Increase Your Qualified Leads

Are you finding it more challenging than ever to create a consistent flow of leads to your sales staff? Here is something to consider .... 

I have had conversations with different companies lately about the topic of Lead Generation. An idea that has surfaced is leveraging content products/programs to create a Lead Generation System. 

A Lead Generation System that keeps you in regular interaction with your prospects ..... consistently building trust and rapport .... positioning you as a thought leader/expert in your field.

One type of content product that is being created today that makes a great foundation for a Lead Generation System is a continuity program. It is based on delivering monthly high value content to your customers. Today's cloud based technology platforms are easy to use, secure web portals allowing online access to content with a user name and password you provide. They can be set up for costs that don’t stand in the way of getting started. The main considerations are often how much content, traffic, and interaction you want. You’ll also want to ensure your platform can fully integrate with your customer relationship management software.

If your sales strategy includes Channel Partners, you could even partner with each of them. A great offering to approach your channel partners with to enable you to work together to engage your common target buyers. You can co-create and together provide your prospects a co-branded offering that is actually a Lead Generation System for you.  

When creating your continuity program/Lead Generation System, you need to identify what kind of content your prospects/customer considers high value. Help them access information they need, get better at doing something, gain more skill at something or accomplish a specific goal or outcome. Decide how often you want and need to release information to your prospects/customers? Once a week? Bimonthly? Monthly?

Typically you would charge a monthly subscription fee for this kind of product, but it would be provided at no cost to a prospect/customer when this product concept is used as the foundation for your Lead Generation System.

The following are some idea generators for the types of content you could include in your "branded"VIP Program that generates qualified leads for you:

• Monthly video ... an hour in length that teaches a select topic
• Monthly video interview of a recognized thought leader/expert on a select topic .... 30 to 45 minutes in length .... 
• Webinar Rebroadcasts
• White Papers
• Case Studies
• Tools/Templates
• VIP Customer Service Access
• Online Forums

Hopefully I have sparked an idea that can help you create a Lead Generating System that can increase your sales ........ take some action today. No longer worry about how to get enough qualified leads in the hands of your sales staff. Let me know if I can help!!


Follow @PatAlacqua

Stop Wondering How To Sell Online - THIS IS IT!

I received several questions lately and all are trying to get at the same basic question ...... "If I already have products or services, how can I sell them online and use the insights you have been sharing in your last few blog posts?"

If your objective is to remain focused on your current products and services and to implement a strategy to sell them online, I recommend you create online sales campaigns. These sales campaigns should include content products that you choose to leverage in one or both of the following ways:

1. Provide high value content packaged in a product at no cost you include as part of your campaign when reaching out to your prospect .... if the content product is something that addresses a real need for your prospect, it will go a long way in building trust and rapport with your prospect. Thus creating a higher level of probability the prospect will buy your product online .... removing the need to involve a sales person ....... or if you want to continue to make the sale through a sales person, it will increase the probability the prospect will take your call and/or a meeting with you to learn how they can get more value by buying your products/services.
2. Another alternative for your consideration is the same approach as number 1, but also bundle another content product with your core product for even more value if they buy from you. 

You may recall in a previous blog, I outlined a sample for what an online sales campaign might look like. The following is that outline:

The sales campaign model looks something like this:

• Target customer receives 3 well written/scripted emails .... each 2 or 3 days apart. With each email is a video that is high value content teaching something that can be used to address a real need at no cost to the target customer. The key here is that the sales person is delivering the value in the video without any focus on making a pitch to sell something to the target customer .... creating trust and rapport along the way. 
• The 4th email and video is where the pitch to sell something is made. In the video, your salesperson who has been positioned as a thought leader/expert and has delivered high value content .... now communicates .... if you liked what we have provided you in the 3 part video series, let me tell how you can get more by buying our products and services. 

Each of the emails sent out as part of the online campaign are scripted/written to add value through the video product series that is provided at no cost. The content is created and packaged using a framework that clearly shows how to move from point A to Point B ..... thus learning your topic as quickly as possible in the right sequencial steps. Which is what everyone wants to accomplish when they are learning something. They might not put it in these words, but they are saying .... get me from where I am (Point A) to where I want to be (Point B) as fast as possible.  

I talk to so many people who want to transition to online sales and don't know how to approach it. The approach is to create an online sales campaign that includes a "stand-alone" content product you have created for your target prospect/customer. This content product provides such high value to address your prospects needs .... they want to learn how they can buy from you to get more. The more is your core products/services.

Stop looking for "how to" use online sales to increase your revenues .... This Is The Approach .... GET STARTED TODAY! Let me know how I can help!

Follow @PatAlacqua

Differentiate Your Company & Sales Staff

In my last blog post, I talked about "how to" monetize content products/programs. I outlined 4 approaches.

Today I want to get you thinking how you can differentiate your company and your sales staff with 1 of the approaches you can use for selling.

Consider one of your experienced sales people as I get you thinking about a new & different approach to close sales.

The following 5 steps are what it takes to implement an approach that will differentiate you from competition while increasing sales results.

1. Create a positioning story that will get your prospects to perceive both your company & sales person as thought leader/expert in a select topic area. This story will then be integrated into communications with them.
2. Create content products & programs that your prospects will be able to take what they learn and use to address their needs. We talked about how to get started creating these in my last blog. The key here is that your sales person is the primary messenger in the videos or other formats that are used for content product creation.   
3. Create a web page and You Tube channel for the sales person that tells the positioning story you created in step 1 above.  More on what is included on web page later.
4. Use a scalable cloud based content technology platform that includes a private customer portal and auto-responder ...  inexpensive and easy to use. Nothing to install .... nothing to support .... you just focus on product creation and sales. 
5. Create your online sales campaigns that launch when your sales person targets a prospect, when a prospect visits your web site or You Tube channel and when connecting with a prospect through a channel partner.

The following is included on the web page that is created:

• A video that features a content product/program. This video and featured content product should change out periodically. The visitor watches the video ... the video communicates that once the person provides their contact info, they will have immediate access to a 3 part video series. This video series begins the sales campaign. 
• Sales person's BIO.
• Overview of content products & programs. When someone clicks thru to learn more, they are taken to an optin landing page that gets their contact info and then the online sales campaign begins. More on the campaign model later.
• Pictures and videos that reinforce the sales person's positioning story.

The sales campaign model looks something like this:

• Target customer receives 3 well written/scripted emails .... each 2 or 3 days apart. With each email is a video that is high value content teaching something that can be used to address a real need at no cost to the target customer. Again, the key here is that the sales person is delivering the value in the video without any focus on making a pitch to sell something to the target customer .... creating trust and rapport along the way. 
• The 4th email and video is where the pitch to sell something is made. In the video, your salesperson who has been positioned as a thought leader/expert and has delivered high value content .... now communicates .... if you liked what we have provided you in the 3 part video series, let me tell how you can get more by buying our products and services. 

Get started today. Use this approach to differentiate you with your competition and increase your sales results. Take one or 2 of your sales people and create a pilot to implement and evaluate results. 

If I can be of any help, just give me a holler. I can coach you through the process from strategy to implementation .... even take on some of the activities for you if you need some bandwidth to create the "pilot."

 
Follow @PatAlacqua

"How To" Monetize Knowledge & Experience

I got some great feedback by email on my last blog about using online sales campaigns to increase your sales. Included with this feedback were some questions I will take the time to answer today.

• When considering product strategy, what are some alternatives for monetizing information/content products & programs?
• How do I get started creating content products & programs?

These are some alternatives for you to consider for leveraging information/content products and programs:

1. Provide VALUE (free) as part of your selling process to your prospects to more quickly build trust and rapport so they will want to buy your core products/services.
2. Bundle content products & programs with your core product/service packages to add value and increase sales of your core product/service packages.
3. Create new revenue streams from the sales of content products & programs.
4. Create internal training programs and systems for onboarding staff into new roles.

Once you build the creation of content products and programs into your operating processes (this is not hard), you will identify other ways aside from the 4 alternatives above to consider when setting strategies.

I will now take a few moments to address the other question .... How do I get started creating content products and programs?

Stay focused on the fact that people who are looking for advice and "how to" information always want the same thing. They want to shorten their learning curve. They want to get from Point A to Point B as fast and effectively as possible.

So ..... identify Point B .... begin with the end in mind .... what is the goal your target prospects/customers want to reach ... for example, what they want to learn ... want to achieve ... want to have .... and so on.

Once you identify the goals your prospects/customers want to reach, then breakdown the sequencial steps to get there. Take a high level approach initially to identifying these steps so you have 4 to 7 in total. This framework will begin to shape how to get from Point A to Point B. This begins to help you organize what you will teach/communicate for each part of your framework.

