In this blog post, I’m going to talk about how you can sell marketing funnels over Zoom.
If you can’t do your sales meetings face-to-face or if you want to learn how to sell marketing funnels without actually having to be in the room, or maybe you just want to improve your client close rate, that’s what I’m going to cover in this blog post.
If you want to check out my funnel proposal template, which you can download for free, just head to https://sellyourservice.co.uk/proposal.
The problem is that if you want to sell marketing funnels, you’re not always able to do it face-to-face. I personally like selling face-to-face, but I understand why perhaps in the literal climates and conditions that we are facing today, you might not be able to do that.
But it also opens up a world of possibility to be able to successfully pitch and close $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 projects or pound projects to customers without necessarily having to be in the room.
It’s difficult selling in general, selling marketing funnels to customers. You might feel that doing it over Zoom might reduce the likelihood of closing the sale, but that’s not actually true.
Lots of funnel builders feel that they should sell face-to-face. That’s not actually the case. In fact, selling over Zoom and doing it over a Skype call or over Zoom or whatever can actually increase the chances of you generating the sale there and then.
What a lot of funnel builders do is they’ll typically send the proposal out to the customer and after having an initial meeting, they’ll send it to them in an email and say, “Hey, have a look over it. Let me know if you’ve got any questions.”
That is plainly the wrong thing to do. In fact, I believe that you should hold on to the proposal. We’ll talk about that in a little bit.
You should try and close them over Zoom. If anything, rather than seeing this as an opportunity to start kind of counteracting the fact that we can’t sell face-to-face. This is actually going to be a method that you can use to increase sales, even if you can meet face-to-face.
The first thing is to use a proposal template. As I’ve mentioned already, I’ve actually got a proposal template. You can head to https://sellyourservice.co.uk/proposal to download that template. What that’s going to allow you to do, even though you are doing this over Zoom, is give you a structured agenda for the call.
The way that I like to use it is treating the proposal a bit like a presentation template. I’ll actually go on to Zoom and I’ll share the screen of the proposal template. If you head to betterproposals.io as well, I’ve actually got my marketing funnel proposal template.
In there, Adam and his team have done an amazing job of making it look amazing and really fancy. You can actually have it on the screen and walk through the proposal steps with the customer on the call.
Don’t give the proposal to the customer until you get to the investment page. It’s a really classic mistake. Many customers just want to see the price but what you’re going to do is, on the call, run through each stage that I give in the template.
If you’ve seen any of my other videos, I talk through how, we talk about their problems and where they want to be and what they’ve got now and what the solution is and talking through those sections and getting them to buy in to each and every stage.
The way that I present or pitch the call as well is I ask the customer, “Hey, I just want to jump on a call. We’ve almost got your proposal ready to go. I just want to run through one last final check. Ask a final few questions to make sure that the proposal is everything that you need.”
They’re going to say, “Yeah, that’s great. That’s fine.” They’ll come onto the proposal. You then walk through that template and they’re going, “Yes, that’s great. That’s fine.” They’re buying into it without even realizing that they’re actually being sold to.
The second thing you’ll want to do is actually closing them there and then. Now, this is very scary because the traditional model is to send the proposal to someone, wait a few days, chase them up, ask them if they’ve seen the email or read the proposal or whatever, and then hope to get some kind of deposit or payment.
I personally like to flip that and do the exact opposite. As I’ve mentioned, on the call, we’ll actually run through the proposal, make sure they’re bought into each section. We’ll go through each stage. Then at the end of the call, I will close them there and then.
I don’t use a weak ending, “If you’ve got any questions or if there’s anything we can help with, just let us know.” Or, “So, what do you think?”
I say, “We can get started today. We just require a deposit and a signature.” Some of the time they’re going to go, “Fantastic!” and they’ll actually sign it there. Then, they’ll give you the payment.
If you even tighten up that close and say something along the lines of, “We can get started today. We just require a deposit in a signature. I can actually take payment over the phone. What’s the long number on the credit card?”
