Running a business can be frustrating, especially an internet based one. I should know I run several.
You read all these blogs, subscribe to all these newsletters, buy products and services and yet you’re still not making those millions of dollars they promised you could make.
I know you are frustrated.
Relax, because today I’m going to share with you the only thing you need to know to finally get your business to the level you want it to be at.
Really I can tell you how to do it in just two words. These two words are a concept that I use in every single one of my businesses I create and run.
In fact every business that’s ever become a success uses this concept to become so. McDonald’s uses it, Amazon uses it, Apple uses it, Costco uses it.
This system works for everyone—no matter if you your business is small and struggling or big and booming. It doesn’t matter where in the spectrum your business falls, or how long you’ve been in business or what market you are selling to. It works across the board for everyone, including me.
And after today, if you apply these two words, it will work for you. Your business will grow and so will your pockets.
The concept isn’t hard to understand either, in fact, you’ve probably heard the two words I’m about to tell you before. But sometimes you have to go back to the time-tested lessons of the past to move forward. If you want to see more sales and more profit from your business then you need to start using a sales funnel to do so.
Nothing about your business should be random. You shouldn’t do anything without knowing what your next step will be. Don’t send out an email or create an ad or craft a new product without having a precise reason for doing so.
Your goal isn’t to have a business, it’s to make money, a lot of it, and to do so with as little effort as possible. Sure you can create products, advertisements and websites willy-nilly and make money doing so, but you’ll have to put in a lot more time and effort than is absolutely necessary.
To make a lot of money and to make it as fast as possible you need to create a process for your business, a funnel if you will. This funnel will guide everyone who comes in contact with your business down a carefully crafted road to get them to become a frequent customer of yours.
At the top of the funnel is everyone who is in your market. Anyone who has ever expressed an interest in your niche or wants to learn more is your audience. It’s your initial job to turn your audience into a lead.
How do you turn a person who doesn’t know you from Adam into a potential buyer? With an offer that is too good to be true.
Your initial aim is not profit. You’ll never make this concept work if you try to make money at every step along with journey. In fact at this point in the sales funnel process you will most likely be losing money.
You must recognize that most people won’t buy from you the first time they meet you. It almost never happens. No one sees an ad on TV and immediately goes and buys the product. It doesn’t work like that, no matter how innovative or awesome the product is.
What most people will do is take a bit of information from you, and then another and become more interested at each step. That’s why the first bite they take from you has to be good. You have to leave them wanting more so they’ll continue down the funnel.
The first thing they see from you has to be an offer that is too good to be true. Give them something that is worth way more to them than what they are giving you. I like to offer a free report on something they are interested in, in exchange for their name and email address.
In your business it doesn’t have to be a free report. It can be anything. But no matter what it has to provide tremendous value. Think about what irresistible bribe you can offer members of your audience to get them to give you their contact information.
Now that you’ve got a list of potential sales leads you’ve got to turn them into new customers.
At this point your aim still isn’t to make money from your audience. I know it seems like it should since they’ve already expressed an interest in what you have to offer, but this is where most businesses get it wrong. If you do this the right way, which I’m about to explain, you’ll be ahead of most of your competitors.
Your goal is to turn this lead into a buyer. The fastest and easiest way is to offer them an initial product or service that is extremely affordable. Every market is different so I can’t say what is affordable for your market, but in general, your initial offer to them needs to be sold for no more than $79. $20 is better and $1 is ideal.
Yes, you could lose money selling your product at this price. That’s fine. Remember your goal isn’t profit. It’s to turn this lead into a buyer. There is nothing more valuable than having a list of known buyers.
Every big name business does it this way. Take Microsoft’s X-Box gaming system for example. Microsoft offers the X-Box game console to customers at a loss. They make no money selling it to you. In fact all video game companies lose money or make virtually zero profit selling you their gaming console.
Did you think Amazon makes money selling the Kindle? No way. They lose money each e-reader they sell. But Amazon doesn’t care. They know that the more people they can convert to buyers with their initial, loss leader product has the potential to deliver major profits down the line.
At this point you’ve got this buyer to make two transactions with you. First they gave you their contact information and then they bought a loss leader product from you. You now have a list of buyers.
The next step in the sales funnel process is to sell them a product that you make some, but not a lot of profit on. You most likely have products or services like this for your business. You probably consider them your core group or flagship products.
Most businesses never become successful because they make the mistake of offering these products to customers first. Like I said before if you run your business this way, you can make some money, but you’ll never get to that coveted success level you’ve always dreamed about.
Remember none of the work your business does should be random. Your flagship products exist to get customers to become more familiar with your company and comfortable with buying from you. You are sending a message to them that you are a trustworthy brand that has a lot to offer to them.
It’s the next step in the sales funnel where things get interesting and by interesting I mean extremely profitable.
You’ve inevitably hear the terms up-sell and cross-sell. These are ways businesses make more money per transaction. While your flagship product may only make you a little bit of money, the up-sell or cross-sell you include with it, will make you a ton of cash.
You’ve seen these kinds of offers a zillion times, you probably just haven’t realized it. When you put something in your cart on Amazon, the next thing they show you are all the other products people who have bought what you’ve bought have also bought. When you go to a clothing store and buy a dress, you’ve been told by the sales associate that a lot of people like a certain belt or hat to go with your item. When buying a TV from Best Buy the sales associate offers you a warranty or to have Geek Squad install it for you in your home. These are all ways companies make huge profits from you, for virtually no effort or cost.
Think about what you could offer as an up-sell or cross-sell to your core products. What can you bundle with your offer? This is where you start to make serious money…but it doesn’t stop there.
To make this sales funnel super successful you’ve got to do one more thing. If you do this, I promise you, you’ll see your sales numbers explode.
After you’ve sold a customer one of your flagship products you need them to come back and buy from you again. How do you do that?
By keeping the lines of communication open with them. You contact them regularly and frequently and not always with an offer. I like to do this through my blog posts. I send out blog posts 3 times a week. Sometimes I make them an offer to buy something and sometimes I do not. Whatever I send out though is an opportunity to keep my business in their mind. I want to be there when they decide they are ready to buy.
Do this and you’ll not only create a new customer, you’ll create a customer for life.
To your future and mine!
Mark Patricks