How to Get a New Customer
For most new home business owners, the question How do I get a new customer? is probably one of the first questions asked. However, although this is a critical question, it’s not your first priority. Getting new clients on a consistent basis is obviously what every home business owner wants, but if you haven’t taken care of the elements discussed in Success Steps #1 – #4, your conversion rate on converting a new prospect into a new customer or business associate, will be very low.
On the other hand, if you have Success Steps #1 – #4 down to a T, you will find it easier and easier to get a new customer at will. The more skilled you become in the disciplines discussed in the previous training articles, the higher your new customer conversion rates will become.
If you have not studied the previous Success Steps yet, I encourage you to do so now before you continue reading further. Here are the links to those articles for your convenience. They will each open in in a new window, so you won’t lose your link to this page. After that, we will get to the crux: how to get eyeballs on your presentation.
#3 – Identify your target market
#4 – Package your presentation
New customer eyeballs on your packaged presentation
So, if you know your product and what results your clients will get using your product, and you know the needs and wants of your potential customer and you identified the target market where your potential customer hangs out, and you packaged your presentation and tailored it for your target market, the final logical step is to get eyeballs on your presentation. Get in front of your niche audience.
Presentation Methods
How do you get in front of your potential new customer? Well, that depends on the method of presentation that you choose. The gurus’ advice is to first get really good at one form of presentation before you move on to the next presentation skill. This makes a lot of sense. Everyone knows that once you taste success, it’s easy to stay motivated, inspired and gain momentum. If however you are met with constant failure because you failed to master a particular discipline before you moved on to the next one, you will in all probability burn out and quit. Not because you are a bad person, but simply because you are human….and we are all human, right?
Therefore, when I discuss the different presentation styles below, choose the one that suites you best. Some people are just naturally more comfortable with one style over another. The one that stands out for you, is the one I suggest you start with, and master first.
How do you know you have mastered a particular presentation style? Simple: Look at your conversion rates. If you presented to 10 people and you converted 3 out of 10, you will know that you are really proficient in that style. You can then decide to ADD another presentation style. Do not stop the one to start the other. Keep on doing what is already working whilst you hone your skills on the next presentation style, until you have about a 30% conversion rate. Now right of the bat I have to emphasize that you have to compare apples with apples. Some presentation styles just simply convert at a much higher rate than others. It’s that simple. So don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get a 30% conversion rate. I just used that as an example.
Once you chose a particular presentation method to start with, make sure your packaged presentation is tailored for that specific method.
Methods to get in front of a new customer:
These methods are in no particular order. Consider each one carefully. Weigh up the pro’s and con’s and only then, after you considered every method, choose one to start with. If a particular method requires you to have ancillary skills which you do not possess yet, that method will be harder to master than the others. Start with the method that will be the easiest for you.
# One-on-One Presentations
One-on-one face to face presentations can be very daunting, especially when you are new. If however you followed the guidelines of success steps #1 – #4, I assure you, it will only take you a few practice presentations to get really high conversion rates using this method.
That’s right. One-on-one presentations have a very high conversion rate if you prepared your packaged presentation correctly. The reason for this high conversion rate is simple. It’s much easier and faster to build rapport with your new customer one on one, than it is in a group situation or from a distance.
The secret to successful one-on-one presentations is not to talk too much, but to let your “secret weapon” do all the talking for you. Your secret weapon is the tailored method of packaging your presentation for these one-on-one new customer encounters. Your secret weapon is….wait for it….ready?…..it’s your pitch-book.
The task of the pitch-book is to do most of the talking for you. It’s your silent assistant that speaks louder and more powerful than any words you can use.
A well constructed pitch-book will be your most valuable tool in one-on-one presentations. Here’s the general structure of a good pitch-book:
A brief introduction to your company’s mission
Your new customer must instantly be attracted to your company’s mission. Just highlight the one or two things that would appeal to your targeted prospect.
A brief overview of your products
When I say brief, I mean simply pointing to the products and say something like “these are our companies star products”, then move on! No detail about the products. Just that. Then turn the page to….
