In this podcast episode, I’m going to be sharing with you the 8 keys to maximising sales conversions – that is, turn more potential clients into ACTUAL clients!
By making a few simple changes, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rates. This will mean you need to reach less people to make the same amount of sales. Or when you reach more people, you’re going to amplify your sales by an even bigger factor.
How good is that?
I’m gonna roll straight into these 8 keys to maximising conversions without digging into why it’s important?
Why? Because I don’t think you need to be convinced that increasing your conversion is actually a good idea. We know how important our conversion rates are and their impact on the bottom line results of our business.
Here they are:
1. Ask for the sale
I don’t know how many times I have to say this. I also don’t know how many times I have to be told this.
We are so resistant to asking for the sale. But that is actually one of the biggest keys to conversion. If you are not consistently telling people how they can work with you, then you are missing out on sales in your business. There are a few places you can go and review and see if you’re doing this consistently:
- In your podcasts or blogs: Are you actually asking for the sale consistently?
- On your Facebook page: Go and scroll through the last 30 posts on your Facebook page and count how many times you actually tell people what and how they can buy from you.
- Posts into Facebook groups: This is usually where people are doing okay, because most of the structured entrepreneurial groups have specific promo days.
- The conversations that you’re having with people: When people email you asking for advice, or when they are reaching out to book a session. Are you presenting the appropriate services and products? Are you encouraging them to purchase and take the next step?
In summary, if you want to maximise your sales conversions, ask for the sale!
It’s pretty simple, but there’s such a big difference between knowing and doing. So have a little review, and make sure you put that one on top of your list.
2. Pick a super-specific niche
This is a really big one, and I have an entire training that I run three or four times a year, called Nail your Niche. If you haven’t seen it, reach out and ask for the recording or next date of the training. Niching is one of the critical ways that you can improve your conversion.
The reason why niche is so critical is because in most cases, a lack of niche is why your messaging is not resonating with people. If you’re trying to speak to everyone and you end up speaking to no one. Here are a couple of key things you can do to be more niched in your business and marketing efforts.
- Are you clear on the important demographics? A lot of marketers and business mentors will tell you that you have to choose an age and you have to choose this, you have to choose that. Often, those things aren’t relevant when it comes to demographics. Only focus on what’s relevant to your service, and relevant to the way that you market your products and services. For example, choosing between women and men is an important demographic decision because the way you sell to men is different to the way that you sell to women. The language you use is different, the channels you use will be different.
- Another important demographic is whether they are working for themselves or working for someone else. Now, remember that niching is about the group of people you focus on when you are marketing your products and services.
- One of the biggest challenges that I see in the online business world is niche resistance. People say to me “But I can help men and women”. But there’s a difference between what your service can support and who you can market to consistently. And your marketing is dependent on that decision about whether it’s men or women, and also whether they are working for themselves or working in a job.
- It will impact your marketing channels, as well as your messaging as well as the value proposition of your work. So don’t just focus on demographics, but those key demographics are going to be important.
- Next is psychographics. What keeps your ideal client up at night? What thoughts and feelings keep telling this person that something needs to change? And when they think something needs to change, what do they start looking for? What do they Google? Who do they ask for support? Knowing this about your niche is critical.
- The final layer of niching is something I totally made up – sensographics. That is what their five senses telling them about this problem or this goal. What can they see, taste, hear, smell and touch that says something is wrong, I need to get help to fix it.
- Here’s a really juicy example for you. How many business and marketing people have you seen out there saying they help you get your business to the next level? That is a completely un-niched statement. That does not resonate with anyone, and yet people use it over and over again. The next level for someone who’s hasn’t started their business yet, is completely different to the next level for someone who’s going into scaling it. Which is again completely different to the next level for someone who is looking to hire their thirteenth employee. And yet, you are trying to say that you help everyone get to the next level? That doesn’t actually resonate for people, because it’s not focused on the day to day issues.
