Street light

All of us get complacent. Sales are going along at a nice pace, so we forget some of the things that got us to easy street.

Some times it takes a bump or two on that street to get us back on keel. I know that's what happened to me a while back. Sales started to slide and I couldn't see why.

Then I sat down and went through the memory book. I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. I thought of this possibility and that possibility.

Then it came to me. It wasn't what I was doing wrong -- It was what I wasn't doing at all!

I thought back to when I was starting out, what did I do? It all started coming back to me. I wasn't promoting. I was just drifting.

The main thing I realized I had let fall by the way side was the sizzle. How did I used to make it sizzle? Several ways - let's look at a few:

1. Use the 2 for 1 deal. If a customer bought one item they could pick another item at the same or lower price at no charge.

2. Give a 15% discount on orders of $100 or more.

3. Group products so they could pick any one of them for $5.

4. Run holiday specials. Everything on the web site 50% off on certain holidays.

5. If it was a high ticket offer, I'd let the customers use a payment plan - pay for it in three easy payments.

6. Offer a bonus coupon when they bought a product. The coupon would be toward the purchase of another product I sold.

7. Give the customer a no-cost trial of the product. Tell them you won't bill them for 30 days.

I realized I had stopped using my imagination. That's what you have to do. Not just when you hit the bump on your easy street, but constantly. You must always be on guard. You have to be thinking -- what would turn you on to buy?

There are a lot of things you can offer, but there's one thing we can never forget - the customer is the boss. They control our income. So they must always be our first consideration. We can never just sit back and assume they will come and keep coming. We have to bring them and give them a reason to buy.

Make the offer that's too good to refuse. If you don't give them a good reason to buy, the bumps on easy street could throw your program into a ditch that will be too deep to get out.

Always remember the first rule of sales and that is: You gotta give before you get.

--May you always walk in sunshine,

--Hal Archer

(c) 2002 Hal Archer. All rights reserved. Article reprint
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