Kevin Boyle

Common marketing blunders, or Marketing Blunder #76;

Not having ALL of your systems in place before driving traffic to your web site.

I remember my very first sales training web site, it wasn’t the prettiest or best looking web site you have ever seen, but I was really proud of it. I had purchased a web design program called Dreamweaver, and thinking that I could save a ton of money on web design costs I built the web site myself.

It took me about a month to do. During the time “I was busy” writing articles and building pages for my web site – and while “busy” I had tricked myself into thinking that I was moving forward in my business. I imagined hundreds of people visiting my web site, reading my articles, and thinking this guy really knows what he’s talking about! Let’s hire him!

Looking back at it now, it probably wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done, because I don’t think I made a single penny off of that web site.

So what did I learn from that experience?

1) By trying to save money (by not having a professional design and build my site) I actually lost money (and time!).

* What did I do differently this time?

I hired a web designer that was referred to me (so I knew they did great work) to design and implement my web site for me. I am extremely impressed with the results and my very first client (from the 4th day of my site being live) was worth well over $500.00!

2) By not having “saleable” products on my site ready to go I was losing prospects. The small number of people who did actually find my site, would “consume” my content and then leave, (at that time I only had coaching to offer visitors).

* what did I do differently this time?

I finished writing my book, The Secrets to Sales Mastery, I wrote a complete 21 Days to Sales and Business Mastery; Getting Yout Foot in the Door” Coaching System and I recorded a 30 minute Sales Primer that is simply amazing!).

3) At the time I only had about 10 articles written and no autoresponder service set up. The people who did come to my site simply had no reason to stay after reading my articles, and no real reason to come back. (because I had nothing in place to build a long term relationship with my prospects).

* What did I do differently this time?

I wrote 20 articles (before I even started driving traffic to my site) with GREAT content, that offered visitors expert advice on common problems that most salespeople and business people have that are related to either selling or marketing (I do believe sales and marketing are different sides of the same coin, in my opinion you simply cannot have one without the other).

4) The one change that I made to my sales and marketing efforts that had the biggest impact on my business!

If you would like to learn what that is, I highly reccomend that you subscribe to my newsletter (there’s a subscription form at the top of this article), and get my free E-Course.

I go into much greater detail on what “Getting Your Foot in the Door” is all about, how the whole system works, how they both compliment each other and how anyone who wants to drive sales (salespeople, business owners, network marketers, entrepreneurs) can implement it into their business or prospecting model.

I then set up an account with Aweber (an excellent email autoresponder service) and took a powerful but abridged version of my Advanced Relationship Sales and Marketing System as a free E-Course and offered it as an incentive for people to sign up for my newsletter.

Obviously there is much much more to having a successful web site, I just wanted to share with the mistakes I made.

Experience really is a great teacher, and quite honestly even as I sit here writing this article, sharing my failings with you, it is quite humbling. But I really do think that is part of what is wrong with our culture, everything and everyone is presented as “perfect”. But none of us were “perfect” while we were learning and honing our craft.

I think what is more relevant is “did we learn from our mistakes?” and how do we apply that knowledge so that we can help others, so they don’t “have to make” the same mistakes we did.

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips that you learned along the way on how to have a better web site? Please feel free to add your comments!

Other Blog Articles you might find interesting;

The Takeaway Close (or how to survive a break up!)

How to handle the cold calling objection (just send me over some information)

Handling Objections

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My first time

My first sales job was in a small independant T.V. Stereo store in Calgary, Canada called Far East Electronics. I had never sold before – as a teenager I used to work in grocery stores as a bag boy. So for me sales was a very daunting prospect – walking up to complete strangers was not a concept I was entirely comfortable with.

In fact I remember my first sale quite vividly.

Working in a small stereo store there was a certain amount of playful banter and teasing between the guys on the sales floor. Which in some ways made the prospect of me approaching someone for the first time and being “shot down” all the worse!

As fate would have it, my first approach was in fact my first sale…

And that’s when I learned my first lesson in sales – “the customer buys into the sales person first”.

I remember the gentleman quite clearly, he walked into the store and immediately proceeded over to our VCR display area. The “guys” being the helpful types that they were basically pushed and prodded me until I went over to approach him. I glanced back nerviously as if to ask for that one last once of courage.

I was in luck! My first customer was a large friendly sort, the type of person who would wrap their arm around you at a party and take you around to introduce you to everyone. I felt immediately at ease.

He said to me, you haven’t been at this too long have you?

I told him that actually he was my first customer.

He said, what’s your name son? I told him Kevin.

He beamed a huge wide grin at me, introduced himself and shook my hand, “Bob McPherson. Well Kevin, you are going to sell me a VCR today!”

I smiled right back and I said, “Thank you Bob!” I searched my mind from my earlier training sessions, reaching for the right words…. “So tell me what are you comfortable with spending?”

He said, “Why don’t you show me what you have, what they do and we will figure it out as we go along…”

I proceeded to show him a few models, explained the benefits, asked which ones he preferred and actually ended up selling him one of the more expensive modals at the time.

I’ll never forget that first sale. How much Bob had impacted me, my attitude towards selling and my attitude for the next customer who entered the store.

So, my question for you today is… What is your first sale story?

Would you like to learn practical sales skills and strategies on how to get your foot in the door, book more sales appointments and dramatically improve your sales results?

Then go here…

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? I’d love it if you could take 2 minutes out of your day and write a comment, and tell us “your story”.

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Thank you!