Greater Conversion -- Three Things Everyone Should Do to Get More Sales

Many more people want to buy your product or service, but they don’t end up doing it! That’s because many companies are stuck in the print marketing mindset, and don’t realize that there are a couple simple things that they can do online to increase their conversion rates. In this article, I’ll outline three easy to implement changes that will take those extra sales right to the bank!

1) Product / Service Image Size
Chances are you’ve got images that represent or depict your product or service -- that’s a common sense way to add familiarity to what you have or do! An eye tracking study has shown that small images are oftentimes overlooked and that medium sized images (210x230 pixels) provide near a 150% increase in the amount of time spent looking at the image. The same study has shown that people tend to focus their attention on photographs that contain a human face. Medium sized pictures with faces in them retain interest longer!

2) Linking Images
The same study showed that people click on pictures, even when there is no indication that the picture is a link. For those images of products, link the image to the product page where they can buy your product! For those images depicting services, link the image to the related service information page or a contact page! Always link your images to the next step of your conversion process!

3) Call to Action
Visitors that are interested in your product or service may not know what to do to get it. Or they may be interested enough to purchase or subscribe, but only if it’s easy -- otherwise they’re not interested. This often overlooked scenario is easily overcome by a call to action link on every page. The call to action could be as simple as "Find out more about XYZ Widget Model 3 here!" It could be a Buy Now button underneath an image. The most important part of content written for sales is to make that call to action. You’ll quickly see that doing so will have you smiling all the way to the bank! Always have your visitors do something!

After you’ve implemented these three simple changes into your website, sit back and watch your stats increase. You’ll find that getting more conversions is a very pleasing scenario! As one last word of advice, other eye tracking studies (and possibly the same one I’ve referenced throughout this article) have confirmed that many people let their eyes wander below a picture when there’s text below it. Use that to your advantage by placing "Buy Now" buttons underneath your images. Good luck!

Don't Shoot the Sales Team

Revenue is down. Sales are slowing. The CEO looks up from the business plan and realizes that the company won’t meet analysts’ expectations. Focusing on the organization’s sales leader, the stage is set for sacrificing a scapegoat.

Upon who else should the axe fall when the sales organization misses revenue targets? After all, aren’t sales and revenue the responsibility of the sales leader? The answer may be as easily forgotten as it is obvious.

To one degree or another everyone in an organization impacts the revenue generating process. The strategic plan of the board of directors and the CEO provides the overall strategy for revenue generation. The marketing department provides crucial demographic and psychographic customer or client information on which the sales department relies in formulating industry and account strategies. Manufacturing, finance, legal, customer service and all other departments facilitate or constrain the process of generating revenue, each in their own peculiar way.

The sales organization’s influence in enterprise revenue generation is con-centrated in the sales pipeline. Identifying bona fide sales opportunities, managing those opportunities through the sales pipeline until they produce revenue, and then managing customer or client relationships are the primary responsibilities of the sales and sales management teams. Rarely, if ever, does the sales organization control the resources of manufacturing, marketing, finance, legal and customer service.

The picture most companies present to the world show the sales organization “out there,” in front of customers and clients and in front of the rest of the company’s departments. Even marketing, the first cousin of sales, is more often than not as disconnected from sales as are the other departments. The sales group leads the company charge, and the other departments take up rear support positions, providing tangible and intangible support.

Revenue generation is a cross functional, company-wide process that involves every department and all employees in the organization. The CEO and the Board of Directors set corporate strategy and everyone else in the organization executes that strategy.  We have never observed a situation where the sales organization is in disarray while all the other business segments are humming along with little or no friction. In those rare cases where the failure or underperformance of an enterprise’s revenue generation process lies within the sales organization, the appropriate sales executives, managers and sales professionals should be held accountable and should suffer the requisite consequences. Before CEO’s shoot their sales teams, however, they might want to take a critical look at the entire revenue generation process and how each business segment contributes to or detracts from the success of the process. Like America’s favorite psychologist, Dr. Phil, would advise: Every department in an organization either contributes to the company’s revenue generation process or contaminates it.

