How To Sell To Other Businesses

Business to marketing seems like a foreign language to many people who are trying it for the first time. The consumer markets seems so much plainer and easier, after all, we're dealing with every day people. With businesses we feel we are dealing with some mysterious entity or some divine VIP, a thing whose persona is foreign to everything we knew in the every day human consciousness.

The reality that most people miss, and it's a well-kept secret, businesses are people. They are decision makers, executives, highly paid company officers, and even midgrade managers. At the end of the day though, they are people, selling to other businesses is no different than selling to people, except that you have to consider the kind of person you're selling to. Much of this involves trying to get into a person's head. What does a business owner or manager need and/or want? What things will improve their lives, and more importantly, the operations of their business? Answering these questions is the first key to selling to other businesses.

1: Identify Your VIP

The first step in creating a strong pitch for your product and service is considering your VIP, there may be more than one to consider depending on how the decisions are made. You have to know who you're selling to and then consider how your business can benefit them personally. As we discussed, you're dealing with real people, and they taking their own needs and desires into consideration as well as their roles in serving the greater needs of the company. Is your contact a buyer, a manger, or a business owner?

Depending on who you're speaking to, you'll want to come with ideas and features about what you have to offer and how it makes their lives easy as well benefiting their employer.

2: Don't Just Sell, Give Them Something They Can Use

Whoever your VIP may be, you can expect that someone has found them too, and they probably get multiple pitches a day for what you have to offer. A simple letter with a sales pitch is no longer enough to draw people in anymore. Because of this, you want to attach your sales pitch to something they can use. Many companies do this by offering white papers. White papers may be written as guides on important industry topics and trends, and may even highlight problems the industry is facing. This can be accompanied by a pitch explaining how you offer a solution. Either way the white papers are free and useful, so there's no harm in reading.

Writing effective white papers isn't easy, but it can be done.

3: Start With Value Over Price

When you're making a pitch to any business, you may find yourselves in the middle of a bidding war. Too many entrepreneurs focus in only on their prices as a way to put their best foot forward. While pricing certainly is important, it's far more vital to highlight the value your product has to offer. What can your product do that others can't. Can it save the company time or money even while requiring an investment? Can it make life easier for managers or help improve employee morale and productivity?

When you're making your bid don't advertise that you are cheap. If anything this will raise red flags if it's all you have to offer.

4: Highlight The Business Benefits

Whether it's in consumer to consumer or business to business marketing, even professionals have made this terrible mistake in copy-writing. Never just tell someone about the features of what you have to offer. Features are boring and no one wants to hear you list them all day long. They want to know how what you have to offer is going to solve a common problem. Just don't tell them “My computers have a lot of RAM” but instead consider, “Are you tired of losing valuable company time and money waiting for your computers to load? With our CPUs high RAM capability your upload, download, and processing speeds will be through the roof. You'll save time, money, and your business will be moving at lightning speed when processing your data!”

Benefits are everything. Nobody wants to know what you can do, everyone wants to know what you can do “For me”

5: Make it Easy To Act

Your call to action (CTA) is the grand finale of any pitch you write. It needs be dazzling and out of the park, but more importantly, it needs to be easy to act upon. Links in emails should be large, thought not obnoxious, and easy to see and click on, and MUST NOT BE BROKEN OR INACCURATE. Contact info should be prominent, accurate, and very visible. Like it or not, nobody likes a hassle. If your final pitch is hard to act on, even a little, or your lead finds it hard to get in touch you may lose your sale to someone else out of sheer convenience.


6: Gather Leads
This probably should have been the first step, but you need to gather solid prospective leads to sell to. It means nothing if you have the greatest product in the world and killer sales pitch to back it up, and no relevant people to sell it to. Gathering leads can be tricky, but made much easier by programs like Macroleads that help you organize, streamline, and even somewhat automate the process.

How A Themed Promotion Can Boost Your Sales

Any special promotions can help you drive sales, especially those sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy from you. However, offering seasonal or holiday themed promotions can help even more, as prospects not only immediately understand that it’s a limited time deal for a good reason, but you’ll also hit them up during a peak buying period.

