How to Get Sales Online

If you are a business owner then read this.

If you are not a business owner, then don't bother reading further. It won't be of any value to you.

As a business owner, this may be the most important article you've ever read.

In this article, I am going to teach you a three-step process to get sales online. Even if your business is offline.

If you implement this process properly in your business, sales will become predictable and you will no longer see marketing as an expense. You would see it as an investment.

What I am about to teach you isn't common knowledge, or common practice yet. But, it's beginning to spread, especially among smaller businesses who want to compete online, even if their business is offline.

It's for this reason that I wrote this article. I want to educate you first so that you can decide for yourself if it makes sense for your business, before you make any decisions.

Your responsibility as a business owner

As a business owner, you are responsible to ensure your business runs smoothly.

For any business to run smoothly, you need systems and processes.

Even if they are manual.

Most business owners focus on setting up systems and processes to create and deliver their products or services.

This is important, as it's the heart of your business.

It's what makes the money.

But, in most cases, there is another component of the business where most business owners don't do a good job.

Most business owners don't implement well-defined systems and processes to get sales.

And if they do try something, it's often very basic.

They do the equivalent of setting up an advert that says in big bold words. "Horse for Sale!" They may have some images, or even videos of the horse, but it's the same strategy.

And when nobody buys, they try to shout louder and more often.

Or, they may try another approach. Brand Building.

They think: "If I can only get my name out there. My business will be successful."

But most businesses don't have the budget and resources to succeed with these methods.

So, they run out of time and money.

It works for the big brands. But, they have millions to spend.

We need a new way

What if I told you that there is a new way to get sales online that turns marketing into an investment and not an expense?

And it works whether your business is online or offline.

And thousands of businesses are implementing it all over the world.

Would you be interested?

What if you put in time, money and effort into your sales process, just like you did with your products or services?

What would that systems and processes look like?

Dean Jackson, a well-known internet marketing expert, calls this part of the business the "Before Unit".

And he suggests that you look at your "Before Unit" as a separate business, with its own metrics.

Most people treat marketing as the equivalent of a slot machine.

You put a certain amount of money in. You pull the lever. And then you hope money comes out the other end. But that's not a strategy.

According to Jackson, you should treat your "Before Unit" as a vending machine.

If you put money in on the one side. You should know exactly what's going to come out the other side.

If you put in money and ask for a coke from a vending machine. You will get a coke.

That's exactly how your marketing should work.

Does this make sense?

I'm now going to show you a three-step process to get sales online. Even if your business is offline.

If you implement this process properly in your business, you will end up with a "Before Unit" that works.

Getting sales is probably the most important job in your business.

Without sales, there is no business.

So, pay attention to what I am about to say.

You must understand the process.

I'm going to make it as simple as possible without being too simplistic.

While this process works online, it worked long before the Internet was created.

Let me tell you Frank's story, from my childhood, which illustrates the process:

Frank's Story

While this is based on a true story, some incidents may not have occurred exactly the way I am telling it.

Frank started working his magic in our area when I was a kid of about 6-7 years old.

At the time he drove an old beaten up Toyota Corolla.

By the time I was in my late teens he drove a brand new BMW.

Now, that's not the only criteria for success. But it definitely is one.

You are probably wondering, "What was Frank's secret..."

It was only recently that I realised what Frank's secret was.

It was only after I studied many online marketing experts, that resonated with my thinking, that I realised was his secret was.

I often used to see Frank at my home as a child, having coffee with my parents.

They invited him in as a welcomed guest, not a pesky salesperson.

He would often sit with an open folder talking about papers and brochures in the folder.

I remember pictures of happy families, graphs and what I now believe to be projections.

I remember Frank tapping away on his calculator, writing something down and then talking to my parents about it.

This could easily go on for an hour or more.

Once, while he was packing up, I heard him ask my parents whether they knew anybody else with young kids.

My uncle lived around the corner and one of my father's good friends lived in our road. I remember my father giving him their contact details.

Frank sold life insurance and education policies. And our neighbourhood was new with a lot of young families.

Frank focused on the primal instincts of parents, which was to look after the well-being of their kids.

He knew that parents would put the well-being of their kids over their own well-being.

He could therefore offer them security in case something happened to them. And he could secure the future of their kids should they wish to study further one day.

He also knew that if he got the contact details from my parents, he could use that as a referral. Which was much better than approaching a cold lead.

He would then simply give the person a call, say where he got their details from, start the conversation and get an appointment to see them.

He just did this over and over.

I often used to see his car at different houses in the area.

When I visited my friends at their houses, I saw the same scenario play out.

Frank totally dominated the area.

Frank knew the secret to getting consistent sales.

The secret is hundreds of years old. It's been around since people started trading and going out to find business.

This secret works online. And it works even if your business is offline.

Here is the process:

• Get Leads
• Make Offers
• Follow Up

If you do this consistently. You're gold!

You will consistently get sales.

And you will build relationships.

Relationships lead to long-term customers and repeat sales.

If you do this properly, you will also become a welcomed guest, and not a pesky salesperson.

Frank had to do this manually at the time.

It was hard work going door to door, getting leads, making sales, and following up.

But he did it consistently for years. And reaped the rewards.

Today, technology has made it much easier

We can do it at scale with people anywhere in the world if we wanted to.

But, we could also do it locally and dominate our area, just like Frank did.

Unfortunately, the reality is that most small business owners don't do this.

They don't even know that the big online brands are doing this.

Businesses like Amazon do this remarkably well.

They know what you have purchased and use artificial intelligence to offer you products that they believe you will buy.

They can follow up with the right message to the right person.

Even the biggest Social Media Company in the world, Facebook, knows this.

Why Facebook spent $19 billion on WhatsApp

People thought they were crazy when they spent a Billion Dollars on Instagram.

So, when they purchased WhatsApp, people thought Zuckerberg was losing his mind.

But Facebook knew, what many didn't.

They knew the value of owning a list of that size.

And they were afraid that someone else would purchase it.

If this is new to you, let it sink in for a while.

It's the most important lesson you will ever learn about getting sales online.

To succeed online, you must build a list of qualified leads for what you have to sell.

The money is in the list. Or, more importantly, the money is in the relationship you have with your list.

But most small business owners don't do this.

Let's have a look at some of the methods used and their effectiveness.

Let's start with Social Media

They start with a Facebook account for example.

Everybody has a Facebook page. So they set one up for their business.

They spend years and lots of effort to grow their Fan Base to a few thousand.

Yet when they try to sell something on their Facebook Page, Facebook throttles their post and only shows it to a few people.

Facebook wants you to 'pay to play'. They want you to pay to reach the audience that you put so much effort into building.

Facebook owns your Fans. They are not leads that you can contact and communicate with easily.

Now, let's look at websites

The small business owner may set up a website for their business.

Because everybody has a website, it must be the right thing to do.

They set up a beautiful website that showcases everything they have to offer.

It even has the history of the company and the story of the founders.

It has their mission and vision statement.

It has links to all their products and services.

It may even have a link to blog posts and YouTube videos.

Visitors come to the website. They like what they see.

They browse around, read some material, click on a few links, watch some videos...

And then leave!

Never to be seen again.

Imagine owning a car dealership and someone walking in the door.

Your salesperson walks up to them, hands them a brochure and then walks away.

Sounds crazy right?

Yet this is what we are doing every day with our websites.

The big brands can afford to do this. They can send hundreds of thousands, even millions, to their websites.

And if only a small percentage buys, they are okay. It still makes them millions.

But we, as small business owners can't do this.

We will run out of time and money.

So what should we do?

Remember, the secret to getting consistent sales?

• Get Leads
• Make Offers
• Follow Up

Do this consistently and you're gold.

Sales Funnels

The system to do this online is called a sales funnel.

The reason that it's called a sales funnel is that it's wider at the top where leads come in and narrow at the bottom where customers and money come out.

This process can be drawn in the shape of a funnel, as in the image below:

If you set up a sales funnel, and build a database of leads, prospects and customers, then your cost to communicate with them reduces to virtually zero.

Unlike Facebook and your Website, where you have to pay continuously to get them to see what you have to offer, your Sales Funnel is a communication channel that you own.

You can broadcast whatever and whenever you want to on that channel.

And it won't cost you anything more.

We are fortunate today that we can automate this process online.

We can set up a Web Page to get the lead by offering something in return for their contact details.

Once they leave their contact details, we can take them through our sales process.

We can send them directly to our sales page, our e-commerce site, or to our stores.

We can sell them our products or services.