Does Your Sales Training Program Address Your Sales Performance Issues?

In Part 1, we went over the steps to uncover sales performance issues and decide which are applicable at a high priority for pin-point sales skill training. We first documented the main sales performance issues. There are (4) distinct sales performance silos that will effect the overall outcome of any sales team, year in and year out. They are:

•    % of Sales reps to Quota
•    Average New-hire Ramp-to-Quota in months
•    Sales Employee Turnover rate
•    Time spent versus Result achieved

Next we, listed (4) steps to find out if you have any sales performance issues in each individual sales performance silo and if so to what degree. They were:

Step 1: ‘Run the Numbers’ for any realistic ROI opportunity
Step 2: ‘Run the Numbers’ hypothetically for a ‘Specific’ improvement
Step 3: ‘Run the Numbers’ for a ‘Reality Check’
Step 4: Set the Goal and ‘Train to It’

In our first example, we looked at a sales organization’s performance silo of ‘New-hire Ramp-to-Quota and determined (1) a sales performance issue and (2) a worthy sales training objective and (3) a realistic sales training return on investment.

Let’s take that same sales force and utilizing our (4) step process look at the remaining two Sales performance issues; ‘Sales Employee Turnover rate’ and ‘Time spent versus Result achieved’ to see what the X2 Evaluator™ system turns up.

Step 1: ‘Run the Numbers’ for any realistic ROI opportunity

Our example sales force has 350 sales reps that are responsible for securing new business each month. They currently have a sales employee turnover rate of 45%, or 155 reps per year. I’ve found in the sales industries I partner with, my clients average between 30%-70% sales employee turnover per year, so these folks are right in norm.
But the ‘norm’ doesn’t have to be the ‘Future’.

Here’s another important point. In the sales arena, 95% of sales employee turnover is due to Low 1st appointment activity. And in our example sales force, it was nearly 100%. Simply, if you’re not creating enough sales appointments each month, you either go out the door or you are ‘Shown the door’.
Now let’s run the numbers to see exactly what this sales employee turnover is costing them and attach a weight of priority to consider ‘pin-point’ sales performance training.

Here are the numbers relevant to costs:

•    Average Salary:     $30,000
•    Recruiting Costs:     $ 2,000
•    Training Costs:      $ 3,500
•    Monthly Sales Quota:  $ 3,500

In sum, this sales management team is looking eye to eye to a total of $4,512,200 going out the door each year, a combination of revenue ramp up costs on the front end, revenue production loss on the back end, salaries and benefits, then again revenue ramp up costs and salary for the replacement new hire. It’s a vicious circle.
And once again that total ‘Penalty cost’ number is an attention getter.
Simply put, each sales rep going out the door, due to low sales appointment activity, is costing the company $29,300 of lost revenue.

Does that portray a legitimate sales training Return on investment opportunity? Well, in less you need to invest $29,300 per sales rep in the training of choice to remedy the sales performance issue  it certainly does.

Step 2: ‘Run the Numbers’ hypothetically for a 50% improvement

In this case, I showed the sales management team what return on investment they would get by retaining just half of the sales reps going out the door due to low sales appointment activity.
Using their numbers my diagnostic system showed them a ROI of $2,256,100 just by reducing their sales employee turnover due to low sales appointment activity from 44% down to 22%. That’s keeping 77 sales reps from going out the door and adding to the sales productivity pool.

Step 3: ‘Run the Numbers’ for a Reality Check

Remember in Part 1 of ‘Does Your Sales Training Program Address Your Sales Performance Issues?’ we ran this sales force team’s key sales performance indicator numbers in the X2 system to see ‘if and where’ there were leaks in the ‘KPI ship’. And we discovered not a leak, but a big ‘ole fire hose.

Two ‘KPI issues’ were apparent. First, their ramp-to-quota for a new-hire took 7 months when the average sales cycle is 17 days? Second, they were only setting 3 new appointments per week when they needed to set 6, based on their other KPIs and a subsequent sales appointment activity number.
Thus, their sales appointment ‘activity barometer’ was only running at 50%. And that we determined dictates a longer ramp-to-quota.