For example, the vast majority of people are probably already buying lots of stuff over Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, etc., so you can ride that wave while they already have their credit cards out, while also standing out amongst the crowd of competitors by having something that they perceive as a special deal.  

Similar to other promotions, it’s often best to have these be very limited time deals (even if you bring them back multiple times) so prospects don’t have the opportunity to sit on the fence too long. Three or so days is often the perfect amount of time to offer a special promotional deal, as long as you give them many reminders along the way.  For instance, if you have an email list and are offering a three day special promotional offer, we recommend mailing once on day 1, twice on day 2, and three times on day 3. Using this method will get you a lot of sales on that last day, especially during the last hours when they know there’s no time left!

One observation that we’ve had over the years, which many business owners seem to ignore or be unaware of, is that even “after the holiday” sales can be huge, especially for big holidays when people are often still at home, bored, and looking to buy or do something. We’ve run several webinars and special deals right after Christmas when most marketers in our niche were afraid to schedule anything then, yet that period of time would often get some of the highest amount of sales and webinar attendance. Don’t assume that everyone is out visiting with friends and family. Some (okay … maybe all???) are looking for a break or just aren’t traveling then, so it can be the perfect time to run a special offer or schedule a special event!

During holidays, different seasons, or any other special time of the year, it’s a good idea to create themed promotions with special offers to not only drive extra sales, but to also stand out from the rest of the competition during high sales periods.

For other marketing tricks to help increase your sales, check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How To Position Your Offer To Increase Sales

In many cases it can be a wise idea to offer multiple similar packages when selling something. However, instead of offering drastically different offerings, which might make your prospects hesitate more due to not being sure which option to get, you can offer similar options where the “value buy” seems like an amazing deal.

For example, let’s say that you’re selling an SEO service to help websites rank better. If your main offer is a done for you package for $997 where you fix up their site and offer some basic consultations for them too, that can normally seem like a lot of money to some people and can make them hesitate more on if they should buy or not. However, you could offer three options where the “basic” package is for $897 and only includes a report where you identify the issues but don’t fix it for them, the “most popular” package is for $997 and includes identifying and fixing all the issues on top of three free consultation calls, and the “elite” package is for $1,997 and includes everything in the most popular package but also includes unlimited consultation calls for a month.

What this does is that almost everyone thinks that the middle, “most popular” package is the best deal. It’s only a little more than the basic package, but it includes a TON of extra value. Whereas the “elite” package is twice the price but only has some extra consultation calls that most people think they’ll never use. All of a sudden people perceive the $997 option as being cheap and a great deal! The other options aren’t meant to necessarily get sales. They’re simply meant to help make your main offer stand out more.

And by literally writing something like Basic Package, Most Popular, and Elite Package next to the options, you can help them differentiate between them even more and gravitate towards the Most Popular one.

You just have to be crystal clear with them (in bold colors and / or graphics) what the best or most popular options are, and really make it seem like it’d be dumb not to go with the offer you want them to take.

This also has the added benefit of making your “most popular” or “best” option seem cheap when it’s only a bit more than your basic package. If you didn’t have your basic package, they might think that your offer is expensive, but when they see it as being only a tinge more than the basic, their mindset changes from “that’s too expensive!” to “that’s only a bit more than this basic offering here … what a deal!”

So consider offering multiple packages like a Basic, Most Popular, and Elite Package where the value of the Most Popular one seems huge in order to make more people gravitate towards it and see it as a crazy good deal.

For more great marketing and positioning tips to increase your sales, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

What Should Be In A Good Blog Post And Why

It would not be wrong to say that people’s interest in blogging has hit the highest point in recent years. Some people believe that blogs are dying, but more accurate they're evolving. Make no mistake, blogs are here to stay, but they're more competitive than ever. With social media, freelancing, and SEO becoming widely used around the world, the trend of blogging has dramatically increased in recent times. Millions of blogs are being written on a daily basis, but there are some basic tips and techniques which should be implemented in every excellent and engaging blog post you write.

