Jason Kanigan, Author at SalesTactics.org

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A Word About Collecting Payment and Closing Deals

Posted on August 27, 2023 by Jason Kanigan

If You Aren't Collecting Payment at the Time of Order, You're More Likely to "Lose the Sale"

Inside an agency owners group I saw a sales discussion in which a number of people said they had problems collecting payment and closing deals. They would think they had “closed the sale” and gotten the order, but when they later sent an invoice, the buyer would ghost them.

Here’s my question in response: Do you have your screen for collecting payment ready when the buyer is ready to buy?

A major block to selling that I see with newer agency founders is that they don’t present this attitude: “It’s normal to buy.”

They’re busy being afraid. They’re afraid this person won’t buy. And the actions they take demonstrate it’s weird, unusual, wrong for someone to buy.

When You Act Like No One Has Been Here Before, They Won't Buy

When you don’t have your method of collecting payment ready, you’re telling your prospect, “Oh, wow—nobody ever got here before! This is strange!” And what do you think the prospect’s emotional reaction to that is? (“Yikes, I’m outta here!”)

My hardcore close, based on 25+ years of experience, is, “So, what do you want to do next?”

When I feel all questions have been taken care of, the prospect has a need for what I offer, a problem large enough to warrant my involvement, and a personality I and my team can work with…then it is natural for them to say something like, “I’d like to buy. How do we get started?” How do I pay you?

And then, instantly, I bring up the payment processing page. It is normal to buy. I have been here a zillion times before. I have been here earlier today. It is normal to buy. Here is the process. People do this. Many people have done it before you.

Make It Normal to Buy

Make this change. If there is a gap between you and collecting the money, get rid of that gap. Collect the money.

I was a credit manager for a national electrical wholesaler for four years around the time I was 30. I collected $2 million a month and got very good at talking to people about the very touchy subject of money. I learned that you must ask for the money, you must be ready to collect the money, and it must feel normal to everyone involved that you are collecting the money.

Are You Presenting Yourself As Someone People Regularly Buy Things From?

Observe how you present yourself and your content on sales calls. Are you nervous? unprepared? unsure?

Everything about what you do needs to express “I have been here before. Many buyers have been here with me before. This is normal. It is normal to buy.”

What changes will you put into action to make this happen?

When I originally posted this in the agency group, fellow member Boyd Trimmell commented: “Failure to collect payment immediately is why so many small service businesses struggle with cash flow.” He is dead right.

The accounting maxim goes: A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. The interest rate aka inflation, creating the Time Value of Money concept, makes it so. Add to that if you aren’t collecting payment now it’s less likely that you ever will, and you’ll see the problem clearly: you’re delaying or completely denying that cash your business needs. Cash is the lifeblood of business. If you’re an employee and not an owner, understand this…you are paid by money collected. If you don’t collect, the business will soon run out of cash and you won’t be paid at all. As Stuart Wilde said: “When they show up, bill ’em”.

>> Jason Kanigan is a strategist who works with agency owners to increase the profitabilty and effectiveness of their organizations. Book a consultation with Jason here <<

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Agency Sales Book by Jason Kanigan

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Jason Kanigan

Fast Shortcut To Agency Sales: The Book Is Here!

Let’s talk about selling agency services, and the struggles agency founders have in doing so. If you’re one of these founders, especially a new agency founder, there’s a bit of information I’m about to share that no one may have let you know yet. The truth is that you have to develop certain competencies to have an agency business…or any kind of business. The first and foremost of those is the competency of reaching out and starting conversations with your ideal customer.

The First Competency Agency Owners Need

New agency owners have their attention on the wrong thing. Ask yourself: what are you most concerned about at this time? Sales, right? Getting new customers paying you and onboarded for your services.

But this is wrong.

You have a way to go before you can do that. Right now, you need to develop that competency of connecting with and starting conversations well with members of your target market.

Let me be crystal clear: if you can’t do that, you won’t be making any sales.

Now the industry will shove any number of fancy tools at you supposedly for accomplishing this without you having to talk to anybody. I recognize that this idea is appealing. But it’s a lie.

Do you really believe emailing unqualified leads and asking them to sign up for your services is going to work?

Does it seem likely that doing some sort of Loom video auditing their site–an unsolicited criticism they didn’t ask for, remember–is going to result in them crawling on their knees over to you, begging you to help them?

Agency Sales Tactics That Work NOW

As I’ve said before and for many years, just about anything will work. If you give something enough time, and do it with enough repetitions, it’ll give you the result you want just by accident. Me standing in a pink bunny suit at the main intersection of the small town I live in, holding a sign in my paws with an offer on it, will eventually result in a customer. Traffic is light. I might have to wait a couple of years.

Do you want to wait a couple of years?

Or would you rather be on the road to making sales of agency services NOW?

Of course I understand that you’d like to get customers. And I’m telling you that the first step to get a customer is to develop the competency of reaching out to and starting good conversations with your target market.

You don’t need anything fancy to do this. Just a telephone and your voice.

Oh, and the right, proven words that open the door and get you what you want.

You Can Get That Compentency Today, Instead of Probably Never

As I said, no one talks about these competencies you have to develop as a business owner if you want to succeed. Why would they? Instead, they want to keep selling you magic bullets that don’t really work. I’m interested in equipping you with proven scripting to get those customers you want.

Oh, you could figure this wording out on your own. Maybe. It’d take you at least a month of consistent calling at least two hours every weekday, blindly trying different wording, getting hung up on, being treated like a flunky. What’s that? You’d never get past the first day? Correct.

So why not let me save you that time and grief, and actually give you something proven to work today.