Then we dug a bit deeper in the X2 system and out popped a 6% conversation-to-appointment ratio; they had to conduct 15 prospect conversations to get 1 new appointment.

We then asked the ‘Reality Check’ question. Is it realistic to focus on reducing the sales rep turnover due to low sales appointment activity in half, from 44% to 22% for a sales training ROI of $2,256,100 or $29,300 per rep?

And we answered ‘yes’ if they addressed the front-end of their sales process; setting targeted sales appointments. Again as before, they needed to (1) establish an activity standard to reach quota based off of individual KPIs and (2) develop a sales prospecting methodology and supporting system to spend less time in achieving it.

Because most sales employee turnover happens in the new hire ramp-to-quota issue silo, the same pin-point sales skill training initiative kills two birds with one stone.

And if you add those (2) ‘sales training initiatives birds’ up, it points to $14,532,100 of realistic revenue recovery.

Step 4: Set the Goal and ‘Train to It’

Reducing sales employee turnover due to low sales appointment activity now appears to be a worthy one. It makes good business sense for this sales organization. And if we measure our results, we will probably add some more revenue back on the table with additional reps not going out the door  to the tune of $29,300 per rep.

As in Part 1, our sales training goal in this case is to spend the least amount of time to get the desired number of sales appointments each week to assure our monthly success.
Now as a side bonus, let’s take a look at our last sales performance issue silo, ‘Time spent versus Result achieved’, and see what, if anything, we can address related to our pin-point sales training initiative.

“Time is money”. What’s your ‘Hourly rate’? If you’re a sales rep with a W-2 goal of $100,000 your hourly rate is approximately $51 dollars an hour. Here’s an interesting statistic. My clients spend an average of 50% of their time on the very front-end of their sales process; sales prospecting for new opportunities to initiate their sales process. This sales management team gave me an average prospecting time of 45% to plug into the Evaluator™ system.
And here’s what it showed.

The sales reps were spending an average of 20 hours per week on sales prospecting and sales appointment generation. But they were only running at 50% on their ‘Activity Barometer’ and needed to generate 50% more sales appointment activity; going from 3 new appointments per week to 6.
At their current sales prospecting efficiency rate of 6% (15 Prospect conversations to get 1 appointment) they would need to dedicate 33 hours per week to sales prospecting and sales appointment generation. And we know that’s not realistic.

But if they set a sales training objective of moving that appointment conversion ratio to 50%, they would not only meet their sales appointment activity number but save 26 hours per week, for a time recovery of 79%, from 33 hours per week to 7. And 26 hours times $51 per hour recovers $1326 ‘Hourly Rate’ money, allowing sales reps to increase capacity and pursue higher-value, solutions-based selling opportunities.

Once again with our last (2) sales performance issue silos we determined (1) a sales performance issue and (2) a worthy sales training objective and (3) a realistic sales training return on investment.

Ask any CFO what their first impression is when they hear the words ‘Sales Training’ and they might communicate back their ‘Real world’ vocabulary of ‘un-accountable’ and ‘un-measurable’. Simply put, they know they’re wasting at least half their sales training budget dollars; the problem is they don’t know which half.

As a sales management leader, methodically discovering sales issues first and then running ‘Quantitative’ sales performance numbers to check for feasibility, worthiness, and return on sales training investment will differentiate you from the pack. And you’ll stand an excellent chance of getting the result you want.

In this case, giving sales reps a skill-set to set 1 ‘Top-down’ business appointment in 2 conversations will allow participants to set the required amount of targeted business appointments to assure their monthly revenue goals. So less people will leave, they’ll make more money and spend less time and you will recover measurable dollars; something you can actually put your finger on.

Does Your Sales Training Program Address Your Sales Performance Issues?

Sales training programs encompass a variety of necessary components; things like company policies, sales paperwork, CRM/sales force automation orientation, sales processes, company services, sales skill training and product features and benefits.
But when I ask Sales executives and Sales trainers how their current sales training program is aligned with their sales performance issues I get the look of УNo speak EnglishТ.

