Advantages of Selling Online

Selling Online Without “Selling”

selling onlineSelling online is a whole different ballgame to selling offline. When was the last time you bought a new car from a dealership? We did it yesterday – my god ! what a long winded process. We had to endure every sales trick in the book even though we had decided what we wanted and what we were going to pay. These guys still seem to feel the need to go through the sales training manual. You know the script – “What do I need to do to get your business?” – “You won’t get this car cheaper anywhere in the Uk?”, “Hang on I’ll just see if I can persuade my manager to do a deal with you”… etc etc..

 

The last time we did this we did it through a dealership but directly through the sales manager who was a friend of a friend. This meant we could bypass all the usual crap and just tell him what we wanted and what our budget was. The result was a win-win all round. We got a car at a price that worked for both parties. I later referred my dad to our contact when he was looking for a new car. Sadly our contact has moved on so we were forced to in cold with a different but equally big dealership. This time we had to endure all the tricks of the trade during the “negotiation” between the sales manager and our sales guy. Selling online is more like the bullshit free experience.

This included: The sales manager interrupting to show us his private screen (the one that no-one gets to see usually – although we could hear him doing the same for another customer nearby) An incomprehensible series of scribbled figures that were meant to show us that he was actually losing money on this car at this price! And a laminated rate card that “clearly” showed us why they could only offer a pittance for a trade in.

Selling Online – Same Aim – Different World

selling onlineIs all this really necessary? Can’t people these days just do all their research online then turn up at a dealership, cash in hand ready to buy? Do people really wander in off the street for a quick look at new cars but fully prepared to be talked into or worn down into buying there and then? They must do as that’s what all this selling by the book is designed for. Selling online has the same aim – a sale – but uses a very different tack.

 

I’ve been to my fair share of sales training courses (usually against my will) and that’s definitely what’s taught. I’m just amazed that it still works. I actually find it a bit depressing: It’s the whole hunter thing: The canny sales man stalking his victim and using all his wiles to make the customer feel stupid, flattered, lucky or to find whatever other “buttons” will do the trick. Then it’s into the managers office for a bit of air punching and bell ringing when a sale is made. They’ve won – you’ve lost. With selling online you just get an email telling you you’ve made a sale. You can set up a bell ring on you email inbox if that floats your boat.

Selling Online Without The Games

The thing I like best about selling online – both as a customer and as an online marketer is that it’s completely free of all the tedious sales games that you often need to go through in the traditional world of business. As a customer you can do your research and due diligence in your own time and when you feel ready to buy you can then make contact or just go ahead and buy the product or service you are interested in.

 

As an online marketer selling online there is no chasing people on the phone or working through the A-Z sales manual. You just accept that some people will get what you are saying or feel that they like something about you – others won’t. So you just get on with it and get your messages out there. You test what works best and adapt of course but you don’t batter people half to death with a “Buy my stuff!!” approach. With this approach I find that the people who engage with me always turn out to be people very like me. They, like me, hate the phony, bullshit that you often encounter when buying things the old way. I’m just using car dealers as an example from recent and past experience. I appreciate too that things are probably different for Rolls Royce buyers. We were buying a Vauxhall Corsa for a driving school business.

The Gentle Funnel

Of course with online marketing and selling online there is a sales process. You need to make your offer attractive to people but the big difference is that you don’t need to do that in person. Not at first anyway. People will make up their own minds. Don’t know about you but I far prefer that approach. In a environment like a car sales showroom all these tactics are necessary because that’s the competitive business model. Profit margins are surprisingly low so they need to get the numbers up. Everyone that walks in there needs to be treated as a buyer immediately. The sales people often work on a low or no basic salary set up too so are heavily incentivised to go for the jugular.

 

In both the offline and online models there is a funnel or pipeline. The difference is that with online selling that funnel is a lot gentler. You can ignore an email, decide not to watch a video or not to watch a webinar. It’s not so easy to avoid a salesman’s phone call.

 

As an example of how this works online click on the link below to walk into a virtual showroom. Imagine you were interested in buying a digital marketing training course or affiliate business and compare what happens there to what happens in a car showroom.

 

life after redundancy