Selling on strategy A Step by Step Guide part 2
The 6 Step Process for Success 1. Know your prospect 2. It s all about their business 3. Discuss how to achieve online success 4. Demo the solution 5. Build the value 6. Discuss next steps
4. Product demonstration After teaching about online success, demonstrate Business Catalyst. Try to use terms and ideas in context to their business. Link back to the strategic points you made earlier and how to implement them. Keep it simple, high-impact, non-technical Demonstration Scripts I.C.E / Simple Content Management Email Marketing Web Form Submission Capturing Leads with Webforms Online Shop (if applicable)
For Partner Reference Only 1. Solution Know your Demonstration prospect Guide Demonstration Key Points and Preparation Tips Do a little research. You re selling a $3k - $5k web design package here, it s worth spending E.g. industry trends, market terminology 60 minutes beforehand to customize a trial site for the demonstration. Tailor a strategy to suit their business. Copy the existing client s site logo onto the demo site (If there s no See logo, put the client s 4 Cs, business BC s Strategies name in the for template Success heading using a large modern font) Practice your presentation. Build an industry context specific webform with custom fields for client s business to collect qualified leads Prepare a showcase Insert a few products you know that client is selling, organize them into catalogs Create a sample email newsletter If WebApps can be used for this client, create a WebApp prototype. See product demonstration guide in Part 2. The aim is to show how much value you can add to their business by building their website on the BC platform. Follow the steps and keep it simple! Take it slowly and don t delve into the technical details. This demo is about their business, not the solution. Impress on the Client the 6 Key Points (at the top of each slide). Solution Demonstration should take about 25-30 minutes.
That Last Slide Was Scary! So we re going to skip the next 6 slides. (Hint: re-learn it in your own time.) Coming Up: 30 minutes of Learn By Example then go directly to slide 12
For Partner Reference Only Introduction To Online Business Key Point: Customer Interactions will be Captured in your Online Business (much more than hosting) To begin with, login and show the client the homepage of the online business console Explain to the client the concept of online businesses vs websites. Online Businesses are interactive portals with a website, e-commerce, marketing and analytics built on top of a customer database. Present the Online Business Dashboard, explain the business statistics that are captured: How many visits, how much in sales, how many leads (inquiries), how many subscriptions (marketing) Present the Live Feed client knows all interactions that occur on the website are recorded including orders, comments, form submissions, newsletter opening and clicking on one will take you to the customer details.
For Partner Reference Only Content Management Key Point: Be Empowered To Change and Add Website Content Yourself In-Context Editing Use In-Context Editing to demonstrate to customer how they can change the website copy on homepage, on the About Us page etc by clicking and using the WYSIWYG editor. Have 2 browsers open, one with In-Context Editing, another with the live view of the website and show the client the real-time publication of changes. Web Apps Some clients may need to post information in web-apps. Do some research beforehand and build a quick prototype web-app if this is the case and show client how straightforward it is to add web-app items to the website. Don t show how to Add/Delete pages, don t show the HTML and site templates, we want to keep these technical details hidden from the end user. Announcements and other Modules Find out which modules your client can use on their website. Announcements are universal to all websites Demonstrate to the client how easy it is to publish their own announcements from the console and show them the changes being made in real-time to their live site
For Partner Reference Only Email Marketing Demonstration Key Point: You Have Cost Effective Tools to Market to a Qualified Audience Explain that the system has the ability to send either one-off emails and is also able to run loyalty campaigns for emails that need to be sent in a series or on anniversaries. For example, florists and restaurants work well with anniversary campaigns that send emails to men several days before it s their wife s birthday or wedding anniversary. Take the client through the steps of sending an email campaign (have a pre-prepared campaign with some sample news and this months specials ) and keep it really high level. Show client the campaign details where you can edit the Subject and Email From Name Explain to the client that they are able to look at the customer actions because of integration between marketing and the customer database. Offer Email Marketing Design as a separate value added service you can design email templates for the client for which they can insert their own text. Make a new campaign list and add your own email and the clients email as the mailing list. Make some simple edits to the campaign content in the campaign editor and save them Send campaign, open the email when it arrives in your inbox to show client, then go back to the console to look at the performance report of that email
For Partner Reference Only E-Commerce (if applicable) Key Point: It s Easy to Add Products Yourself and Manage Them In Catalogs Make sure you have some spare product details (thumbnail pictures, detailed pictures, and product descriptions) because you are going to add a new product in front of your prospective customer. Demo to the client that they can change the details of their own products, change their prices and manage their catalogs. The designer takes care of the layout of catalogs and products. Explain that the Online Business is a fully fledged ecommerce system, with the ability to integrate with Payment Gateways (incl. Paypal) and Shipping Providers like USPS and Fedex. All the client has to worry about is putting their products up for sale in their shop. Don t dive into the details too much, and don t spend time explaining to the client the advanced ecommerce options available.