You’re telling them the exact specific steps they need to get started. If they go, “Whoa, we need to think about this or we need to talk about the price. So, we’ve got a few questions.” Great but until you close them they’re not going to bring up those objections.
We think that by asking, “Any questions or is there anything I can help with that?” They’re going to be honest with us. In actual fact, you need to hold their feet to the fire a little bit and say, “Look, we’re ready to go, you’ve read the proposal.”
If they’re reading a proposal from you, it means they are interested in buying. If you assume that sale and say to them, “We can get started today. I can even take payment over my phone. Just what’s the long number on the credit card or the bank details that we can send over and we can actually get started today.”
If they do have an objection and say something like, “We’re not quite ready just yet.” Close those objections. Turn those objections. Answer those questions and then repeat the close.
You’ll find that you can actually start getting paid on the day of the proposal rather than sending it and hoping for a payment a few days later after lots and lots of chasing.
Point number three. If this is a cold call or this is your first call with them, my advice is don’t try to sell to them on the call.
The mistake that a lot of businesses make, and this is not just funnel builders is if you manage to get someone onto a Zoom call and it’s for a preliminary discovery call or an initial meeting, or you’ve even managed to get them on a cold call, maybe you’ve actually physically phoned them up and you’ve booked an appointment and they’ve said, “Yeah, great.” Don’t try and sell them there and then.
This is your opportunity to do deep dives, to do discovery, to uncover as much as possible. Many funnel builders, basically panic as soon as they’ve got someone on the phone and they start to think I need to close them. I need to sell to them. I need to pitch them. I need to give them everything, show them what we can do, tell them how great we are.
In fact, I want you to pump the brakes a little bit. There is a time and a place to sell, but right now, if this is your first initial meeting with someone over Zoom, over a phone call, over Skype, whatever, what you need to do is do qualification and discovery.
First of all, are they the right person to talk to? Do they have a budget? What are their needs? What are their timescales? Who else are they working with? We call that BANTS. B-A-N-T-S. Budget. What type of money do they have? Do they have the budget for this?
Do they have the authority? Are they the decision maker? Is there anyone else who basically needs to sign the document? What are their needs? Asking a bit of discovery, deep diving into their business, what their goals are. Their timescales. When are they looking to get started and their supplies. The more you can find out about their business, the more likely they are to buy from you in the future.
Lots of people try to jump on a call, immediately, try to sell and pitch the customer. In actual fact, what you should be doing is trying to qualify them, make sure that they’re the right person to talk to in order to sell to them better later on.
Leading on from that point, number four, if this is a pitch or proposal meeting, the categorically, most important thing you can do on the call is make sure that the decision makers are on the call. This, in my opinion is actually more important than the budget, because we can always talk about budget.
If someone says, “Look, we weren’t expecting to pay 25 grand. We’ve only got 20 grand.” They’ve got 25 grand, right? If however, you completely miss the budget question, they say, “Look, we were hoping that you could do this for 300 quid and your proposals for 30 grand.”
You’ve obviously missed the mark there but it happens. In my opinion, what will stop a proposal going forward more than anything is when you don’t have the decision makers on the course of the category.
Most important thing is to find out who the decision makers are. Way before you set up the call and way before you even write the proposal and make sure that they are on the call with you
Often, what can happen is you’ll have a marketing manager and the director of the business, and they’ll say, “Look, the Director, isn’t able to make it today. That’s really common because they’re the big player and what you need to do is reframe this and say, ”Okay, fine, not a problem. We can rebook.“
Now there are absolutely no exceptions to this rule. If someone doesn’t turn up to a meeting that they say they’re going to be at, and they’re a decision maker, you absolutely have to get them on the call.
If you don’t get them on the call, one of two things is going to happen, either the person you’re pitching to is going to sell it to the director. They’re going to do, frankly, a pretty lousy job. Or you’re going to have to re-pitch it anyway.
You can either re-book a time or cancel the call completely. What’s interesting is when you give that ultimatum to people, they end up going to try and find the Director.