Captivating Title and Headline

Many writers tend to ignore the fact that a good blog post is always about just one idea. There is no need to add numerous ideas and topics in a single blog post because the primary purpose of a post is to discuss and elaborate on one idea. A good title is the one that captures the readers’ attention at the very first glance and briefly describes the content of the post. It should be based on the pattern of an engaging magazine headline or a newsflash that attracts the user and forces them to click the link.

You should take time in crafting a fantastic headline for your post because it will be the first item that any readers see, and if it is not catchy enough for the user, you may lose a potential reader.

An Engaging Opening Paragraph

The importance of the first impression of a user cannot be understated. A large amount of data is available on the web that will support this. With all the content out there, it has become much more challenging to hold readers' attention. No one's going to read for an extended period of time, unless the content is unique and engaging.

An opening paragraph of a blog post is crucial to keep your reader interested in your writing. Blog posts should always start with something interesting like an amazing quote, a thought-provoking question, or a bold statement.

Targeted Audience

A good blog post is the one which targets a specific audience, depending on the topic and relevance of the post. In order to write a good post, you should know who your audience is and what they are searching for. Targeting an audience is vital to make sure your content reaches the right kind of readers who are interested in the category on which the post is written. A post that's targeted is more effective in attracting more traffic to your blog as well as keeping the readers glued.

Many blogs become successful by smartly guessing the demands and interest of their audience; however, it should be done in a professional way. Consider using different tools available on the internet to determine the requests your readers might make. Some of these tools might include Twitter Advanced Search, Keyword Tools. SEMrush, and many others.

Unique and Interesting Content

Excellent blog posts not only manage to capture the reader's attention through engaging headlines and opening sentences but also maintain interest throughout the post. The content of any blog post should be exciting and unique. Make sure the reader isn't bored and reads the the entirety of your content. Any point or opinion discussed in the post should be supported by some evidence or logic to present your thoughts clearly to the readers. High authority, trustworthy links are great when possible. Clear, comprehensive, and unambiguous writing always attracts the readers and keeps them involved.

Using Subheadings And Smaller Paragraphs

A well-presentable blog post is essential to make it easily readable for the users. Majority of the people skim through a blog post before deciding to read it, so it is important to format the blog posts properly. It can be done by dividing a post into several headings and subheadings with small paragraphs to clearly indicate the topic of each section.

Using bullet points and numbering can be done to make it easy on the reader’s eyes and keep them engaged throughout the article. Design, style, and format of the blog should be selected appropriately according to the type of blog.

Some the tips in using bullet points are:

• Treat the bullets as small headings to write concise and clear points.
• The bullets should be symmetrically formatted.
• Avoid excessive bullet points

Images

Visual content is the tried and tested method of immediately capturing the user’s attention. Captivating pictures can boost the traffic of your blog quickly and easily. You should take or design your own unique images for the blog. If you can't find or design original images yourself, there are numerous online free resources available to get the photos for your content. Consider programs like Canva, websites like Pexels, Morguefile, and Pixabay for open-sourced, copyright free photos.

SEO Optimization

SEO is an essential part of any kind of online content, including blogs. Organic searches are a huge part of the traffic blogs will see. Your content must follow the SEO best practices and the media used in your website is SEO optimized for higher ranking on the search engine result pages.

Some of the tips of optimizing a blog post are:

• Write an appropriate meta title
• The meta description should be added to clearly describe the post
• Focus keywords should be used
• Images and video should be optimized.
• Using internal links for optimization.

If you need any help in setting up a blog and writing good and captivating blog posts, you should considered Robot Author for further help with streamlining the process of creating great online content for your blog.

How Affiliate Programs Are A Great Way To Bring In More Sales With Less Effort

Want a way to make sales without paying for any ads and with zero risk of losing money in doing so? The obvious answer is a big YES, but very few business owners take advantage of running their own affiliate programs, which can do exactly that!