Your story
A big enough before and after picture highlighting the results that you personally achieved by using the company’s products to date. This is discussed in detail with an illustration in our previous Success Step #4: Package Your Presentation.
I was…I did…I am
Essentially, this was me before. Briefly highlight the problems you had. If the before picture can highlight that…like a picture of your old run down car or decrepit living conditions or your morbidly obese body, all the better.
What did you then do? I joined this company and used the products.
Then what happened? You got a result!
Share your results to date.
Most people think they first have to have a major success result before they can share their personal story. Not so! I converted my first new customer when I only lost 4kg. Because I still weighed 114kg at the time, nobody could see the weight-loss, but simply stating to this lady at a social function that I started on these new products and lost 4kg in my first week, was enough to convince her. I did not have to build rapport with her, as she knew me already.
Remember to always refer to the following compulsory legal disclaimer: These results are not typical. Individual results will vary.
Share other successful customer results
How? Pictures! This is Anna. She used to be a clerk struggling to make ends meet. She started her new home business and made $1000 extra in her first month. Now it does not mean that you will be able to do that, but that’s what she did. (You could throw in something about not being allowed to make any money claims without a disclaimer.)
Or,
This is John. Here’s a photo of him on the day he started with our products. As you can see he was morbidly obese. Actually, he used to weigh 130kg. This picture here is John after 3 months on the products, losing a total of 12 kilos in that time. This next picture was taken after 6 months…he actually lost 25kg by then. Look at the difference between the 3 pictures. Now here’s John at his target weight of 90kg after just 10 months on using our products. He lost 40kg and is maintaining his weight loss ever since.
Turn the page, “ahh, here is Suzie…”
Then, go faster through the stories….your prospective new client will stop you if she sees a person that “resembles” her…somebody that they can identify with…share the result and then….ask for the sale. Don’t talk, only direct your prospect’s attention from result to result. The before and after pictures will do all the talking for you until your client is ready to buy!
Close the deal
Go to your 3 options as discussed in the previous training. A page setting these out briefly will be sufficient. Option A, B and C and what each cost. Then ask which one they would like to start with. Then….say nothing! Wait for their response before you say anything!
An indication that they are ready to buy is usually disguised in a statement or question that might seem like an objection. In actual fact, the client just want’s you to tell them why it’s a good deal. They will say something like, “these products must be really expensive” or “how fast do you see the results” or “can anyone use these products” or “how long do you need to use the products” or “I have to talk to my husband first”. Whatever question, keep smiling and answer the question with a story. Either from personal experience or other peoples experience. Example: Initially I thought the products were expensive too, but when I worked it out, I realised that the cost of using the products every day, is less than the price of a cup of coffee. Most people find that very affordable. Then, what do you do? That’s right. Be quiet. Wait for your client to pick one of the 3 options!
This method has the highest conversion rate ever. As I said in the beginning, it will only take you a few presentations to get comfortable with your pitch-book and increase your conversion ratios. Keep track of your conversions. You will be amazed.
The advantages of this method is that it’s really easy to do. Everybody can do this and it builds your confidence in your own ability to do the business really quickly. And of course – the conversion rates are really high compared to the other methods.
The people who fail or keep on getting little or no conversions using this method, are usually people who skipped over steps #1 – #4. They do so at their own peril.
The downside of this presentation method is that it’s highly time consuming. However, once you mastered this method, you can begin to group your new prospective clients together. Instead of presenting to one person at a time face to face, start presenting to 3, then 5, then 10 people at a time. Once you mastered this particular presentation skill you will find that 3 out of every 10 people will buy from you or join your company. Once you can get 3 out of 10 consistently, it becomes a numbers game…but that gets into the subject matter of our next and last topic. Let’s move on.
Where do you get new people to present to every day?
