Scared to Sell

I recently asked a bunch of business owners: “What is one thing that you want to improve on in your business?” The vast majority of the people who responded said that they wanted to get better at selling.

Even the word selling makes some business owners cringe. If I told you that you needed to go out and sell x amount of dollars for your business today, how does that make you feel?

Excited? Or uncomfortable?

You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable selling, and if you do it’s likely because you believe selling needs to be aggressive and filled with trickery and tactics that don’t align with your values.

Selling does NOT have to be that way.

When you understand the fundamentals of selling, it makes it a lot easier to build your business. Selling is a skill, it is not manipulation.

Selling is simply helping people make buying decisions that are best for them and their needs.

You feel uncomfortable when it comes to selling because of one of two reasons:

1. You’re afraid of rejection or 2. You’re chasing money.

There are three important things to understand when it comes to selling, and these three mathematical truths are the only way you can increase sales:

1. Traffic:

No matter what your business is, if you don’t have traffic, you don’t have customers to sell to. Marketing is what you do to drive traffic to your business and that requires you to know who your customer is. Marketing should be used not for just any traffic, but to attract the RIGHT traffic. If you’re a brewery, for example, and you’re marketing to someone who is gluten-free, like me, your conversion is probably going to be zero.

Who are you marketing to and how are you driving more traffic to your business?

2. Conversion rate:

Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who buy out of your total traffic. If you attract a traffic number of 10 and you have one person who buys, your conversion rate is 10% (1/10).

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether you have a traffic problem, which requires more marketing, or a conversion problem, which requires either more effective marketing to the right audience or skill improvement in the area of closing sales.

If your conversion rate is 10% and you can learn how to convert two sales out of 10 instead of one, you have just doubled your sales. That’s how important it is…

You can double your sales by converting better.  

3. Average sale:

Your average sale is your total sales divided by your total transactions; it is the average each customer spends when they do business with you. If you want to hit $1000 in sales, and your average sale is $100, then you need 10 customers who buy, spending $100 to reach your goal.

When I coach people, I talk a lot about their business model and understanding what their “rocks, pebbles and sand” are.

Rocks are typically the highest priced item you sell, pebbles being the mid-tier offer, and sand being low price pointed items. As a business owner, you have to determine which of these things you’re offering to your buyers if you want to move the needle on your average sale.

Let’s look at my business.

I sell books, programs, and coaching. Books cost $25, programs cost $500 and group coaching fees start at $6000.

If I was trying to generate $100,000 in sales, which item would get me there the fastest?

It’s important for you to understand the process of selling and how your traffic, conversion rate, and average sale impact your ability to reach your goals.

Let’s recap, based on improving your traffic, conversion and average sale:

Scenario #1: If your traffic is 10 and your conversion rate is 10%, you have one customer. If your average sale is $100, your total sales are $100.

Scenario #2: If you double your traffic to 20, keep your conversion rate at 10%, you now have two customers. If your average sale is $100, your total sales are now $200. That’s a 100% increase in sales.

Scenario #3: If your traffic stays doubled at 20, and you improve your conversion rate to 20%, instead of having 2 customers, you’ll have four. If your average sale is $100, your total sales are now $400. That’s a 400% increase in sales.

Scenario #4: But if you get really good at this, and your traffic stays at 20, and your conversion rate stays at 20%, and you double your average sale to $200, all of a sudden, your total sales are now $800 and that… is an 800% increase from scenario #1.

When you go from $100 to $800 in sales, that is an 800% improvement. What would change in your life and business if things improved by 8x?

You can do this when you learn how to sell, understand the metrics in your business, and market to the right buyer.

If you’d like my help, join us in The Sales Pilot. It’s a Summer Boot Camp designed to help you sell more.

Leave a comment below and let me know: Which aspect do you feel you need to work on the most – traffic, conversion or average sale?