Be On the Road to Selling Agency Services Within the Hour

You need to develop the competencies of reaching the person you want to talk to, and then starting a conversation with them effectively enough that there IS a rest of the call. I realize that might sound basic, but consider whether anyone else has ever put it so clearly to you.

Now I’ve distilled the precise wording that is required to accomplish those two things. I’ve put them in a book. But not a long book. This is what Kindle calls a Short Read. No padding. No filler. Just the facts. You’ll be through it in under an hour, and you won’t have to flip through it looking for the page you want to take notes from. It’s a mercifully brief, to-the-point little book. And it will help you today. Discover what I share with you in there, and you’ll be on the road to making sales of agency services like web design, PPC leadgen, SEO, social media and other services within the hour.

Think about how much time, energy, and grief this little book is going to save you.

Now go get it here. Start applying it today.

>> Jason Kanigan is a strategist who works with agency owners to increase the profitabilty and effectiveness of their organizations. Book a consultation with Jason here <<

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Why Demos Fail to Sell

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Jason Kanigan

why demos fail to sell, DemoGuy, software demonstration

Why Demos Fail to Sell: A Question

Why do SaaS (Software as a Service) B2B firms make you go through a demo? This was the question on an expert platform I'm a member of. "What's with all the secrecy?" Why not, as is common in the B2C world, simply let the user download the SaaS and use it for a free trial period? Wouldn't that lead to better traction and more paying customers?

The original version of this post was written in October 2014. Recently, a SaaS founder was sharing a list of factors that helped them get over eight figures ($10MM) in revenue this year...and guess what the first item was? "No Free Demo". So that prompted a review of this post. Let's see how things have updated in the past nine years:

"No Free Demo"

Before leaving Canada, I was Business Development Manager of a full service boutique IT firm. One of our main products was for network security. 'Book demos, book demos, book demos' was the direction. The idea was to get people on a call and screenshare appointment with one of our techs. My experience and understanding from then to now leads me to this conclusion:

I don't think it's secrecy. I believe it's bad selling.

"Look at this awesome thing I developed! Surely if you look at it, and I can control the demonstration, I can explain everything about it. Then you'll really want it!"

Sometimes a product or service creator can be fearful someone will "steal" their idea. They have not realized ideas are a dime a dozen: it's execution that is difficult to match! This could lead to the perception of secrecy. But I believe poor understanding of selling is a much more common issue in the SaaS world.

Underlying Reasons Why Demos Fail to Sell

Many products are developed because the creator had an idea. Not because the market told them they needed it, note. This is why so many SaaS startups fail. No need. Then they make up some sort of pricing structure which has no basis in reality and certainly isn't profitable...and then must go out into the marketplace and try to convert people into becoming users. Tough road!

What most salespeople (and people who shouldn't really be in sales, but accidentally fell into the role) fail to understand is that customers rarely buy because of ALL the features your product or service has. They tend to buy because of ONE of these.

Example: the network security product I sold had four main features. But buyers would only be interested in one of them--a different one each time. Only months later, when they came back and asked the now-perceived-as-expert (me), "Gee, we need X...do you know anything that does that?" I could then happily inform them, "What you have now does that already."

Sell first, educate later. Often, putting too many choices or things to think about in front of a prospect will result in overwhelming them. Another example: I'm a producer for a TV network. When we first meet with a prospect, I don't go into everything we can do. I stick to one big idea, and that's what we sell. When I first started in the field, I tried upselling, cross selling, what have you. Nope. All that did was confuse the prospects. Now I sell them on the one big idea...and then come back a little later, now that they're used to working with us, and pick up the other orders I knew would be a good fit following the first discussion.

What to Do Now That You Know Why Demos Fail to Sell

The standard belief is: "If I can just get in front of enough people and tell them about every single feature of my SaaS, I will get lots of customers." And to a degree this is true. If you see enough prospects, you'll accidentally make some sales. But you probably won't truly know why they bought.

The demo is an outdated mode of selling. The assumption that people buy because of features and benefits is false. These salespeople don't know any other way, though. They want you on the call. Live. Then, they believe, they can convert you into a paying user. On your own, as a consumer, you're not to be trusted to come to your own correct conclusions.

As a SaaS developer, what else can you do?

Don't develop your tool in isolation! Don't create something just because you alone believe it would be a good idea.

Ask your target market.

Do the people you're going to be relying upon to be paying customers agree this is a needed solution to a real problem?

What do they want it to be and do?

What size of a problem does it solve for them (pricing and validation hint)?

Do they instantly "get it"? Or do you find yourself mired in the quicksand of attempted explanations and blank looks?

Many, many SaaS startups have tried and crashed and burned because they did not find out the answers to these simple questions before they went ahead and developed their solution. It was a solution to a problem nobody but the creator thought was important.

If you asked these questions before starting development, and got clear responses from your target market, you would be able to create a solution to a real problem...including features your audience has told you they will pay for. Now do you need a demo? Of course not. The sales copy will practically write itself. User adoption will happen like a rising tide. At that point, it's just a matter of letting your market know you and your solution exist.

One final example. I sell a stock trading software currently valued at $5000 (the price is going up!). My discussion with prospects is NEVER about technical issues: I might have to answer one or two little tech questions, but we do not even look at the software. Buyers invest in the software because they understand it will help them make more money. I'll say it again: I have never had to do a demo or show a single screenshot of this software to sell it for $5000.

>> Do you have a question about why demos fail to sell, selling or SaaS? Comment below to let us know! And if this info helped you, please Like or Share to get it in front of others. Jason Kanigan is a profit maximizer for individuals and organizations that competently solve serious problems for well-defined target markets. For more information about Jason, click here. <<