- People you know
- People you don’t know
People you know
People you know is what is referred to as your Circle of Influence (COI). Now, don’t squirm. It’s not about pestering your uninterested friends and family. If you have studied success principle #3, you will know how to identify them. Simply call them up, an schedule an appointment for a convenient time. You can either invite them over for dinner or tea, or you can go to them. I find that inviting your COI over to you, is more natural. Remember, these are people you don’t have to first build rapport with. They already know, like and trust you. If you have identified them as part of your target market, well hey, you can just press those “hot buttons” and present them with the solution. Always act in their best interests and encourage them to give it a go. An easy way to present to your friends or family, is to say to them that you are just starting out in a new home business, and you need to practice your presentation before you can go out and do it. You are basically asking them to help you out by being a guinea pig. The added advantage is that you can get them to handle the products. This is crucial. Put the tin in their hands. Let them sample the products.
People you don’t know.
After you identified your niche or target market, you can advertise to them directly. This will attract people to you who want what you have. You are not approaching them, they are approaching you. You can do this via flyers, posters, ads in your local paper, gumtree ads, sending out postcards or brochures. The options are legio.
With people you don’t know, it’s recommended to meet them at a neutral venue or venue away from your home. A coffee shop or group meeting place is preferred.
# Printed media
To master this method, you need copy writing skills. To attract a reader’s attention and keep it, is much harder than doing so face to face. The key is to hook your prospective new client quickly. They must want to read more. They must be eager to hear what you have to say. Putting your tailored presentation in printed form skillfully, has the ability to work for you, when you are not present. Your conversion rates will be much lower than one on one presentations, no doubt. However, having the ability to have a presentation out there when you are not present, has it’s advantages. It works for you, while you’re not.
Printed media avenues:
- Brochures
- Mail order
- Post Cards
Before the days of the Internet, snail mail in the form of flyers, posters, mail order, post cards and letters were really at the order of the day. People learned to quickly tune out to all the junk mail they received through the mail, pretty much the same as they do these days with “junk emails”. It simply does not get read. No eyeballs on your presentation simply means no new customer…it’s that simple.
Quick tip: These days people hardly get snail mail. When they do, they tend to open and read it, especially if it is a personalized letter or postcard.
The major downside of the printed media via normal mail, is that it tends to be expensive and can take quite a while before you get a ratio of results that starts to pay for itself. To really make this viable, you have to do mass mailings. This brings the overall marketing cost down. However, if you do not have the funds to put in a sustained effort until you mastered this skill, this is probably not something you should start with.
# The Internet
Static Presentations
Having your presentation hosted on a website, is a more cost effective solution which provides you the added opportunity to add video to your printed presentation. However, if you do not have the skills to set up your own website (which can be really cheap to do), you will either have to pay someone else to do it for you, or first learn the skills yourself. Having learned how to do this myself, I can tell you that it’s much easier than you think. It might sound daunting at first, but once you master the basics, it becomes really easy. And because you are doing it yourself, rather than paying someone to do it for you, you can make changes at will at no extra cost and you can tailor it until you get the conversion rates you want.
The major advantage of this method is that your online presentation will work for you 24/7. You do the work once; setting it up and tweaking it to get the conversion results you are happy with, and that’s it. You have a “silent salesman” working for you around the clock. He doesn’t tire, moan, complain or demand…he just works.
However, having an online presentation hosted at a domain name of your choice is not enough. You have to get eyeballs on your presentation, right? How do you do it? Two ways:
- Optimize your website for search engines to pick it up. That way Google, Bing and all other search engines will rank your webpage and send visitors to your site when they search for keywords that you used and optimized on your website. The technical term for this is SEO – search engine optimization. This is free targeted traffic to your website (also known as organic traffic). It’s people that are already searching for what you have, and most of them have their credit cards ready. We teach this in detail to our members inside our members training area.
- You point people to your website. If you have your presentation hosted on a website, this will be your main focus after you optimized your webpage for the search engines, as it takes time for the search engines to rank you and move you up in their search queries. The long and short of it is this: the more people that visits and interacts on your webpage, the more people the search engines will send to your webpage. It’s that simple. That is why you must do everything you can in the beginning to get people to go to your website and to either “like” it or “leave a comment” or “share it”. This so by the way is why Facebook remains the number 1 ranked website in the world. How many millions of people interact socially on Facebook every day. What all those Facebook users perhaps don’t know, is that they are actually the ones that build Facebook and make it one of the most valuable web businesses out there today. And we all do it happily for free for Facebook. Why? Because Facebook gives us a free platform to interact and connect socially with our friends. The concept is genius.
