One of the biggest obstacles to making more sales and making more money is not giving the customer enough chances to buy from you.
I was reading a Facebook post by a well respected copywriter and online marketer who said that the best way to increase your income is to ‘ask for the sale’ more often.
At first I thought he was taking the p***, but as I read more I realised what he was saying.
One of the biggest mistakes most people make, especially those who are just starting out, is that they don’t ‘ask for the sale’ enough.
What I mean when I say ‘ask for the sale’ is to give the potential client the opportunity to buy from you with ease. I don’t mean that you personal keep saying ‘so, do you want to buy this?’
A lot of people are afraid of being seen as pushy, spammy and coming across as being aggressive in their approach, but you can ask for the sale without doing any of that.
Asking for the sale is a term which basically means giving the person who is reading your email or article, listening to your podcast or video, the opportunity to spend money with you.
That means having obvious active links at the bottom of your emails, in your articles, in your podcast and video descriptions.
These do not need to be written in any pushy, spammy, or aggressive way.
You could say:
‘Don’t forget, you can buy a copy of my book ‘How To Sell To Strangers’ here.’
Or…
‘Also available on my website, my book ‘How To Sell To Strangers’. It includes the 10 most powerful psychological triggers for selling to complete strangers’.
Even when you share a long post on Facebook, you can add a clear call to action saying something like ‘If you want to learn more or know how I do XYZ, send me a message and let’s book a chat’.
Asking for the sale is making it easy for people to connect with you and buy from you. You have to make it easy for them otherwise a warm lead will go cold.
When you spend a lot of time writing an email or article or recording a video or a podcast, you are creating a lot of strong quality content which is warming people up.
They are listening to what you have to say and they are beginning to trust you and see you as someone who can help them.
To not ask for the sale after they have spent all that time listening to you or reading your content is a wasted opportunity. There should be something which they can ‘click’ or do or somewhere they can go to connect with you more.
Any emails that you send which are not promoting a specific product can also be ‘asking for the sale’ by including a link at the bottom of the email directing people to a specific offer or a page where people can book a chat with you.
Any emails or articles which are not promoting a specific product can end with you telling people to email you with any questions they may have.
Asking for the sale is just as much about opening up conversations with your potential clients as it is about sending them directly to sales pages.
It’s better for someone decide to ignore your links or calls to action than have them wanting to learn more, wanting to buy from you or connect with you but can’t find any way of doing that.
Yes, they can reply to the email if what they are reading is an email, but unless you have clearly stated that they can, most people won’t because they may believe that you are either too busy to answer, don’t want emails or that they email address is one of those ‘no-reply’ email accounts that a lot of businesses use.
Ask for the sale, make it as easy as possible for any potential client to buy from you, to talk to you (or a representative) or connect with you.
Because if a potential client finds it hard.. then you don’t get paid… and that should never be an option.
One of the easiest ways to ask for the sale is to add links to emails. They do not require much more than a line of text and a subtle call to action.
It doesn’t need to spammy or pushy.
To learn how I make thousands of pounds each month writing and sending simple emails, check out:
The Email Secret
Kind Regards
John Harrison
PS… An email a day – or every few days – takes very little to write. You do not need to write thousands of words for each email. If you want to share a long memoir you can also break it up over several emails.
Here’s that link again: