Read this one for yourself. There are currently thousands of members and my team is making rain across the board…
Of course, there is more to it than this, but quick response times (under 5 minutes is the standard) and good follow-up make selling online simple… not easy, but simple.
Here is another blog post outlining the absolute essential nature of a sense of urgency.
All the best,
Chris
Move quickly online and you'll win
Christopher Moline, LEED AP
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It’s a common message in my inbox – “Wow, thanks for the quick response!”
It’s not too difficult – just reply within 5 minutes and you are ahead of the game. In fact, your reply does not have to be perfect or well though out. Most times it just takes a simple “Thanks for the email, [one of my staff] will touch base with you soon to talk about your project.”
This brief reply usually serves as glue and stops the online shopper in their seat.
Whenever a fellow business owner tells me they don’t “waste” money online, I bite my tongue.
Why?
Because it’s not rocket science unless your mind is closed to learning a new way to deal with inquiries and online clients – their way. I’ve actually gone to several websites owned by people who’ve told me their online efforts are not paying off.
How long do you think it took them to respond to my inquiry?
Wayyyy longer than 5 minutes. In fact, in some cases, the response came over a week later. I would liken this to saying “My new Porsche is a piece of junk” when you’re putting diesel fuel in the engine and starting out in 3rd gear. Not smart.
As we used to say in the transportation industry -
It’s not the truck… it’s the nut behind the wheel!
According to a study by MIT’s Sloan School of Management, responding to web-generated leads in under 5 minutes increases close rates by 800 percent! Is there anything else in sales that can have such significant impact on close rates?
Click here to learn more http://alexandriacarpetone.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/using-the-web-to-increase-sales-a-sense-of-urgency-is-your-most-valuable-asset/
Give it a shot!
All the best,
Chris
Christopher Moline, LEED AP
Move quickly online and you'll win
I recently received an email from a flooring business owner who realized he needed help. He, unlike many others, saw the need and asked me to be brutally honest. Although I held back, here is some of the information I gave him.
“3 things really quick
1 – Make sure each page title is descriptive of where you are and what you do.
The index page should be “tile remodeling contractor [your region]” – [your region] for me is “dc metro northern virginia area”.
Keep it to under 15 words or so.
-This helps with search engines more than most people realize.
Then, go to your homepage and look up at the blue bar.
-It says “Home –” This tells Google it should be bored… and Google doesn’t like to be bored.
For your “About Us” page, you may want to try a different title like “kitchen, bath, shower and tile remodeling in [your area] (I’d prefer a county or region so you don’t limit yourself).
You would be amazed at how well this pays off.
2 – Sign up for Sitemeter at http://www.sitemeter.com/ and get their counter on your page.
Pay for the option that lets you hide the counter.
It also will tell you exactly which search strings people used to get to you under “Referrals”.
You can then identify the crap ones or the golden ones.
I, for instance, hope never to be found on any of my over 20 sites and 3 blogs for a search for “cheap [product X] dc”.
You will, I guarantee, over time see the above-mentioned page titles start showing up as search strings for how people got to you.
Then, you tweak them even more.
3 – Give each page a starting line of text and try not to have text be an image.
Google is looking for text and it can’t read a picture.
For instance – “Welcome to the page of …” won’t help unless someone is looking specifically for you. However, it won’t get it because “Owners – …” is the first line of text. Shoot for something above that which says something to the effect of “Locally-owned tile, kitchen, bath remodelers in …” or something. You’ll get the hang of it. Try some searches with your customer’s mindset and see what you find out. I’ll be they’ve got page titles and text… or they’re lucky! Remember, online, folks don’t care about us…
4 – Man, I’ve got so much more because my team sells hundreds of thousands to online leads each quarter and I’ve been doing this for years.
Once you’ve got these first three, let me know and I’ll hook you up further. Once you get the hang of some of this, I’ll set you up w/ Google analytics and webmaster tools. But, first things first. The business I sold made me boat loads of sales and it gets more and more fun.”
Jim is going to do well in part because he doesn’t think he knows everything and is not overly-sensitive to constructive criticism.
That’s my kind of client!
All the best,
Chris
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