the goose

I just had a phone conversation with one of the attendees at our last Automated Income Mastermind session. We were chatting about how the session went and we were bemoaning the lack of ‘decent’ sales people. We have all heard of the proverbial smooth tongued flash harry that could sell ice to an eskimo and finding one for your business is just about as hard. For a start – great sales people are in great demand and they will ultimately only pick your company if they feel they can make the most commission with the least amount of effort. This puts you up against the biggest hitters in business. From phone operators to concrete suppliers – everyone wants these guys. As someone who struggles with selling myself – this is one reason why I’m attracted to the world of automating income. You see – an good automated income business doesn’t just collect money automatically – it collects customers automatically. Easier said than done. I’m not sure if there is any business which really fits this bill. There are however plenty of tips for building an automated pipeline. Here are some of my tips on how to build one.

• Create Information Products: Ebooks and cds are looked for by their very nature. Someone with a problem will sometimes head to the web to see if they can find a solution for it. If you can manage to find the sweet spot between demand and your expertise – you are on to a winner. Once you have created a successful information product, fed by a steady feed of visitors, your product can continue to be bought ad-infinitum, or at least as long as your information stays current. One of the big mistakes made by authors who do author books is to focus on a topic which may prove topical at the time but soon loses favour. Recently while listening to The Java Posse, I heard Ed Burns bemoan the short life cycle of his first book which was focused on a particular type of web technology that had since gone by the wayside. His second title was far more long-lived and instead offered tips on how to become a super-star programmer in your career. I’m guessing that he should still be raking in the cash for years to come no matter how technology changes.
• Scale is your friend – price low. The fantastic thing about the web is – you can offer at scale and because your offering doesn’t consume your time – you can afford to apportion it out in little pieces for peanuts. In a conversation with Darina Loakman last week she told me how one email subscription list she had subscribed to had changed it price from 10 dollars to 20 and back to 10 again in the space of a month. The falloff rate from charing the 20 dollar fee was such that the owner was better off setting the price back to 10. This tells me something very interesting. If you can price your product under 10 euro on a subscription basis – it falls under the “I’ll give it a go” bracket of expenditure. At this price point you don’t need a super slick sales guy to call around and show you the roaps. You would rather they did not waste your time. If you can see enough value – blow the tenner and if it doesn’t work out – just unsubscribe the following week. Its a modified puppy dog close for the 21st century.
• Keep your proposition simple. At the risk of repeating myself, I can’t emphasise how important it is to keep the benefit simple. It has to be clear as day in the first 10 words or you had better go start looking for that sales guy. In a world where attention is the real currency we trade in – you need to have a super simple proposition which gets you to a buying decision by the end of the first 10 words. Piehole “lets advertising copywriters find actors for their radio ads. We charge actors to be on the site.”. Thats it. If you are an actor – you need to know the price. (Admittedly that is 15 words but we’re getting there with it).
• Tele-sell: Once you have a simple proposition good value – you are now in a position to be a bit more aggressive with your channels. Most people still don’t source most of what they need on line. This is why telesales is a fantastic mechanism for pushing your message directly to the customer. 4 well scripted sales calls can bag a customer. They can use the web to look at the offering and if the price is right – you don’t need to be flash harry to close the deal. All you need is a good telesales team – which are available on tap.
• Niche: If you are in a niche and you really do understand the problems being experienced by customers – you are in a great position to identify what you would pay for the service. There doesn’t need to be a convoluted sales routine. Think of the services we consume online without ever talking to a soul. Tickets, books, cds, music, DVD rentals. They all have a simple proposition (entertainment) for a reasonable cost (10 – 100 euro). I know what I’m going to get out of the box and there isn’t too much to it.