Typically, try and force your hand and say, “Look, just go ahead and start. We can talk to the director later, or we can try and bring them in later.” What you need to do is stand strong and say, “Look, I can hold on for 15 minutes but then I have to leave.”
I’d like to say, “Look, I can get you 15 minutes to get organized. Otherwise, we’re going to have to call it a day and I’m going to have to re-book.”
What’s interesting here is that their fear of offending you and looking like a bit of a jackass is so strong. They’ll typically go and find the director and what this does is two things.
First of all, miraculously 90% of the time the Director turns up and turns out they’ve got time and space, and then you’ve just run straight from the top again and treat it exactly as you would do, or you do end up having to re-book but you walk away and they know that you are not the person to be messed around with.
It doesn’t happen all the time and thankful to say it very rarely happens to me anymore. However, it has done in the past and every single time I’ve said, “I can either give you 15 minutes to get the director to come in, or we’re going to have to re-book.” Very rarely have I had to re-book.
Usually they’re able to find the Director. If you want to learn more about the re-framing stuff. I suggest reading the book, pitch anything by Oren Klaff. It’s a very interesting and compelling book about the neuroscience behind why pitching and presenting live works and how to make sure that the right people are on the call.
Sometimes, however, the person on the call can blindside you and say, “Yeah, this is great. We just need to run it past the director.”
This means they, weren’t entirely honest with you about who the decision makers are when you were pitching them, which means that they’re going to have to re-pitch it anyway.
It can be a bit difficult to be blindsided. I used to get really pissed off at this and say, “So, you lied to me. You told me that you’re the decision maker, but you’re not,” But actual fact, I handle it in a slightly different way now.
What tends to happen is you could try to close them. You say, “We can take a deposit today and get started. We just require a deposit and a signature. They go, ”Great. We just need to run this past our director.“
You need to clarify immediately and say, “Okay, so you’re not the only decision maker?” and they’ll go, “We are, I am the decision maker.”, because people don’t like to admit that they’re not in control.
They go, “But I still have to run it past, my Director, my husband, my wife, whatever.” The way that I like to treat this is it’s not true. It’s actually an objection. It’s a way for them to be able to take the pressure off themselves and actually throwing you a bit of a challenge.
Instead, what I like to say is, “Sure. I always like to make sure that I feel supported on an important decision. If your director is anything like my past directors, they’ve been really supportive of any decisions that I’ve made, too. Remember we have got a 30 day cooling off period and if you don’t want to buy it and you think it sucks, we’ll happily give you a refund.
How about we take the deposit? We can get started today and you can go back to your director with what we’re doing. We just can take payment via card. What’s the long card number?“ I’ve transitioned immediately back into that close and turning as an objection, rather than treating as an absolute holding point.
Another good question to ask is to say, “Yeah, I like to feel supported, too. What part of the deal is it that you feel unsure of?” And they’ll go, “No, I feel totally sure about everything.” I go, “Fantastic. Sign here. We can take a deposit and get started today.”
They’ve just told you that they feel fine with it. Needing to get signed up from a director or any of that kind of shit is nonsense. It’s absolute nonsense. If they weren’t a decision-maker at the time of the qualification call, they’re sure as hell not a decision-maker now.
If they are, I like to flip it on the person a little bit and poke their ego a bit and say, “Hey, if you need to go get daddy to hold your hand through this very scary and difficult transition process, I’m willing to do that.” All of a sudden they go, “No. I’m the big play on the big man. I wear the big boy pants and I can do it.”
Remember if you are looking for a proposal template, go ahead and head over to sellyourservice.co.uk/proposal. You can get my template that I run through on calls on Zoom with my customers in order to close them there.
I’ve got another blog post, talking about How to write marketing funnel proposals fast. This breaks down the framework of the four areas that I focus on. It also gets the customer to write the proposal for you, which sounds insane. If you ask the right questions, the customer will basically tell you exactly what they’re going to buy the leave and turn some objections for you and tell you how you should pitch and sell to them.
Go ahead and check out this blog post How to write marketing funnel proposals fast.
Have courage, commit, and take action.
