How To Sell To A Bunch Of Customers , All At Once , In The Most Efficient , Expedient Way Possible
Old sales joke : A guy shows up for his first day on the job as a life insurance agent and brags that he ’ s the best salesman in the world and will quickly put all the others to shame . Wanting to knock him down a peg , one of the senior sales reps tell him that the guy in the office across the street , Mr . Brown , is an eager , ready-to-buy prospect who is looking to buy a policy , even though they know he ’ s an avid nonbuyer and a nasty , mean old man who chased out the last sales guy who darkened his doorstep .
So the young pup enthusiastically grabs some brochures and a contract and heads over to claim his first client . About an hour later , he comes back grinning with a signed policy in hand for $ 50,000 ! The senior rep is in disbelief ! Trying to think of a way to send him back to get his head handed to him , he asks , “ Did you get a urine sample ?” to which the new guy says , “ What ’ s that ?” The senior rep says , “ Anytime you sell a policy over $ 20,000 , you need to get a urine sample . Take the two bottles and go back to get the samples .”
About three hours later the new guy returns with two five-gallon buckets , one in each hand . He sets the buckets down in front of the senior rep , reaches into his shirt pocket , and produces the two vials of urine and says , “ Here is Mr . Brown ’ s sample .” The senior rep says , “ That ’ s good , but what ’ s with the two buckets ?” The new rep replies , “ Since I was going over there anyway , I decided to sell them a group policy .”
Yeah , it ’ s a groaner . But it ’ s also a good jumping-off point for the concept I want to give you for getting new clients to a point where you sell to them en masse .
Early in my business , when time and funds were limited , I made a point of mastering the art of selling from the “ stage .” Back then , it was teleseminars , then group presentations at events . Today , it ’ s webinars and virtual conferences . While the tech has improved and changed , the one thing that remains constant is the power and efficiency of group-selling to an audience of prospects ( or clients ). Today , I can use the same presentation I delivered 15 years ago and STILL get people to rush to a webpage to either buy a product or book an appointment where a product and service will be sold .
Without a doubt , it ’ s the fastest , easiest , and most efficient way to get more new clients and generate sales because you ’ re delivering a “ one-to-many ” presentation that will move people to buy or book an appointment ( depending on what you ’ re attempting to do with the presentation ).
What is required for a group sales presentation ? First and foremost , the “ audacity ” and confidence to actually attempt to “ pitch ” from the stage . If you ’ re a newbie , I would recommend you pitch an appointment or consultation that is free . Once you ’ ve mastered that , move to getting someone to fill out a form and pay you money . One of my clients , Charles Henson , CEO of Nashville Computer , started a group presentation where he would “ sell ” a free IT assessment or dark web scan . Once he got comfortable presenting and improved his presentation , he started selling Cybersecurity Risk Assessments for $ 1,000 –$ 2,000 and getting people to run to the back of the room ( physically in person and virtually on webinars ) to give him money .
Second , if you ’ re a newbie to stage selling , I would also recommend you start with webinars to your list of unconverted leads and even clients , where the audience is “ warm ” and cannot see how many people are in the “ room ” and how many are buying . That way , if it ’ s a total flop , nobody but you will know .
Once you have a presentation that “ sells ,” take it to live audiences . All things being equal , you ’ ll get 10 – 20 times the buyers and response from an in-person seminar than you will on a webinar . Why ? People are more engaged . However , if you pitch from the stage and no one buys , it ’ s as obvious as a wart on the end of your nose . So again , make sure you develop and practice a session that sells , starting with giving something away for free , then building to actually pitching a product or service .
But what about seminar hosts who don ’ t want you to pitch from the stage ? For starters , you can still “ pitch ” or sell a free consult , free information ( a book , e-book , report , etc .), or a free dark web scan . Doing so will help you lead generate , and you can position the offer as a “ free ” gift exclusively for those in the audience . Most event promoters and hosts won ’ t mind that .
Further , if your marketing is done right and you ’ ve accurately positioned yourself as the go-to expert on a subject , the promoter will allow it if you set it up from the beginning as a condition for you to speak . In the past , I would simply have in it my speaker agreement that I could take the last 5 – 10 minutes of the presentation to make “ appropriate educational materials available ” to the audience . As long as your presentation is solid material and you don ’ t abuse the privilege and take 30-plus minutes to deliver your pitch , the promoter won ’ t mind . I always offer a deep discount and tell the audience that it is being “ sponsored ” by the event host to give some love back to them .
One final tip : If you get a presentation that truly works , consider making it an evergreen webinar that you promote via social media ads and through retargeting to generate appointments and sales on autopilot . If you want to learn more on this subject , go online for one of our evergreen webinars and see how this is done : MSPsuccessMagazine . com / evergreen . n
12 | MSPSuccessMagazine . com • VOLUME 2 ISSUE 5