- If you were to instead say: “Are you finding that you’re getting caught up doing all of these admin tasks, and you’re not showing up in your zone of genius in your business? Do you know that you need to outsource, but the last time you outsourced, it ended up in a crazy mess? I can help you with that.” That is completely different to helping someone who’s only been thinking about starting a business for the last year. Those two people are wanting to go to the next level. But by talking about it in very practical, tangible terms, you will actually be way more likely to convert that person into a paying client. You create a deep belief that you know exactly what they need.
3. Clearly articulate your value proposition
In order to convert people into paying clients, you need to be able to present a value proposition that is meaningful and aligned for that person. In a nutshell, value proposition is the balance between the product or service you are offering, and the amount that you’re asking. If, to me, your ‘thing’ is worth more than the amount you’re asking, I will buy it. If it is not worth more than the amount that you’re asking, I will not buy it.
This can be a complex thing to nail in your business. But ultimately, by having a super-specific niche and understanding it well, you should be able to:
- Understand what their current priorities are;
- Know how your product or service helps them;
- Connect your work with solving a problem or achieving an outcome; and
- Be able to connect your work with a tangible and urgent priority
The more you improve the value proposition of your products and services for your niche, the higher your conversion rate will be.
4. Align with your audience’s existing priorities
In order to increase your conversion rates and make more sales, instead of trying to convince your audience to change their priorities, align with their existing priorities. For example, if your ideal client is constantly Googling productivity hacks, or time savers, then your product or service needs to be aligned to productivity and time, because that’s clearly a priority for them right now. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling in health, business, well-being, money, parenting, self-care, healing …whatever it might be.
If you can align to your ideal clients’ current top priorities, they will be more likely to purchase your product or service. Full stop.
Get clear: What is the priority for your ideal client?
For a lot of people, their ideal clients’ priorities are completely mismatched with what it is that they’re selling. For example, in the health and wellbeing space. For most health practitioners, their ideal client is not valuing and prioritising their health and well being right now. That’s why they have health issues. That’s why they need help in this space.
Instead of trying to convince people to change their priorities, which is a huge, long-term process, what if you could pitch your product or service to actually bring together their top priority with that priority and link the two? That is where you really see conversion skyrocket.
5. Increase the connection between you and your audience
Want to maximise your sales conversions? Let me ask you:
How connected does your audience feel to you? If I feel connected to you, I’m more likely to buy from you.
There are some easy ways for you to increase connection:
- Number one, be more present with your audience.
- Number two, show your face more. (No, not the perfectly polished, photoshopped version of your face)
- Be present and share selfies of yourself in your day to day life. Share your real and honest photos as much as you share your manicured versions. Zebras are programmed to recognise stripes, humans are programmed to recognise faces.
- The same goes for your name. If you have a business that has a brand name, make sure you are associating it with your name as well. Humans buy from humans.
- That is another way to increase connection: be a human. Don’t just share the perfectly manicured and polished version of yourself. Share your flaws, share your mistakes. We have a theme day in the HCSDE Facebook group at the moment called #oops. These posts are getting the most reach in our Facebook group of any of the posts on any of the days in this community. That is because we like to know that the people we are working with are also flawed human beings.
6. Empower your audience instead of manipulating them
This key to maximising sales conversions is probably opposite to the advice that you would get from other marketing specialists. They would encourage you to dial up pain points, and show people that they won’t succeed without investing in working with you.
But I have found that by using empowering strategies in my sales process, it feels way more comfortable for me. This means I show up more consistently, and it’s higher converting.
You’ve probably been in one of those webinars or read an email, where it’s basically trying to make you believe that if you don’t buy this thing, you will not succeed. Of course, if you are smart and you do buy this thing, then you’ll succeed. But only because you’ve bought this thing.
What you do when you use these strategies, is you disempower your potential buyer. You make them feel the fear, and the pain that if they don’t buy, they won’t succeed. You attach their success to the purchase of your product or service.
