Confessions of a Salesman

By Dean Hunt

I was walking through town recently when a man with a clipboard tried to get me to fill out a survey. I politely declined and he made a sarcastic comment.

I had barely reached the end of the street when two young lads were thrusting flyers into my hands. I normally do the polite thing of reading them and then putting them in the rubbish bin once whoever hands them to me is out of sight. That day I just was not in the mood so I binned the leaflets right there in front of the lads.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself. ‘That will teach them’, I thought to myself as I entered one of largest stores in the area. But it seems I had let my guard down a little too early, for a shop assistant was trying to blind me by spraying the latest designer crappy fragrance at me. I don’t recall asking to be sprayed, but I continued on to the music section.

I had barely arrived when a man seemed to pounce from nowhere and ask if he could help and wanted to know what I was looking for. I hadn’t even had time to have a look myself.

Needless to say, I won’t be shopping there any more.

As a website owner you may feel that you are immune from having this negative effect on your readers. You would be wrong - the same rules apply to the online world as well.

So today I am going to share with you my golden rules to help convert your readers into happy customers, instead of bitter and resentful ex-readers of your site.

1) Don’t be too pushy – Listen, you could have the best product in the world but if you start shouting at the reader before they have even had chance to get comfortable, then you will scare them away. Pop-up banners and adverts are the easiest way to annoy a new reader. They are the online equivalent of the women spraying me with that crappy cologne. DO NOT invade your site’s readers in this way. Show some respect, give them some breathing space and they will stick around.

2) Put your tobacco at the front - Isn’t it strange that many supermarkets stock the medicine at the back of the store, but they sell tobacco at the entrance? Seems like you have to make a lot of effort to get healthy, but they sure do make it easy to kill yourself. How very kind of them. However, believe it or not, your local supermarket does not want you to die, far from it. Instead, they are well aware that people want to see the good stuff first. The entrance is where all the most desirable goods are stored. The same applies in a hotel - have you noticed that the entrance to a hotel is always the most impressive part of the establishment? Same rules apply, first impressions count. People make impulse decisions based on a tiny sample of data, so if you want to turn your site readers into customers or subscribers, then your first impressions had better be excellent. This means spending extra money on, and paying greater attention to your homepage.

3) Activity is key - There is a restaurant near our house that sells the crappiest food I have ever tasted. It is a large franchise which makes fast food and pretends it is real food. Directly opposite is an authentic Asian restaurant that has some of the nicest food I have ever tasted. However, without fail, the crappy restaurant is always full of people. One of the main reasons for this is that the restaurant always looks busy and people believe that busy = good. The same applies to your site. Have you ever joined a forum when there are just two people online? Of course not, nobody joins quiet forums. So if you want to convert readers into subscribers, then you have to make your site appear busy. How do you do this? Simple! Use RSS feeds to show the latest headlines from your members’ section or members’ forum.

4) Sample the goodness - Last week my girlfriend came home with a large bag of beauty products. I asked her why she had bought so much crap and she didn’t seem to have an answer. She certainly didn’t need any of that stuff. I dug a little deeper, and it turns out that she was window shopping when the assistant gave her a free sample of some of the newest products. This is an old technique but it is still very effective. You can give a sample to your readers to convert them into subscribers or customers. Do you have an info product? Well, put two of the chapters into a PDF file and call it a free guide. Do you sell shampoo? Well, put some tiny samples in the national newspapers. People love samples, so play on this desire.

5) It’s all about perspective - A month ago I met with a guy who was considering buying a house in the neighborhood. I agreed to meet him for lunch, and was happy to offer any tips I could share with him, plus perhaps become friends with him. I know this will sound rude but it was one of the most boring hours of my life! All he did was talk about his home, his life, his family, his wife, his kids, his ex-job, his education, etc. I don’t think he asked me one single question in the entire hour. So how can it be that one conversation can be so two-sided? How can he have been so excited and enjoying the chat so much while for me it was like a living hell? The answer is perspective. The story was told from his perspective, on his view of the world. I couldn’t relate to his life as I didn’t know any of the people or places in it so I couldn’t connect to his message. Same applies to your readers - don’t focus on how great your product is. Focus on how it can benefit the reader, how it can improve his or her life.

These tips and techniques are a great way to convert website readers into paying customers. If you work hard, they will become loyal supporters of your brand and will tell their friends about you. But if you just spray cologne in their face without permission, then you are going to struggle to convert.

Dean Hunt

August 2007

www.DeanHunt.com

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