We can offer a discount, a coupon, a free trial, a free lesson, or something else that will get them closer to the first sale.

The choice is ours.

They either buy or they don't.

In either case, we can decide how we want to follow up.

We can also follow up regularly with them to build a relationship.

By adding value to the relationship we can build a long term relationship.

We can also get long-term clients and repeat clients.

We are in control of how often we communicate and what we communicate.

We could even ask them for referrals.

All things are possible once we have the contact details of the lead.

And the beautiful thing about this is that a lot of it can be automated.

Warning!!!

Be careful about how you treat your leads. Most people handle the relationship wrong. They do the equivalent of a marriage proposal even before they have the first date by bombarding the lead with sales messages.

If they don't buy the first time the solution is not to shout louder and more often.

Treat the first encounter like inviting somebody to go on a first date with you.

Don't start with a marriage proposal!

Communicate regularly, add value to the relationship and you will build long-term relationships. The result will be consistent sales for a long time.

Once you have an Automated Sales Funnel, then all you have to do is send people to your Web Page and let the Sales Funnel do its job.

Interested people will leave their contact details and become a qualified lead.

You then take them through your sales process.

Some will buy, some won't. Some will stay and some will leave.

But, over time you will build a list of valuable leads and customers or clients.

This list can be worth more than your whole business is worth right now.

Remember Instagram and WhatsApp?

Do you see the value of having a Sales Funnel for your business?

If you are like most small business owners you are probably worried that this could be complex and expensive to implement.

It would be if you had to build it from scratch.

But, you don't have to do that.

Making it simple for business owners

I designed, built and managed business systems in the corporate world for over thirty years.

I've seen how much time, effort and money they invest in systems.

They do this because they know the competitive advantage good systems can give them.

But, I also feel the pain of small business owners.

I know you don't have the money, resources or expertise to build a sales funnel and compete with the big brands.

As I built my Online Training Academy and my Online Magazines, I kept this in mind.

One of my projects is an online Magazine, Cricket Fanatics Magazine.

We've been publishing multiple articles and Videos daily for a year and a half.

We've set up a multi-platform publishing infrastructure to do this.

We have all the Social Media, The Website and Automation set up for our magazine and subscribers.

We now have a solution to help small business owners have their own sales funnels so that they can automate their sales process online, without having to worry about the technical details.

This can be hosted with us, or your own dedicated host.

We've invested in the infrastructure, expertise and processes to publish online so that you don't have to.

Case Studies

But, before I offer this as a service to a wider audience, I'm taking on some case studies to test the viability of working with small businesses.

I know how to do this, but I would like to work with a few small business owners so that I can better understand the problems they have.

This is what I will do with you:

• I will meet with you for four one hour sessions to design your sales funnel.
• I will document your sales process and do the copywriting for the pages.
• I will then set up an automated email system that can store up to 500 leads and customers.
• I will then integrate and automate everything.

All you have to do is send people to the Web Page I will build for you.

And then let the Sales Funnel work to get leads, make offers and follow up.

And you can do this without spending a fortune, or the technical headaches.

We use the scientific way: Do. Measure. Learn.

You will then be able to make decisions about your business based on what's working well, what's not working well, and what can be improved in your online sales process.

We can also help you with Facebook advertising and driving traffic to your site if you need it.

If you want advertorials or videos, we can help you with that as well.

Now that you are aware of a Sales Funnel.

Can you see how it would work for your business?

Your Questions Answered

To answer all your questions about whether a Sales Funnel is right for your business, click on the button below to book a Free Call.

I will answer all your questions so that you can make the right decision for your business.

After speaking to me, you will know immediately whether a Sales Funnel is right for your business.

A working sales funnel is the best thing you can do right now to get sales online. Even if your business is offline.

Once you have your first sales funnel, you can then add more advanced sales funnels to grow and scale your business even further.

And it all starts with the simple process:

• Get Leads
• Make Offers
• Follow Up

Do this. And you're gold!

But, I have to make this disclaimer:

There are no guarantees in business. We as businesses owners know that business is a calculated risk. It all depends on the products you sell, or services you provide.

What I can guarantee is an automated sales funnel that can get leads, make offers and follow up.

Need more information?

You can also download my free book, which is a quick read, but shows you exactly how a sales funnel works and how it can help you get sales online. Even if your business is offline.