and set a strong game plan. 

You need to have strong bullet points to help guide your conversation. Customers want to know the value of what you have to offer and how it’s going to grow their business. Treat your customer’s time as something precious; you don’t want to get caught up in small talk when you could be strategizing on how to make your customer’s business better and stronger. Ask the right questions when you’re discovering all about your client’s business so that you don’t lose momentum moving forward. Every question you ask needs to get you closer to your end goal of closing the sale and their end goal of solving their business’s problem. Have a good transition question that gets you right into education.

Education is important in your sales call. It resets their understanding of what the product is and gives you a chance to tie in those pain points they may have and what your service can do to help achieve their business goals. This leads you into establishing your value and show them that now we are going to do all the things we discussed. You want to give them the budget recommendation when they are at their high and excited about the product. 

When discussing the budget, everything becomes real for the customer. This is when they may have additional questions or objections. Keep a list of every objection you can think of that the prospect may bring up so that you’re not caught off guard. A great sales tactic is to address objections before they are brought up. It establishes trust, value, and a sense of transparency about what you’re selling. Make sure every question you ask gets you closer to solving the customer’s problem that can be solved with your products and services.

Step up how you sell. Customers are very educated today and want an excellent sales process. A good sales agent will have outlined the journey for the customer. Always be honest when you’re selling, set clear expectations, and outline what to expect next. To be successful in sales you have to be confident. Role-playing scenarios prepare you for that. Never underestimate the power of being succinct. The strength of your pitch closes the sale for you. There is no perfect sales call. Sales is about doing enough of the right things, building enough of the value that the customer feels confident moving forward.

 

How SEO Helps Convert Users

Are website visitors not converting? These six technical SEO points can help guide new users towards conversion by establishing confidence and trust while experiencing your site.

• Website loads too slow – if you have a website that loads too slow your visitors will quickly leave to find a better experience elsewhere and it degrades the services or your page. You don’t want that negativity to roll into a lead or sell. Set yourself up for success and build trust with your brand.
• Metas don’t match page content – If your meta descriptions don’t match page content then you will not be satisfying search intent and your likelihood of ranking will be significantly lowered. Remember, you have to help the user know and trust you before they will buy from you. If you put on your website that you offer a specific service your content needs to match it. It’s frustrating when a customer clicks on a keyword on google and goes to your page and finds nothing about that in your content or on your site.
• Connection is not secure – Protecting the integrity of your site by ensuring your connection is secure with HTTPS helps increase customer confidence and conversions. HTTPS is valuable because it protects all communication and customer information. Google favors sites that provide this type of security. If your site isn’t secure, it could be getting outranked by similar sites that are. Modern browsers will notify you if the website does not have a secure connection. This will kill any chance of anyone coming to your site and you closing that sale. Make sure your website is secure. 
• Page no longer exists – Most purchases start with a search on Google so you want to be sure you’re showing up as early in your buyer’s journey as possible. If your potential customers can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. You can remedy damaging situations by updating links with 301 redirects or, in some cases, having a 404 page can be perfectly fine. 
• Not mobile optimized – Creating a website that is mobile friendly and optimized to be crawled from a mobile standpoint helps your SEO significantly. You are gaining trust with customers that have a good experience on your site and good experience translates into good SEO.
• Navigation is difficult – The primary purpose of website navigation is to help users easily find products, information and services on your site. Search engines use your website navigation to discover and index new pages. If your site navigation is difficult then users will leave your site unsatisfied and unsure about your product. Your site should have a clear purpose and navigation that illustrates that purpose easily. Don’t waste people’s time! Make your navigation easy to use and understand.

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