Whilst that might seem like a smart way of selling, it can actually backfire on you, and particularly if you are selling to women. When women purchase online, they decide through two lenses: emotion and logic. When you are in the disempowering model of sales, the emotion that you are feeding is generally negative. You swoop in and offer your service as the rescuer. But women these days don’t want to be rescued. They don’t want to defer to the all-knowing guru. So you actually create the opposite feeling.
Have you ever sat back and thought “Wait a minute, don’t tell me I can’t do this on my own!”
I know I have. All you do is bring out my inner rebel. My maverick!
One more thing, before I tell you how to be more empowering the sales process. Manipulating people feels really gross when you do it. When you start to see why these strategies are being used, and why marketers tell you to use these strategies… when you start to think about whether you’d say to someone outright “You won’t make it without me”
I wouldn’t say that. So I’m mindful to ensure that I don’t imply it or use psychologically manipulative strategies that make people believe it.
The gorgeous thing about this is that when I’m empowering in the sales process, I’m energised by it. It makes me more magnetic, and people purchase from me so much more when I use strategies that are empowering.
Instead, here’s how you empower in the sales process, through a practical example. Let’s say you are teaching a webinar on how to be a great speaker. Your up-sell is VIP speaker coaching.
In that webinar, do you only just give them a few tidbits and not actually tell them anything valuable on how to speak? No.
Do you dial up their fear and their pain points that they can’t be a successful speaker if they don’t work with you? No.
Instead, empower people to get excited about speaking. Give them some steps, strategies and tools that they can use to speak more often, to get speaking gigs, to be a better speaker, and to get motivated. Then present your offer as the next logical step for people who want to go deeper and further and get your support. Your offer is a value-add for those who are motivated to implement deeply and effectively.
This way, even if some people don’t buy, they leave your webinar feeling empowered, equipped and ready to get out there and speak. Those that want support and guidance and mentoring and coaching along the way will purchase.
It’s such an empowering way to sell and it does increase your conversion. If you don’t believe me, just give it a go see how you feel running your webinar without the fear and pain points and grossness and neuro-linguistic programming to make people feel like they’re going to be a complete failure without you. Imagine running a webinar that makes sales, and that has everyone feeling like they’ve invested their time wisely, whether they purchased from you, or not.
That is my goal every time I run a webinar.
That is my goal every time I create a podcast episode.
That is my goal every time I run a free challenge.
That is my goal every time I do a Facebook Live.
I want to leave everyone feeling like they’ve got great value.
They are equipped and empowered to move forward and get great results.
The people who purchase from me have my guidance and mentoring and hand holding along the way as well. Bonus for them. But those who don’t purchase aren’t left traumatised and freaked out.
Try it! Just see how it feels when you empower people in your sales process instead of disempowering them.
7. Reduce your buyers’ risk exposure
I do this in a number of different ways.
- A very generous refund policy
- In my group courses and programs I offer a 30-day, no questions asked, no awkwardness money back guarantee.
- I don’t drip feed things to people so they don’t get the juicy bits until they are beyond the refund window. I don’t make them show me their homework. If people want their money back in the first 30 days, regardless of the reason, I give it back to them.
- This makes it really safe for people to invest with me because they get a good chunk of time to get to know the process, and to see if it’s a good fit for them.
- Extended access
- In my Take Off program, for example, you don’t have to complete the course and then after 12 weeks get booted out.
- Students have access to the program for the lifetime of the program. So as long as the takeoff program exists, people get access to it and I guarantee it will be available for at least a year from when the last person purchased it.
- People are able to jump into the program and if life happens, and they get disrupted along the way or they need to take a break, they aren’t going to miss out on the outcomes of the program simply because they weren’t able to complete it in the 12 weeks that normally people would complete it.
- Access to me.
- I have live group coaching calls in the Take Off program, and in the Heart-Centred Business Academy.
- If people get stuck on something, they can come to a call and ask me, or they can go into the Facebook group and ask me.
- This reduces the risk that they get to a certain point get stuck and don’t know where to go from there, which is something that can happen for people when they do self study programs.
