Online Sales Strategy - Machine Gun

I get this question all the time.

What's the best online sales strategy to get people to buy your products or services on your website?

I can bore you with a lot of "guru stuff" or I can tell you a story.

When I was an insurance agent a man came by my office about once a month to sell me promotional advertising items.

You know what I mean?

Calendars, ink pens, coffee cups... stuff like that where you have your business name and phone number plastered all over this stuff to give out to people to keep your name in front of them.

Insurance agents and real estate agents buy a lot of stuff like this. In fact the average American has a bunch of magnets on their refrigerators with pizza delivery, doctor's offices, plumbers....

Anyway, I tried to avoid this guy. There's hundreds of Promotional Adverting companies and I need another sales spiel like a whole in the head.

So one day my secretary told me this guy had been by my office again (persistent little cuss) and had left something on my desk.

I went into my office and found a little rectangle marble coffee coaster on my desk with a cartoon and some writing on it so I picked it up to take a look.

On that little 3" X 4" coaster was a sketch of a salesman standing outside a general's tent, waiting to get in and talk to the general. It looked like the time period was the 1400s or 1500s because the guard outside the tent had a spear in one hand, a shield in the other, and was wearing a sword.

The guard went inside the general's tent and said these words to the general who was bent over a map "there's a salesman outside who want to see you about his products. He says he might have a solution for your battle".

The general screamed "I don't have time to see some crazy salesman! Can't you see I'm planning a battle? Send him away."

The guard came back outside the tent and told the salesman... "Sorry. He's too busy to see you. He's busy planning a major battle."

With that, the salesman packed up his machine gun and went away.

Well, a long story short. The advertising salesman got an appointment with me and over the next 14 years did more than $34,000 in business with me. I purchased all of my promotional advertising from him and we became very good friends. Do you know why I bought my stuff from him? It had nothing to do with price... He didn't just sell me stuff. He helped me use it for my customers... He helped me come up with ideas to increase my business.

The moral of this story?

Not yet. It doesn't end there.

I used his marble coffee cup coaster idea to get appointments with my customers and can't count how much business I did using the same approach with my customers.

Now we're ready for the moral of this story.

When you are planning or building your sites, you might want to think about your site visitor's daily battles. Find a product or service that will help him/her win. Be creative in how you get that message in front of your visitor... being aware that they just may be too busy to listen or see it right now.

But also be aware that not only will you get their business... you may help them change their lives.

The creative thinking part is "how do I get this in front of my site visitor for his/her benefit... not mine."

Until next time...

"The Mad Webmaster"

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