By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan
Being and avid reader and learner, I sign up for many online programmes to learn new things. I do this in spite of knowing that as soon as they get my email address, most of them will start bombarding me with follow-up sales pitches to get as much of my money and as quickly as humanly possible.
And while I understand and agree that the purpose of sequential autoresponder is to stay in touch with interested people who one day decide that our stuff is valuable and buy something from us, I also believe that the purpose of the process is sharing valuable information with these people and in doing so PRE-selling our stuff in a dignified and professional manner.
And this is fine and dandy. We all want to make money in our businesses. However, what bugs me is the methods they use to exhort money from their victims. One of these methods is using aggressive and pushy but otherwise worthless messages.
Just in the last few days I received autoresponder messages with the following subject lines:
"Tom, I'm puzzled." Then in the body of the email the guy explained that he was puzzled because I hadn't given him money after one autoresponder message (sales pitch).
Here are some more...
Tom, are you a loser?
Tom, I thought you were smarter...
Tom, how does it feel to be poor?
Tom, are you still struggling?
Tom, are you still dead broke?
Tom, is your business about to sink?
Of course, these folks will teach me in one e-book how to make millions online in a blink of the eye. Or how to lose weight over the weekend without even getting out of bed. Their programmes require no skills and no effort. Hm. And I guess many poor souls fall for this kind lunacy. Rags to riches in one single e-book. Wow. Holy mother of all sausages. This is amazing. Or maybe just scumbaggy. They are inviting me to their football games where they can pass me their slimeballs hoping that one day I catch it.
And the other interesting thing these messages have in common is that they slam everything and everyone else out there. Only theese people know these secrets and no one else.
Have you noticed it? Every copywriter is America's best copywriter. Every webhosting company is the world's most reliable webhosting company. Do these idiots actually believe in their own bullshit?
So, how to handle the follow-up process?
Simple. Valuable information.
The key is that you have to use your valuable content to PRE-sell your stuff. This is the essence. I could even say, this is the ant's pants, the rooster's boosters or even the pig's wigs. Not selling (sales pitch), but pre-selling (offering valuable content). The more value you provide in your content the more people sell themselves on the idea that you are the "go-to-dude/dudette" in your specific topic.
So, why is this pre-selling stuff so important?
Business is about relationships. The age of the peddler is over. Now we have to take some time to warm our audiences up to doing business with us. And the best way of doing this is by offering valuable information. No, you don't have to give the store away but there is something in between.
One of my mentors has taught me to give away 25% of my expertise (newsletters, follow-up emails, teleclasses, etc.), sell 50% at an affordable rate (information products), and sell the remaining 25% at premium price (personal consultation). And I see this method work for each of my clients where we implement it.
Can you see why your business is doomed unless you also sell information and professional services relevant to your products? Ex IBM boss, Lou Gerstner completely revamped IBM from a "box peddler" to IT consultants. And the result? It was an extra $ 25 billion in the piggy bank. Using Lou's words, "You are headed for commodity hell if you don't have services".
And, yes, it's fine to weave in some promotion into your follow up messages, but the essence must be the intention of sharing valuable information. A sales pitch is not exactly valuable.
So, what can you share in your follow-up messages. You can present valuable statistics. The mission of this site site at is to teach people to get out of the traditional prospecting grunt work rut. So, here are some stats for to inspire them to market better instead of just sell harder.
Here is a recent statistics from Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. According to a survey among salespeople and sales managers...
49% say their profession contributed to marital problem.
44% say their profession contributed to for their failed relationships with colleagues and friends.
18% say their profession prevented them from finding a spouse.
72% say their profession held them back from exercising.
69% say their profession undermined their health problems, and cause weight gain, diabetes or even more serious health problems.
So, it clearly shows that cold-selling is a high-stress, high-health-risk profession, and also a high-investment low-return activity. According to McGarw Hill, one single face-to-face appointment costs the selling company some $350 in opportunity costs. And this is where a good qualification process comes in. And the good qualification process must be based on disqualification. Every step of the way you are looking for reasons NOT to do business with your prospect, unless he/she comes through your specific process. This is vital. People value processes and resent ad-hoc improvisation acts from businesses.
This is what Earl Nightingale has to say about the topic, "If instead of working harder on making more money, average businesspeople should spend one hour each day and every day in quiet contemplation of how to be of greater and more creative service to their clienteles, they would be the richer for it."
And that one hour a day can be studying how to pre-sell better.
The other type of information you can share is recent changes in your industry. Now you may say, "This is silly. They will do it for themselves without my help." It may happen. But let me ask you this. Can you buy great golf teaching videos? Yes. Can you watch them day in day out? Yes. Could you beat Tiger Woods as a result of all the watching? You're kidding, aren't you? The video is just video.
I have some joint ventures with some farms and all of my partners know how to process a bull from moo to stew. They even know how to kill them. Well, yes, theoretically they know it. But they wouldn't do it. That is something I do all the time because I have the process in my fingers after processing a few hundred bulls over the years. For me, it is cellular-level skill. And this is the difference: They have the knowledge as theory, but I have it as skill. As the saying goes, when you grab hold of the tail of the tiger, you'd better know what to do next. If you're up against 2,000 lbs of the most some of the unpredictable types of testosterone - essentially that's what a bull is - it is important to know your next step and doing it right.
So, if you're an accountant, you can announce the latest tax changes, but clients still want you to do it. Why? Because you understand the change in context of their accounting system and see how that little change impacts the whole business. Your clients see the change only in isolation. They can't put it into context. That's why they don't do it.
But with good pre-selling, you can establish yourself as the "go-to-dude/dudette" when they realise they need help.
It's not about making a one-off sale and grabbing your commission. It's about establishing yourself as a recognised expert in your field, so people in your market seek you out.
Attribution: "This article was written by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan who helps privately held information technology companies to develop high leverage client acquisition systems and business development teams in order to sell their products and services to premium clients at premium fees and prices. Visit Tom's website at http://www.varjan.com.
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