For Partner Reference Only Capturing Leads with Webforms Key Point: Online Business captures all customer inquiries and notifies you in real-time so you respond faster Start by showing the client the customized webform you have prepared with questions designed to qualify inquiries for their business. Ask them other information they might be interested in capturing from inquiries and note it. Explain that each time the form is submitted it s stored in the customer database as a Case and an email/sms will be sent to notify you. You can have the email/sms sent to your customer support or sales team instead so they can follow up on the lead immediately! Beat your competition by following up faster than they can. Open the form you ve made on the showcase site, fill in and submit the form as if you were a new customer. Then show the client the: Notification email with the captured form details (either in the clients inbox or your inbox) Newly created case in the live feed when you login to the dashboard Click through to the customer record to see the contact details and the associated detailed case for following up.
For Partner Reference Only Reports and Analytics Key Point: Measure Everything About Your Online Business The solution keeps statistics and charts on all the functionality in your site so you can measure whether or not you re reaching your online business goals (introduced in step 2. It s all about your Business ) By understanding these reports and analytics, you can keep your finger on the pulse of your online business and make improvements where you see fit. Go through the Summary reports for Overall Summary, Marketing, Leads and ecommerce to show that you can measure everything you ve already demonstrated. Don t go through custom reports, they are too complex at this stage. End Your Demonstration Here Depending on your client you may need to exclude parts of the demonstration and include others like Secure Zones, Blogs and Forums.
5. Building the Value During the demonstration You need to convince the client of the value you are delivering them You need to defuse any objections with demonstrations of value This sets the right price expectation in their head before you deliver the figure. Read Never Too Expensive: A Guide To Selling True Value http://www.businesscatalyst.com/blogretrieve.aspx?blogid=24&postid=34638
But $39 a month is too expensive But the nightmare of maintaining a custom solution is more expensive Discuss Hosted Solutions /SaaS and the benefits Zero Maintenance No Compatibility Issues Constant (and transparent) Software Upgrades Pay-As-You-Go Don t Deal With The Tech, Focus On Your Business! If you only have hosting, how much is your email marketing, online shop, customer database going to cost you per month? Online Businesses, Not Websites!
Return on investment What is a lead costing you now? How much did you spend on local print ads? How much did you pour into that Yellow Pages ad? When you list on Online Directories do you have a professional site for visitors to come to? (No = Bounce) vs. How much revenue are you losing by not capturing/ managing qualified leads? (Online Business vs. Brochure Site)
This sort of website could cost... Rule 1: Every single project is different! Use custom solutions for custom problems, but WebFX and New Orleans Marketing help us out with their guides. Why the cost range? How much SEO How much Flash How many JS Widgets Social Bookmarks Custom Compliant CSS Branding, Marketing Copy Type of Site WebFX Guide New Orleans Marketing Brochureware (5 pages) $2k - $6k (incl. webform) $1k - $2k CMS (with Blog, Forum) - $1k - $10k E-Commerce (100s to 1000s products) $5k - $15k $5k - $20k $6k - $35k (Webapps is where the Database Driven Web Site or Web Application - money s at)
6. Discuss Next Steps After the demonstration Ask them: If they need a design from scratch? Want to migrate their existing site? Want to choose a template? Give an indicative price tailored for them. You don t need to discuss BC packages. Which one suits best? You decide after asking how many people will need to use the system and what they re using the system for.
Pricing a BC Site (very subjective) Establish a base cost for designing a site template (could be $100 for a template or $1000s for custom CSS/PS/JS magic) Figure out your standard prices for customizing each module (lots of customization = more expensive modules) Online Store layouts (Products, Catalogs, Checkouts, Invoices) Secure Zones (Login Box, Registration Form, Secure Zone template) Web Apps Blogs/Forums How much do you charge for copy? Outsource it and put 20-30% on top. Same with stock images. Why do this? Because you can itemize where all your clients money went and you don t have to charge by the hour. Charging by the hour condemns you to a life of trading time for money DON T DO IT!
Following up http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/6-ways-to-follow-up-with-prospects-without-being-creepy/#more-1615 Points 2 and 4 are the most important! Ask for client s project timeline If they ask for a bid, deliver it within 48 hours
Remember The 6 Step Process for Success 1. Know your prospect 2. It s all about their business 3. Discuss how to achieve online success 4. Demo the solution 5. Build the value 6. Discuss next steps
Thank you This Sales Process moves you up the value chain Don t compete on price, compete on quality and value offered. Potential Clients will love the fact that: You understand their business You provide leadership and guidance on building their Online Business