Regardless of what you offer, you will need to convince people to buy from you. Doing a “hard sell” is not for everyone, and personally we don’t like to do it.
So, when you want people to buy from you or employ your services, how do you convince them to do business with you?
In fact, it all starts long before you reach that point…
The real question is this:
How do you get people to trust you enough to buy from you? Because if you can do that, people will be willing to buy from you even before they need what you offer.
Here are three ways to accomplish that:
1. Showcase your expertise, and be helpful in the process
In any industry, customers and clients have questions. If you simply start answering questions – on social media or in blog posts and/or videos, you will eventually build a reputation as someone who knows what you are talking about.
Along with that, you being helpful to people who will not necessarily become clients or customers will be seen by many, some of which will in fact do business with you later on.
The more content and/or answers to questions you put out there, the more it enforces your credibility. If someone had to do a search on Google or Facebook about you or your company, what would they find?
If they find that you have been providing useful answers to many people over time, you are deemed more trustworthy than others who cannot show the same.
2. Social proof
Recommendations from your clients or customers are probably the most powerful sales tools you can have.
These can include testimonials, customer feedback, comments on social posts about your products or services, and clients or customers physically telling their friends and peers.
Trusting you as a person or business entity is one thing. But if other people recommend you, that elevates the level of trust to a whole new level.
3. Over-deliver
Fair enough, unless you sell digital goods it isn’t always easy to do this. But if you can in any way offer the client or customer more than they would have expected to receive from you for the price or fee, they would be more inclined to do business with you.
What is there that you can offer that your competitors don’t?
It could be something small (in terms of your input cost), but something that matters to the customer.
You could also go digital, and offer access to a free ebook, Powerpoint, video, worksheet or other useful resource that will make your buyer’s life easier. It could be a how-to guide, a tool or even just useful information.
The biggest reason to consider going digital is that, once the resource has been produced, there is no additional cost, no matter how many people you give it to.
Remember that the client or customer looks at their perception of the value of the resource – and not its actual value. If you can save someone time or money, or make it easier for them to complete any task, the resource you provide will be deemed a lot more valuable than you perceive it to be.
Offering such a resource also reinforces your “expert status” – as referred to in point (1), which makes it easier for people to trust you – and ultimately buy from you.
In conclusion
Any one of the above will help you to convince prospects to buy from you. However, if you can apply two – or all three – of these in tandem, your leverage increases exponentially.