This is the moment every entrepreneur lives for. When the customer actually gives you their money. When they buy.
Unfortunately, it is also the time most wannabe and new business owners screw up. Today we’ll talk about the 3 biggest mistakes newbies make and how to avoid them.
Alright, you’ve got people’s attention. You’ve gotten them to desire your product and trust you can deliver. What should happen next?
Duh. You need them to buy.
Sadly, this is when I see most people screw up. The biggest screw up is they never ask for the sale. Lots of people will build an audience. Create a product. And then never really ask people to buy anything.
This shows up in a couple of ways. First they literally never ask people to go buy their product. This is especially true for YouTubers and Podcasters.
They are so focused on building and serving their audience that they start to feel that audience will be offended if they ask them to actually buy something. So they don’t mention it.
This is one part of what I call leaning back when selling. It is a reluctance to actually offer people what you are selling. It manifests when you don’t ask because you are afraid to offend you audience. But is also manifests when you start apologizing about selling them something.
Look if you don’t believe in what you are selling, then don’t sell it. If you do, then don’t be ashamed of it. Don’t apologize. Don’t equivocate.
Instead you need swagger.
I was at South By Southwest a few years ago and went to a panel of Venture Capitalists on the topic of why VCs give so much more money to Silicon Valley than the rest of the country. There were a lot of reasons, but one stuck in my mind.
One of the panelists said, “People outside the valley lack swagger. And that hurts them.” Lack of swagger is something you hear people say about Texans much.
The panelist went on to say that people outside the valley feel they need to be very realistic when pitching their company or product. That is a good thing. But the problem is they take it too far.
You see in the mind of a VC – or your buyer – they are going to take a percentage off the top of what they believe your product will really do. People in the Valley have learned this and take it into account when being realistic.
This is also related to confidence. Buyers are looking to you for an indication you are going to do what you said. One thing they look for is how confident you are.
Your customer, like those VCs, want to give money to people who are sure of themselves and their product.
Okay, you’ve put on your swagger and asked people to buy. What next?
This is where your offer comes in. Your offer is where you tell people what they are getting for their money. It is more than just telling them the price, but let’s start talking about that.
If at all possible – and it is always possible – do not compete on price.
Don’t compete on price.
One more time.
Do not compete on price.
That is a losing game. Instead you should compete on value and demand a premium price.
Setting a price for your product is always tricky. I’m not going to go too deep into it, but I have made a free guide with some ideas on how to set prices, indicate higher quality, and make more on each sale.
If you tell me you want to lower your price, the first thing I’ll tell you is: add value instead.
Look for things you can add that don’t cost very much or any money, but add value to the product.
Information is a great way to do this. Can you add a written guide to optimizing your product or service? It won’t cost much to produce but it adds value to the product because it makes it more effective.
Can you add previously created content to an offer? Maybe you’ve created video lessons on how to use the product. Add those to your offer for free.
I think you’ll find there are lots of ways to do this.
But remember if you incur much new cost for this value, then you probably need to make it an upgrade or up-sell to the original product.
The goal here is to deliver 10 or 20 times the price as value to the customer.
Take all that value and list it out as your offer, so the user feels it is a no brainer to buy. So they feel the price is a steal given all that they are getting.
Now they like your offer. All that is left is to get their money.
Again, where so many screw up.
How many times have you gone to buy something, especially a digital product, and the process was convoluted. The other night I wanted to buy an Amazon channel so I could watch the new Pikard series.
I was on my Xbox, which meant I couldn’t do it there. Microsoft’s blocks Amazon digital sales. So I pulled out my iPhone. Nope can’t do it there either. I finally had to go to a desktop computer in another room to buy it.
That is the nightmare of friction. Sadly you see it on-line regularly. Even when it isn’t a platform owner limiting another company.
Here’s an easy indicator of how hard it is to buy from you.
Count the number of clicks.
Literally go from first click that says, “I want to buy this thing.” to when the payment is processed. I think you’ll be surprised.
There is a reason Amazon created and attempted to patent One-Click buying.
Unless your customer is expected to buy a bunch of different unrelated things, try and get rid of your shopping cart. Go right from the product buy button to checkout.
Also try to keep the checkout process on one page.
Make sure the process actually works. Test your checkout. Test your website.
These are just a few tips on reducing payment friction. But let me give you a tool that eliminates all of them.
If you are selling a single product with maybe some add-ons, you should consider using ClickFunnels. For $99/month, you will get the most full-feaured, friction free buying process on the market.
The wizards at ClickFunnels have perfected the process and no-one is even coming close to making the buy process as easy and optimal as they have. You can try it for free for 14 days.
Question of the Day: What is your biggest struggle getting people to buy?