- Free trials or money back guarantee on the first session
- I don’t offer these, but you can use this to reduce risk in your one to one services, especially if you don’t have a strong track record of clients yet.
- Selling a single session, as well as having your VIP packages.
- I really I love buying singles. When I want to work with a new provider, I generally won’t jump into a six-month healing journey with someone until I’ve done a single session, to see if it’s a good fit and we work well together.
- This can greatly reduce risk on the bigger investments, because I’m only investing with someone I know is a good fit.
There are so many ways that you can reduce the risk for your clients. And in most cases, lower risk equals higher conversion.
8. Time or urgency
When it comes to maximising conversion of your sales, most marketers will say create urgency or scarcity. Many advocate for creating false urgency or scarcity.
I agree that urgency and scarcity often increase the conversion rates, especially in the short term. But I have found that over time, not having too much scarcity or urgency means that my conversion rates start to improve and increase within the amount of time that people are on my mailing list.
I’m giving them time to make the decision. I’m giving them time to come to the conclusion that that program is the right fit for them.
I have two peak times when people purchase from me to join my Take Off program. The first peak is within the first 30 days.
In the first 30 days that someone discovers the way that I teach sales and startup, and the way that I teach marketing, there’s a peak time where they’re going to convert into a paying client. The second peak is 11 to 12 months into our relationship. So for a second subset of people, they get to know me through my podcast, webinars and freebies, and they join the Take Off program 11 months later.
If I made the Take Off program only urgent and scarce, I would miss out on the sales with those people. Instead, my Take Off program is evergreen; people can buy at any point in time. You can go and click on the link right now and join us in the Take Off program. It’s open all the time, and that gives people time to make that decision and get to know me more and come and check it out.
On evergreen, I sell three or four spots in the Take Off program each month, and it’s starting to increase these days as my reach and my audience gets bigger and bigger. And that’s a really good thing. Especially for the bottom line of my business.
I also have launches of the Take Off program (usually about three times a year) where I will have some sort of incentive to buy now. So for example, sometimes we open an extended payment plan. The normal payment plan is 4 x monthly payments. But sometimes during the launch, I’ll make it 8 x smaller monthly payments to make it even more affordable for people to be able to jump in. That extended payment plan will have a closing date. That creates a little bit of urgency for people to jump in sooner rather than later.
Another thing I do is my 123 fast track. So when I’m launching the Take Off program every now and then I’ll do extra calls with me for students to fast track their way through the first three modules of the Take Off program. This means they can start making money back within the first 30 days of being in the Take Off program. This has two effects. One, it incentivises people to jump in really quickly. And two, it reduces the number of refunds that people ask for. Because by the time that 30 day window comes around for them to ask for a refund, most people have already made back the money they invested.
These are some great ways for me to have both time AND urgency.
I wanted to present these together because I think that you can actually have both. You can give people time and have some urgency. It doesn’t need to be one or the other.
Have a think about the ways that you could give people more time to make a decision if they need it, and also incentivise people signing up quickly from time to time.
I realise I’ve given you a lot of things here, and I’m going to recap them for you. Before I do, I want to let you know about a special free resource that I have for you, particularly if you are still not making consistent sales conversions in your business right now.
If you aren’t consistently getting clients in the door, I have a free training for you: Fast-Track your Start-Up.
I understand that for some people, they’re not actually in startup, you’ve been in business for three years. But this training is about fast-tracking your conversions. And if you haven’t got consistent sales coming into your business, when it comes to online marketing, you are actually still in the start-up phase.
So if you would like to access this free training, just sign up here: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
Before closing, let me sum up what those eight keys to maximising sales conversions:
- Ask for the sale
- Pick a super-specific niche
- Clearly articulate your value proposition
- Align with your audience’s existing priorities
- Increase the connection between you and your audience
- Empower your audience instead of manipulating them
- Reduce your buyers’ risk exposure
- Time or urgency
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