LetТs first categorize СSales performance issuesТ. There are (4) distinct sales performance silos that will effect the overall outcome of any sales team, year in and year out. They are:

Х    % of Sales reps to Quota
Х    Average New-hire Ramp-to-Quota in months
Х    Sales Employee Turnover rate
Х    Time spent versus Result achieved

This is a good place to start in determining what sales skill training to implement to achieve a measurable return on investment. But hereТs what will set you apart when you walk the request up to the front office. Start out with the NUMBERS.
ThatТs right. Take a diagnostic view of your current sales performance silos, one by one.

LetТs look at a real sales performance issue example of СAverage New-hire Ramp-to-QuotaТ. I recently conducted a СSales Performance Improvement BlueprintТ web-cast for this sales organization.
The company was hiring 155 sales reps per year. The ultimate objective of any new-hire sales training program is to ramp the new sales rep to Quota. Simply, give them everything they need to effectively reach their monthly sales goal.

So how was this company doing? They were obtaining this ultimate sales training program objective in 7 months. So how does one determine if that training outcome is a СSales Performance IssueТ? LetТs take a look.

Step 1: СRun the NumbersТ for any realistic ROI opportunity

Х    Each new-hire rep had an ultimate quota of $3500
Х    Sales Cycle was 17 days
Х    Average customer term agreement of 36 months
Х    Average 'Sub-Quota' revenue per month during ramp of $1300 (This number reflects the average monthly revenue a new-hire achieves before they achieve quota attainment)

Step 2: СRun the NumbersТ hypothetically for a СSpecificТ improvement

In this case, I showed the sales management team what return on investment they would get by helping just 1 sales rep achieve full sales quota in 6 months versus 7 months. Based on their numbers my diagnostic X2 EvaluatorЩ system showed them a ROI of $79,200 just by trimming off 30 days. If they did that for all 155 of their annual new-hires, they could realize $12,276,000.
And that got their attention. So, is it now a worthy sales performance issue to attach pin-point sales training to? Not quite yet.

Step 3: СRun the NumbersТ for a СReality CheckТ

The most successful businesses Ч and certainly, sales departments Ч have identified their Key Performance Indicators (KPI); individual gateways that directly effect the outcome of a particular process. Then they measure the competency ratios in line with them.

A good KPI example in the sales process might be how many times you advance the first sales appointment to the next phase, whether thatТs a demonstration, a site visit, a survey or a proposal. Another KPI is how many times you gain a new customer once the first gateway is passed. And when you do gain a new customer, whatТs the average revenue you achieve? And how long does it take to gain a new customer on average; i.e. sales cycle? 
How about how long it takes you to gain 1 new sales appointment, defined by sales prospect СconversationТ? And as a by-product of all this, how many new appointments are needed each week?

We ran these numbers in the X2 EvaluatorЩ system to see Сif and whereТ there were some leaks in the СKPI shipТ. And hereТs what we discovered; not a leak, but a big Сole fire hose.

Two СKPI issuesТ were apparent. First, why does the ramp-to-quota for a new-hire take 7 months when the average sales cycle is 17 days? Second, they were only setting 3 new appointments per week when they needed to set 6, based on their other KPIs. So their sales appointment Сactivity barometerТ was only running at 50%. And that will dictate a longer ramp-to-quota.
Dig a bit deeper in the X2 EvaluatorЩ system and out popped a 6% conversation-to-appointment ratio; they had to conduct 15 prospect conversations to get 1 new appointment.

OK, back to the СReality CheckТ. Is it realistic to focus on reducing the new-hire ramp-to-quota from 7 months to 6 months for a sales training ROI of $12,276,000 or $79,200 per rep?
You bet it is. These folks needed to address the front-end of their sales process; setting targeted sales appointments. To do that, they needed (1) establish an activity standard to reach quota by month six and (2) develop a sales prospecting methodology and supporting X2 EvaluatorЩ system to spend less time in achieving it.
Then they needed to plug their sales prospecting СsystemТ into their current sales training program and work to a weekly sales appointment activity goal to assure a monthly revenue result by month 6.

Step 4: Set the Goal and СTrain to ItТ

A sales training ROI goal of $12,276,000 or $79,200 per rep is for sure a worthy one. And the diagnostic system showed us they would meet this goal just by setting 3 additional sales appointment per week per rep; 6 appointments versus 3.

Actually, I lied. The X2 Evaluator system showed an even brighter picture if the sales appointment activity standard of 6 new appointments per week was met. If they could support their new-hires with a sales prospecting system that could help them achieve 6 new sales appointments per week, they would actually cut their new-hire Ramp-to-Quota by 4 months; from the current 7 months down to 3 months.
And that sales training ROI would be $316,800 per rep or a whopping $49,104,000.

One of the reasons why sales training fails is a failure to define a useful objective. In this case, our diagnostic method has defined a single useful objective for them to train to. And this same diagnostic method can be utilized if you have a СSales Performance IssueТ of an unacceptable percentage of Sales reps reaching Quota each month.

In Part 2, we will take a look at (2) other sales performance issues, СSales Employee Turnover rateТ and СTime spent versus Result achievedТ with this same sales management team and see what our diagnostic method to sales performance improvement and ROI turns up.

Cold Calling Executives in Brisbane Sales Training

Now, you don’t wanna miss out on use of a proven, effective sales tool. Do you? Of course not! Here’s What Sales Pros AttemptNow, this is interesting a recent client survey revealed that most sales professionals feel pressed to accomplish a lot during a prospecting call. With each executive-level cold call most professionals take a big breath and in one great big run on sentence try to establish rapport by being friendly, gain credibility by giving company history, learn about the prospect with probing questions, introduce and sell products/services all within the parameters of one brief make-it-or-break-it telephone call to the executive suite.You’ll Never See It Coming, Here’s WhyHere’s a news flash it can’t be done! Even bigger news this kind of approach actually signals executive assistants that you don’t belong in the executive’s office. The assistant will simply smile, refer you down to a lower level and you’ll never know why or how you got booted down the ladder so quickly.

So, let’s go to the heart of the matter, take a close look at the structure of the phone call itself. In the 35 to 90 seconds that you’ll have to spend on the telephone at the executive’s level you’ve gotta be prepared to take the call down the straight and very narrow path in which you want it to go. And there is one absolute, positive, no doubt about it purpose for your call. Any hint of a deviation from this purpose will result in fewer executive-level appointments. So here’s the secret ... cherish it and know it’s extremely valuable.

THE amazingly simple secret to successful cold calls to the offices of executives is to be certain that every single one of your prospecting calls has one crystal clear purpose and one purpose only. Each word you speak during your prospecting phone calls directs and redirects the conversation toward that one goal scheduling an executive-level sales call. It doesn’t matter whether you schedule a meeting in person, or schedule a phone meeting every word of the initial phone call must direct the conversation toward getting that meeting booked on the calendar. Period.

Write Down the Words of a Successful Call A technique that’ll catapult you forward is to write down the words exchanged during your cold call. Identify what words, statements and questions keep the conversation on track towards an appointment and what words cause you to lose the appointment. You’ll become consciously aware of the words that flow between you and your prospect and their impact. Won’t be long till you realize that your words either get you what you want or take your cold calls way off the path down some obscure rabbit trail. I guarantee your competition doesn’t have a single-minded focus on high level calls and is unwittingly forfeiting a whole lot of potentially lucrative business. Yet, they hold onto their ill-advised, accomplish-a-lot-in-a-little-bit-of-time approach to prospecting at the top. You on the other hand will find that keeping your prospecting calls on one laser-like focus will bring in more executive-level sales calls than you ever imagined possible. Now, go get ‘em.

Sales training available at Ziglar Australia in public sales training classes and private sales training classess across Brisbane and the Goldcoast.

Choosing A Direct Sales Opportunity

Direct sales can be a great way to start a home business, but how do you choose a company? Fortunately, it is not as difficult as it may appear on first glance.

The first thing you want to consider is what would you enjoy selling. It is possible to sell things for solely practical reasons, but it's much more fun and often more profitable to sell something you are enthusiastic about.

Do not join a program just because your best friend joined it and wants you in her downline. If you love the program too, then go for it, but otherwise think things through carefully. You aren't doing your friend a favor if you aren't really interested in the business. You might even waste her time.

Now it's time to consider the details of the program. First let's consider the legal aspects. It's the ugly side of things, and I like to get past it quickly.

Watch out for companies that practice "forced buying," no matter the name they may call it. Forced buying means that you must purchase a certain amount of product in order to receive commissions, and it is illegal. It can lead you to having a huge amount of excess stock in your house and cause you to lose large amounts of money.

Is the focus on recruitment or sales? You will want to read the article at ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/lotionalrt.htm on multilevel marketing, but the gist of it is that you want to watch out for programs that focus too much on recruitment and too little on sales, or you could be a part of a pyramid scheme. You can read more from the FTC here: ftc.gov/bcp/menu-fran.htm

Watch out for exaggerated claims, either for the product or your income potential. This is a huge red flag. Make sure all claims are substantiated with hard evidence and watch out for shills.

Phew! Done with that part.

Now take a look at the commissions. How much product will you have to sell to earn enough money for your needs? How realistic is it that you will be able to sell this much? This is one of those points you should go over carefully with your upline, and if they don't have the answer, but you really love the product line, see if they can find out. Support from your upline is vital in direct sales, and if you aren't getting it now, you won't later either.

What are the products? Will you be using them too? Once again, if you are excited about the products, they will be much easier to sell.

Is your local market saturated with reps? If the competition is all over the place in your area, you're going to have trouble selling.

Can you sell online? Can you design your own website or are you restricted to the one the company made for you? What does it cost?

Finally, beyond your upline, what sort of support does the company itself offer you? There will at some point be a problem where you will need the company to help you out, either with a customer's order or with your business. Make sure the company is going to be there for you.

3 Easy Ways To Crank Up The Sales Volume

1. Supersize It!
Okay, okay... the real marketing term here us upsell it, but the word association takes me to McDonalds. You've been there... you pull up to the window, place your order and they always say... "Would you like to supersize that?"

What bugs me is that I instinctively say, "Yes!" After all, for a few cents more I'm getting nearly twice the amount of fries and beverage. We won't discuss the fact that a person with normal size kidneys couldn't possible drink the supersized drink before it goes flat... and that if I were to eat all of the supersized fries I'd be perfect advertisment for an acne medicine company... but hey, I got a good deal!

When your customers have their wallet out and are reaching for their money, they are ripe for shelling out just a few more bucks to sweeten the deal. In fact, about 50 percent will say yes without a second thought. It's the perfect time to offer an upgrade or an extra warranty.

2. After The Sale Offers.
Have you noticed that novel sequels seem to go like hotcakes? Once the author has caught the audiences attention with the first book, they can't wait to get their hands on the follow up.

The same idea carries over with your customers. A customer who is happy with the product and service you provided the first time, is much more open for a second experience.

The backend product you offer doesn't even have to be your own. Affiliate marketers are rolling in proceeds on ebooks that cover material associated with their products. It's an easy and painless process to market this way... the affiliate handles all the sales, while you collect the commission.

3. Reward Referrals
Customer surveys that ask 3 basic questions: What did you like best about the product?, How can we improve the value of the product?, and Who do you know that would benefit from the product?

In a nutshell, you are letting the customer know that his needs and opinions are important to you, and that you want to help someone else fulfill their needs too. You'll gain valuable insight into customer satsifaction, provide material for valuable testimonials, and get tips on potential customers.

Upselling, backend selling and referral selling work together to increase the number of sales you net, without increasing advertizing budgets. Try it... you'll be surprised at how easy it is to increase your marketing effectiveness within your current customer audience.