Confessions of a Salesman

Why keywords are the KEY to your client’s motivation.

I am sure that most of us have heard that one of the keys to sales success is asking the questions – the right questions.

The following tip takes full advantage of this.

For those of you who may not know (can there be anyone?) the vast majority of customers find your website or the lead generation websites such as www.ConservatoriesOnline.com by means of a search engine.

To do this, they enter a keyword or key phrase in the search engine and visit the sites listed at the top of the search engine’s results.

As a salesperson what we do here is quite simple – you just ask your prospect if they can remember what search term (keyword) they used to find your website. Chances are, they will have done several searches and they will relate not one but several key phrases to you.

Armed with that information you are of course much better equipped to sell your product and illustrate how your product answers their search.

It is a good idea, early on in your presentation, to ask something along the lines of:

“I see you found us on the Internet, Mr and Mrs Smith. Do you mind if I ask how you found our website? What search term did you use to find us?”

Explain that your company likes to keep records on this, to track what is working and what is not working for them.

Of course, sometimes they will not have found you via a search engine. Perhaps they saw your advertisement in a magazine? In these instances you just change the question to “What was it about our advert that made you reply/contact us?”

Look at the following search terms and work out what is most important to the customer making these searches:

‘Luxury kitchen’
‘Low maintenance windows’
‘Traditional-looking conservatory’
‘Insulated sunroom’
‘All-year conservatory’
‘Best-insulating double-paned window’

Of course this is also a technique that can be used by telesales or a call centre if it is normal for them to book appointments for sales people. Simply add in an additional question to your script – that as part of your market research you always like to ask which search term people used to find your website.

“There is no such thing as a bad lead, only bad sales people” - Barry Dunlop

Special Note:

The technology exists for website owners to actually track the search term that a surfer used to find their website – and also to track if that surfer made an enquiry. If you want to be really clever you can tie those two pieces of information together. That said, even if you know that information, I would suggest it is best to solicit that information in the format I suggested above.

Winning With Internet leads

The Pros and Cons