There are four basic steps to selling your services once you have an interested prospect. These four steps are very similar to the principle of AIDA (attention, interest, desire, and action) in marketing.
- Get attention – Before you can sell your services, you must first attract a prospect. Here are a few lead generation techniques.
- Generate interest – Once you have your prospect’s attention, the next step is getting them interested in your products and services. This is often done by appealing to the emotional benefits your products and services provide.
- Arouse desire – Before your prospects buy from you, they must first want what you sell. Build desire by demonstrating the results they will receive when they use your products and services, how other people have benefited from your offerings, and how reputable your company is. During this stage, provide plenty of information such as case studies, references, white papers, audio and video recordings, and other education-based tools that can help prospects make an informed purchasing decision.
- Take action – Use a verbal call to action to ask for the sale.
- Direct: The most straight-forward way to close is to ask if your prospect is ready to buy.
- High Perceived Value: Make your prospects feel they are getting a tremendous amount of value for their money. You see this frequently in infomercials when they tell you, “But wait, there’s more…” and proceed to tell you all the bonus items you will receive if you buy now.
- Limited Time: This works if you have a limited-time offer. If your prospects don’t buy before your deadline, they will miss out on your special prices.
- Shortened Term: If you are trying to sell a continuity package or ongoing retainer services, some times prospects don’t feel comfortable buying your full-length package and want a shortened time frame. Consider offering different time frames.
- Discount: Sometimes, through economies of scale, prospects can save money long-term by buying the longest term package. Magazines will often give you options for purchasing a one-year or two-year subscription. The two-year is often substantially cheaper per issue than the one-year.
- Reduced Benefit: If your prospects can’t afford your fee, can you offer a cheaper alternative with not as many features?
Is Your Prospect Ready To Buy?
There are many ways to test the waters and see if your prospect is ready to close the deal. Here are a few types of closes:
Experiment with different types of product and service offerings to see which prospects prefer. Sales almost always involves negotiation, so if your prospect wants to continue the discussion, that’s a great sign.