The methods to direct people to your website is legio. Here are a few examples:
- a hyperlink at the bottom of all your outgoing emails – say something catchy that will prickle their interest and hyperlink the text
- send out post cards in the mail pointing the reader to your website for more information
- handing out flyers or brochures at areas where your target audience is known to hang out – don’t just give it out everywhere
- making use of online or offline advertising e.g. your local paper, church bulletin, gumtree, or online advertising agencies – p.s. “buying leads” is not recommended as 9 times out of 10 you will be flushing your money down the loo doing so
Live presentations
The above method is a “static” presentation method that works for you 24/7. Another, highly successful online presentation method that yields better conversion rates, is what is known as webinars. Webinars are usually live presentations. You can however use your recorded webinar to work for you just the same as a static web page.
In order to do webinars, you first need to acquire the skills of hosting a webinar, choosing and using the webinar software or if you know what you are doing, simply doing a pre-advertised live stream recording via something like Google Hangouts, which can be instantly recorded on your Youtube account, which in turn could be embedded on one of your website’s webpages from where your viewers can watch it live, and socially interact.
A successful webinar presentation is a skill that needs to honed just like you would using your pitch-book in a one on one presentation. All the skills discussed so far in this training series on Working a Home Business, is highly relevant and critical to packaging and pulling off a successful webinar that leads to instant conversions. Your call to action must be very specific and the action steps very easy to implement.
With all your online presentations, live or otherwise, it is paramount to get your visitor’s contact detail in order to follow up on them. As you know by now, you literally have only a few seconds to grab your visitor and compel him or her to stay long enough to give you time to build rapport. Then, offering your visitor a strong incentive to leave you his contact detail, is your next step. This allows you to follow up with them. This is known as “list building” – a separate training that is beyond the scope of this series.
# Group Presentations
A lot of home business companies provide corporate or joint distributor presentation meetings. This is particularly useful for new distributors who still lacks the confidence and skills to do the presentation themselves. It provides an easier way to ease into the business by getting eyeballs in front of a well-packaged presentation. The added advantage is that your prospects get to see other people in real life and get to hear and see their results up close and personal. The most difficult part of using group presentations like this, is the inviting part. My tip: Do not invite people under false pretenses. People who do not buy from you at a one on one presentation, should definitely be invited to a group presentation where they could see other people and hear from other people, to make an informed decision.
A more successful way of doing group presentations is still “home parties”. The host invites people over and one person presents. This is in the form of a social. People get greeted and treated to snack, get to taste the products and listen to the presentation in a relaxed environment. Compare this to a boring sales type meeting where everybody is automatically on guard, and you will know why the home party conversion rate is so high.
In context it simply means this: don’t share or waste your presentation on people who are not part of your target market.
If I have to recommend a presentation method to start with, it would definitely be the ONE on ONE presentation, followed by One on Three, One on Five etc. and Group Presentations, especially the home parties. This way you get to connect with your prospective new client immediately. Building that relationship with your new client is vital for building a long-lasting and sustainable customer base. You will find that a very big percentage of the people who join you in your home business, will be people who first started out as your customers. Therefore treat each customer as if you are going to be friends for a long time.
If you have mastered one of these presentation methods, yielding you with a new customer with predictable regularity via your ratio of results, you are ready to move on to the next and final success step in this series – exploding your business.
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See you in the next article!
Here are the links to the 6 Success Steps for ease of reference once again:
#3 – Identify your target market
#4 – Package your presentation
#5 – How to get a new customer
Yours sincerely,
Will & Suné Kilian
Global Expansion Team
Herbalife ID: 46-024370
Email: wjkilian@gmail.com
Based in Australia.
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*** Now it is time for you to go hone your skills to get new customer after new customer at your will. Please come back to this webpage to share your successes in implementing these strategies.
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