After more than 40 years in sales, I can tell you the sales process is simple. You have a solution, you find someone who wants that solution, they buy it.
It only gets complicated when you complicate it. What actually decides whether people buy from you is the buyer’s process, and that means making it easy for them to find you, trust you, and contact you in the way that suits them.
How do people actually like to buy?
Think about what you’re like when you walk into a shop.
You might be the sort of person who wants to find someone straight away and ask for help. Or you might want to be left alone for a bit. You know the staff are there, but you’d rather browse, have a look around and make your own decision.
Then there are people who already know exactly what they want. They walk in, pick it up and leave.
Your customers online are no different.
Some people want to read everything before they make a decision. Others haven’t got time for that. They just want to call you and ask a question. Then you’ve got people who want to send a quick message, start the conversation and come back to it later. None of those options is better than the others. They’re simply different ways people prefer to buy. The important thing is that your website makes each option easy.
So, if your website only works for one type of buyer, then you are turning the other two away.
Are you making it easy or difficult?
One of the main things I do as an online profile strategist is ask business owners to search online for the solution they offer and see how they show up. Not an audit report filled with charts, numbers and technical language. Just put your customer’s shoes on and have a look around.
Because here’s the thing: If you can’t find your own business while you’re sitting in your own office, you’ve got a problem.
I have known business owners who didn’t realise what their own website looked like.
One had no call button on his site. Someone could visit the page, like what they saw and still have no easy way to ring him. He had no idea.
That’s why I always say nobody wants to be sold to. But when you look for yourself and realize you’re making it hard for people to find or contact you, you don’t need someone convincing you there’s a problem. You have already convinced yourself.
What should you focus on?
There are three words I come back to:
Attract. Convert. Nurture.
- First, people need to find you.
- Then, when they do find you, your website needs to help them take the next step.
- And once they’ve made contact, you need to stay in touch and continue the conversation.
That’s why, at WebSpree, when someone says they need a website, we don’t just build them a website. The website also needs search engine optimisation so people can find it.
It needs to be clear.
It needs to be built around the buyer.
And it needs to give people the choice to read, call or message.
Your website is part of the foundation of your business. It shouldn’t be something you’ve put together just to get by.
Make do makes nothing. You want something that can genuinely help your business grow. Because when the business grows, you’ve then got the capital to keep investing in your marketing and continue moving forward.
What does this mean for you?
Have a look at your own online presence today. Search for the solution you offer as if you were one of your customers.
Then open your website and ask yourself three simple questions.
- Can someone easily read about what I offer?
- Can they call me in one tap?
- Can they send me a message in under a minute?
If the answer to any of those is no, you may have found the point where potential customers are dropping away.
What is the next step?
If you’ve had a look and you don’t like what you see, that’s not necessarily bad news. It means you can now see what needs fixing.
Book a free discovery call and we’ll look at your online profile together, not through the eyes of a digital marketer, but through the eyes of your customer.