Converting Your Website Leads to Sales

Your website exists either to sell products or generate leads that can be later converted into paying customers. In the former case, unless you sell inexpensive commoditized widgets, it takes several interactions with a prospective customer before you can close the sale. Therefore, a top priority of almost every online business is to gather, organize, and convert website leads to sales.

1. Gather leads

Most of website visitors who are interested in your products or services aren't ready to buy just yet, but they sure have some questions and would like additional information (if it's not too hard to obtain). Don't make them search for it -- put your contact information right in front of them. Every page of your website must have call for action and contact options that are impossible to miss. Some examples include:

- Ask a question via email
- Call your sales phone number
- Request an instant call-back
- Sign up for special offers
- Contact for a price quote
- Download product brochure
- Submit an inquiry form
- Chat live with a sales representative
- Subscribe for a newsletter

When gathering leads, stick to the KISS principle. Don't ask for more information than absolutely necessary. For example, if you only need to know your potential customer's state of residence, don't ask for a full mailing address. If you do all your sales via email, don't require a phone number, or at least make it optional.

Be sure to provide a clear, concise statement about how the information you collect will be used. Assure your prospects that their contact data will not be shared with other parties and they can stop receiving communications from you at any time.

2. Organize leads and prospects

Leads are useless unless they are properly organized. First, you must establish the systems and processes for recording all pertinent information for leads collected via different channels, such as website, incoming phone calls, trade shows and so on. Aside from the contact information, each prospective customer record should date and source, products and services of interest, subscription and contact preferences, and any other relevant data.

Your lead management system must also be able to record the history of all communications with a lead, such as incoming and outgoing emails, phone calls, voice mails, faxes, and items sent via postal mail. Each lead must be assigned to a sales representative, and categorized by the level of interest, size of opportunity, and sales pipeline status (more on that later). Sales reps should also be able to enter internal notes and comments about the prospect, and set reminders for the future follow ups.

Last, but not least, your lead system must be centralized. Every person involved in a sales process should have the ability to instantly access and update the information, without the need to upload, download, and synchronize the data. This is especially critical if members of your team are geographically dispersed or telecommuting.

3. Convert leads to prospects to customers

This is where the rubber hits the road. There is a number of distinct steps in any sales process. Below is a typical example of a sales process. You can easily adopt its stages and definitions to your situation:

Lead - a contact that has expressed an interest in your product or fits the target profile of a potential customer.

Prospect - a lead that continues to express interest in your product or service after a two-way information exchange.

Qualified prospect - a prospect that has participated in a discussion with a sales representative and confirmed their need.

Confirmed prospect - a qualified prospect who has the info they need to make a decision and budget to go with it.

Committed prospect - a qualified prospect who has reviewed your price quote or proposal and has indicated that she is ready to move forward with you – but haven't yet.

Customer - ka-ching!

You can use your sales pipeline status report to not only organize and monitor the effectiveness of your overall sales process and individual sales representatives, but to forecast sales as well. To estimate the dollar value of your entire prospect base, multiple the average probability of closing the sale at every stage of the pipeline by the number of prospects currently assigned to that stage.

Establishing and managing your lead conversion process is all but impossible without proper customer relationship management (CRM) tools. You will need a system that captures lead information from your website and other channels, and integrates it with email, contact manager, calendar, and sales force automation software.

The companies that have established the systems and processes for converting leads to sales are already reaping the rewards.

5 Keys to Building a Dynamic Self-Management Sales System

1) Identify Your Essential Competencies and Performance Metrics

If I asked you to list all the essential competencies that YOU are in control of - the ones that are absolutely critical for you to be successful in your sales positionЕcould you do it?

For exampleЕ

Essential Competency or not?

" Converting conversations to appointments? (yes it is)
" What about filling out paperwork? No! (That's a related task)
" What about closing ratio? (Sure it is.)
" Degree of success in turning a first appointment into an opportunity? (absolutely)

Get the picture?

Now, if you truly want to adopt a self-management system that will work FOR you - not against you, you first have to "access" what is an essential competency and what's merely a related competency.

To do this, sit down and list any sales metrics and performance numbers inter-related to your competency numbers and your desired revenue results. (Hint: "Sales Cycle" and "Average Revenue" per sale are two.)

2) Diagnose Your Business on a Single Sheet of Paper

If I ran into you on a train or in an elevator, would you be prepared to tell me what you do (and how it benefits me or those I know) - in under 1 minuteЕ

That's called your 30-second commercial. Most people don't have one, yet everybody needs one.

One way to understand more of the obvious benefits your products and services bring to the table is to start to view and diagnose your business more scientifically. You will also see how the numbers work and which areas are most important to your short and long-term success.

Ask yourselfЕWhat happens if your closing ratio reduces by 30% and your average revenue per sale increases by $2500? How does that affect your desired results?

Write your competency measurements and sales metrics on a sheet of paper. Calculate ratios in line with competencies and average numbers in line with your sales metrics. Assign your revenue object or quota. Play with the numbers and ratios to see how they are inter-related and how they affect each other.

3) Calculate your 'Magic Number'

"Not setting enough new appointments on a routine basis" is like a malignant cancerous growth slowly eating away at the heart of most sales organizations - - Jeff Hardesty.

The reason for this is because most of us do not identify how many new appointments are needed on a weekly basis based on individual competency numbers and performance metrics.

That's like diagnosing with blindfolds on.

Every one is different; we all have a 'Magic Number'. And it's personal to only you. If you routinely achieve it, you will routinely meet your desired results. Since it is a dynamic number that changes from week to week, it's important to understand how it is inter-related with other competency ratios, performance metrics and desired revenue results.

It's important to include your 'Magic Number' in your self-management system.

4) Train to the 'Napkin Rule'

The 'Napkin Rule' simple means, putting aside all those sales automation systems for 30 days and keep track of your essential competency and performance metrics on a single napkin.

Compute updates daily. Store the napkin in your pocket. When the napkin fills up, transfer it to a legal pad to show month to date. Have nothing else on the legal pad except your essential competency ratios and sales performance metrics. After 30 business days, transpose the legal pad metrics to your favorite computer software spreadsheet, and track it for 90 days.

This simple but powerful "Napkin Rule" will help you become the CEO of your business.

5) Run Your Numbers, Don't Run after Quota

Concentrate on your numbers NOT your quota so you can diagnose performance trends before a revenue crisis. Then you have the power to institute strategies and tactics for immediate recovery.

Here's why.

Reaching and exceeding sales quotas consistently has very little to do with product, pricing and competition. But it has everything to do with 'Process'.

Identify the core competencies that are necessary to be successful in your sales routine. Then train to Powerful Routines to increase your ratios of effectiveness. Document these meaningful business metrics and review them weekly. Build a simple but dynamic self-management system and outperform your peers and competition while assuring your revenue success.

10 top tips to become the worst sales person in your company

Have you ever had sales people who just never seem to make it no matter how hard they try? These sales people are one of the main factors for decline in business. Your sales people are the heart of your company and without good ones you will find it difficult to succeed in selling your products. To train good sales people you sometimes need to take a different approach.

Here are 10 tips that will save you from becoming the worst sales person in the company:

1.    Not being punctual: being on time is very important to a customer. Take into consideration that many of your seasonal Christmas customers will be new. Your sales people will represent the first contact these customers have with your company. First impressions are lasting ones and your sales person need to make a good impression. Being on time will give a good impression to the client and increase their confidence in your company.

2.    Poor presentation: some sales people just do not have all their ducks in a row and simply do not present the product well. A presentation is the first thing a customer will know about your product. If your product is not shown correctly to the customer he is very unlikely to buy.

3.    Bad attitude: rudeness and unprofessional behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances. It is quite surprising that you will meet some sales people who are just plain rude and short with you the consumer. This gives the potential buyer the wrong impression about your company. They do not get a proper picture of the product, as they will probably not even wait for the presentation to end. You will lose many sales like this.

4.    Not being articulate: a sales person must know how to express himself with confidence and fluency. He needs to be able to greet the prospect and introduce himself with assurance. This will start the whole presentation off to a good start. When he actually presents the product he must be sure to do this in a confident manner. He should also be prepared to answer all questions concisely and well. If your sales person cannot do this, your sale will not go through.

5.    Not listening to a customer: a sales person should not only be able to present your product but listen to the prospective buyer. There is nothing more irritating to the consumer than having a sales person go on about a product and not letting you ask a few simple questions. After all whose money is on the line here? Worse still is when you do finally get to ask your question and instead of giving you a straight answer they go off on a tangent and have clearly not been listening to you. This will make a customer angry and they will probably never do business with you.

6.    Basing a sale on cost: it is extremely risky for a sales person to depend on cost to close the sales. The prospective buyer will be quick to take advantage when he sees that the deal depends on the cost factor. He will drive the price as low as he can and you will take a heavy cut in profits for the sake of a sale. The buyer may hold off and then not even buy.

7.    Not knowing when to close a sale: This is a common fault but a lethal one. Many sales have been lost because the sales person did not know when to close the sale. A good sales person is in tune with the prospective buyer and knows instinctively when to move to close the sale.

8.    Hard sell: Hard sell is when sales people try to push the sale on the prospective customer. This will make the buyer aggressive and he will try to get rid of your sales person as soon as possible. It is a proven fact that nobody likes to be sold to.

9.    Inflexibility: a sales person should be aware of different personalities and various situations. They must be flexible and able to adapt to different circumstances. The presentation may be the same but the buyers are rarely the same. Each buyer wants to feel special and expects the sales person to understand his circumstances. Inflexibility will cost you many sales.

10.    Not following up a hot prospect: Follow up is very important. It is actually plain good manners. You have spoken to a person who has expressed interest in your company’s product but may not have been able to make a decision yet. It is courteous and good for business to follow up with hem. You may even make a sale this way. If your sales person does not know how to do this you will end up losing valuable customers and sales.