Let's use Steven Covey as an example. The approach he had great success with when he wrote his book. Many of you have read or have heard of his book ..... 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When he began the planning process to write the book, he identified the outcome (Point B) people were reaching for as ... taking control of your life and becoming a highly effective person.

He then created the following step-by-step framework to get there:

1. Be Proactive
2. Begin With The End In Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win/Win
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen The Saw

Once he created the 7 steps to becoming an effective person, he began to organize all his thoughts around each of the steps in the framework ... he identified his main points, provided examples of each main point, told stories to demonstrate what he meant and then provided step-by-step directions on how to learn and apply each step in the framework.  This enabled people to learn more quickly and effectively. If you were to go back and look at his book, you will see he arranged his thoughts with this type of framework.

Stephen Covey then took his framework and created many different types of information products/programs. Of course the book was one. He went into corporations and taught people to train others within their companies. He created seminar programming. I could go on and on with the products he created around his framework, but I believe you get the "gist."

TAKE YOUR OWN STEPS TODAY.... leverage content products and programs to increase your sales ...... GET STARTED CREATING the products and programs you can provide your target prospects and customers to help them reach their goals and objectives. 

 
Follow @PatAlacqua

Increase Your Sales Results

In my last blog, I mentioned I believe the new best practices for the online product marketing industry will find their way into the more traditional phone and face to face selling approaches. I received a number of email responses asking how I saw this working .... thought I would use this opportunity to communicate some of my thoughts.

As you target your prospects and start to think about what you will say in that 1st e-mail you draft when reaching out to them, consider planning out your own sales campaign. I won't take the time in this blog to discuss exactly what you should be saying as you communicate throughout the process of trying to get a sale. The sales psychology and "hooks" to address in communications is for another blog .... I will focus on what the sales campaign process might look like.

As a part of the process, I recommend you use video. Today's technology makes this very easy with virtually no cost to do so. Trust me ... this can be easily done....it can also be something you can use over and over in your selling process. 

Knowing how hard it is to reach someone by phone or in person in the early stages of the selling process, video provides you the fastest path to creating trust and rapport in your communications.

If the objective of a sales campaign is to sell an information product, I would create a sales campaign a certain way. In this blog, I am assuming you have a product or service that you are currently selling over the phone or in person and will continue to do so.

Consider an approach where you understand your buyer needs. If you want to clarify that for yourself, answer the following questions about your buyer.

1. What are the things you have learned that your prospects/customers should know and don't?
2. What are the things that frustrate your prospects/customers?
3. What terrifies your prospects/customers the most about what they do?
4. Most of your prospects/customers have no idea how to do ...... 
5. What are the questions your prospects/customers seem to always have?
6. What are the questions your prospects/customers should be asking and they are not yet asking?
7. What do your prospects/customers need to double the results they need to produce in their role?
8. How can you add more value for your prospects/customers?

As you think through your responses above, consider what topics would add value for your prospects/customers. These topics will begin to create your path to identifying what information you can provide your prospect that will help them with a challenge or obstacle they are facing. Now you package this information into a 3 part video series that you integrate into your sales campaign.  

1. Send email #1 with video #1 to your prospect ...
2. 2 or 3 days later, send email #2 with video #2 to your prospect ...
3. 2 or 3 days later, send email #3 with video #3 to your prospect ...
4. 2 or 3 days later, reach out with your 1st call.

Very important to remember .... don't try to sell your prospect anything in your 1st 3 emails & 3 videos. All you are doing is helping them with a challenge or obstacle they face regardless of whether or not they buy anything from you. You don't begin to sell until you make your connection by phone.

When you reach out for that 1st call, you will have already provided them real value in what you taught them in the video series .... as a sales professional told me over lunch today, "it sorta takes consultative selling to a whole new level."

Through the use of video, they have gotten to know you a little ... you have started to build some real rapport assuming your video was created with truly high value content to them ... addressing a real need they have.

You will tell them if the information you provided through the videos was of real value, you can help them even more through your products and services they can buy from you.   

There are effective ways to script your emails and video content that are important details for another time. Consider the sales campaign process at this point in time. There are no obstacles to implementing this approach. Today's technology platforms and video capture methods are easy to setup and can be managed right at your desk.

If you are a sales person responsible for your own sales results or playing a role in sales management & responsible for growing sales through your sales force, TAKE ACTION TODAY. 

You will find this online sales campaign approach will produce better results .... it will also create a buzz that will differentiate you in your market.

Good luck .... let me know if I can help!

Follow @PatAlacqua