The first step in getting paid is to actually sell something. You could offer every kind of payment option there is, but if you don’t know about sales strategies it won’t matter.
That’s why it’s always in someone’s best interest to learn sales strategies and implement them as they go. Here are some sales tips to help you increase the number of payments you receive.
Sales Strategy #1: Create an offer with the customer in mind.
The key to more payments is to sell something people actually want. The best way to do this is to reverse engineer the process.
In other words, start with the end in mind. That means starting with your offering.
Rather than creating an offering based on what you want to sell, ask your audience what they need from you.
By creating an offering based on their needs, it becomes easier to sell because it’s customized to solve a specific problem.
The mistake many businesses make is creating offerings without actually testing them in the market. This causes them to lose time and money.
Sales Strategy #2: Create a customer map
The next step is to map out the sales process. You’ll want to know the exact stages a customer moves through up until they pay you.
Here’s a very basic customer map to give you an idea:
- They find your free content online.
- Someone signs up for your email list.
- You send materials out to your email list about your offerings.
- The prospect signs up for a consult based on your emails.
- You get on the phone to asses their needs.
- You sell the offering.
There are many ways to do this, but at the end of the day it all looks like this:
- Free offering.
- Nurturing.
- Phone.
- Sale.
The specifics of how that looks in your business is what you need to figure out.
Sales Strategy #3: Create a system for sales.
Based on the information from the previous section, you want to create a system for sales that you can replicate.
For example, you can drive opt-ins to your email list by offering a freebie.
From there, you send an email sequence that’s automatic.
One of those emails is meant to prompt potential customers to get on the phone with you.
Again, this is pretty basic, but it is effective.
You can even go as far as automating sales presentations via autowebinars and having people buy directly from there.
The key is to create something you can do over and over again without having to spin your wheels.
This not only simplifies the process for you, it also makes it easier for people to pay you.
Sales Strategy #4: Keep your pipeline filled.
Sales is basically a numbers game. That’s why you need to make sure you always have new people coming into your pipeline.
Here are some of the ways to make sure your pipeline is always filled:
- Facebook ads.
- Google Adwords.
- Social media posts.
- Blogs.
- A podcast.
- Email marketing.
- Cold calling.
- Cold emailing.
- Attending networking events.
There really is no shortage of ways to make sure people are always coming into your business.
Once you have that part figured out, it’s time to get really nitty gritty about sales strategies.
Sales Strategy #5: Learn how to express the value of your offering.
Once you get someone on the phone, you need to know how to express the value of your offering.
The good news is that if you’ve implemented the first four sales strategies, then this is actually pretty easy.
The reason is that the prospect is already familiar with you and you’ve created something they are actually willing to pay for.
However, this is the part where confidence plays a big roll.
It’s one thing to send emails that sound confident, it’s another thing to be on the phone and express the same value.
Sales Strategy #6: Know your boundaries.
One of the sales strategies I teach my clients is to know their boundaries with prospects.
This means that business owners need to realize a few things:
- They are interviewing the client, not the other way around.
- Their time is valuable.
- They set the rules for how the meeting goes.
- They set the rules for how long the meeting lasts.
If a business owner does not understand these things, they run the risk of a prospect taking advantage of their time. It also becomes easier for the business owner to lose control of the situation.
At the end of the day, it’s about being assertive because your time is the most valuable thing you have.
Sales Strategy #7: Know how to deal with objections.
One of the best sales strategies you will ever learn is how to deal with objections during sales calls.
The good news is you know these objections are probably coming. You also likely know what they are ahead of time.
If you’ve done your marketing homework, the objections also become less frequent.
The key is to know what to do when someone says “I can’t afford it” or “I need to think about it.”
This alone will help you get paid more money more often.
The best way to learn how to do this is to find a mentor and practice.
You’ll also want to record your sales calls so you can see what’s going right and what’s going wrong.
Sales Strategy #9: Don’t be afraid to follow up.
Although your sales will certainly increase from following the strategies up until now, many sales still aren’t made the first time.
That’s why follow-ups are such an important part of sales.
It also happens to be a sales strategy business owners don’t tend to do.
As a business owner, you need to realize the sale isn’t over just because someone says “No.”
“No” could mean “Not yet” and it’s your job to keep following up with your prospect.
There are clients I haven’t landed until months after I met them, and it’s because I consistently followed up.
Had I not done that, I would have lost money.
Final Thoughts
Properly understanding sales strategies is the reason people get paid in the first place. By implementing these strategies into your process, you will gain more clients and increase your payments.