Affiliate programs are where you offer others a cut of any sale that they send your way. When this is done online, there’s traditionally special “affiliate links” that they get from you. When they send people through those links that later buy from your site, they’d get credited for and paid a percentage of the sale. You can do a similar concept offline just by letting others refer your prospects directly (and manually crediting them), or even by handing out special “unique” coupon codes to others to hand out to their prospects so you know where they came from. This could be a special coupon that you hand out, with a code or ID on it, so you know where it came from. Regardless, in either case you only pay them after a sale is made, which makes it virtually risk free for you.

If you go the online route, there’s various places you can sign-up to, in order to have your offers on their networks, like Clickbank.com, Amazon.com (which is great to sell on just by itself), CJ.com, etc., as they can instantly let affiliates sign-up for and start promoting your offers. Alternatively, there’s also private affiliate programs/scripts out there that you can get free or for fairly cheap to run your own affiliate program without the need for another network.

Regardless of which route you go, don’t expect to magically get lots of affiliates signing up and promoting your offer without you raising a finger. It can take some work to reach out and recruit these affiliates to get them promoting you. It’s best to reach out to those who you can also help in return first, as well as to make sure that you truly have a great converting offer with good payouts to make your offer attractive to these affiliates.

So consider creating an affiliate program and recruiting affiliates to help promote your offers at little to no risk to you. Make sure that you have attractive offers and payouts, and that you proactively reach out to the best affiliate prospects out there.

Liked this strategy? For more tips to increase your sales, check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How to Sell People Without Selling to Them? Using Case Studies in Your Marketing.

Social proof is a great way to help sell your product. A testimonial from a satisfied customer can sometimes be more effective than you, yourself, talking about your offer. A great way to make your marketing less “salesy” while still being powerful is to include case studies from people who have used your product/services.

For example, instead of talking about how people need to buy your SEO service, write up an article, blog post, or Facebook post on how one business went from no rankings to #1 rankings and more sales in under 2 weeks with a handful of easy tweaks... and then talk about the process and what your service did. A handful of readers will naturally want to reach out to you to have you do the same thing for them.

This same method can even be used to write blog posts, articles (even ones you can submit to the media), videos, etc. on top of ads you can make. For instance, you could have an article on “how one household decreased their energy costs by 38% with a couple simple tweaks,” and then you can describe what was done, how your product(s)/services helped, etc.. Naturally some people will want to do the same.

So think about how you can use case studies to explain your service/product, and the results customers can achieve, and then do this through articles, blog posts or Facebook posts.

For more great marketing tips to increase your sales, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!

A Unique Way to Increase Your Customers Spend Per Sale: The Value of Offering A Gift With Purchase

Offering a free gift, with a purchase over a certain amount (or just with any particular item), is a great way to encourage people to buy from you, but also to spend more per sale if they have to spend a certain limit. A great way to take this strategy a step further is to make your free gift a sample of other products you want to promote, or a new product you want to encourage your customers to try so as to buy in the future.

For example, beauty brands use this strategy regularly, and to great effect, offering a selection of sample size beauty products in a cute looking case, when spending over $50, $70, $100, etc. in one transaction. Not only does the free gift encourage their customers to buy more beauty products in one transaction, it also allows them a chance to introduce their customers to new products or items they may not have bought previously, without the chance to try them first.

A twist on this method that we used with great success in building a couple seven figure businesses was to offer a free gift in exchange for signing up for a monthly membership program as an upsell. It dramatically increased the conversion rates (by many, many times over). However, the key there was to have the perceived value of the bonus be more than their total investment for the first month. That makes them feel like they’re getting a no brainer offer that they’d be dumb to turn down, yet it gets them into your recurring money maker where many of them decide to stay to make you even more over time. The bonus here has to be of real value to them, which is why we often times would include a physical item as a bonus even for a digital membership program.

Look at what you can offer as a free gift to customers when they spend over a certain dollar amount in one transaction. This encourages your customer to spend more per sale and also gives you a chance to get customers trying new products, if you make those products your gift. Or put a little twist on that method and include a free gift with the purchase of any particular product you want to push, or even as a bonus to push them into a recurring membership site (physical products can work really well here for a bonus even if the main offer is a digital one).

For more great tips to increase your profits and make more money from your sales funnel, check out this tool here: BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer