Making sales is what makes a business a business – without sales, there is no business, no matter whether you’re doing business offline, online or both.
Yet getting our “sales machine” working, so that it’s hitting on all cylinders and producing enough sales to reach profitability can be quite challenging, especially when you’re introducing a new product or entering a new market.
When you do get the sales engine properly tuned, it creates a “flywheel” effect, known as “sales momentum”. Sales momentum leads to even more sales, happy customers, testimonials, word of mouth and growth.
Great – we all know that! But what are the keys to creating a profitable, growing sales process then?
The keys to online sales success, whether you’re selling online or generating online leads that get passed to inside sales, resellers or a traditional account team are always the same. You have to get the “3 Pillars of Sales Success” right, and then grow them in balance over time.
The 3 pillars are shown in the diagram below. Let’s have a closer look at each one.
The keys to a successful online sales and lead-generation process are:
- Traffic - attracting enough of the right visitors to your website
- Product - having the right “product” with the “Right 5 P’s”
- Conversions - converting traffic into leads, then sales.
If you’re having difficulties getting any online business to generate sales, leads or profits, all three of the above areas must be “in balance”. I’ll talk more about what I mean by “balanced” in a moment.
Now these 3 pillars may seem simple or even obvious enough (now that you seem them clearly). But it’s amazing how such simple concepts can be so challenging to get right, especially when: a) you’re launching something new, b) you’re entering a new market, or c) you’re moving from an offline world into the online world.
Let’s talk about each one of these critical online sales success pillars briefly.
TRAFFIC
Traffic is the lifeblood of every online business. Without it, you can have the greatest website and product in the world, and nobody’s going to ever know about it or see it. With it, you can: a) refine your product (messaging, pricing, positioning, etc.) and b) put a lead-capture and online sales process in place that converts visitors into leads, then leads into sales.
PRODUCT
You can have all the traffic in the world from great advertising, but it you get any of the “5 P’s” of product marketing wrong (product, positioning, pricing, packaging, promotion), you’re going to struggle to make sales. When you get the 5 P’s right, you’ll be “in the zone” for making sales, and can tune and optimize the 5 p’s over time.
CONVERSIONS
You can have the greatest product in the world, with loads of traffic coming to your website, but if you don’t convert those visitors into leads and then sales, it’s all for naught – a waste of time, effort and money. You might even “do okay”, making some sales without a well-oiled conversion engine, but chances are your competitors will outperform you, outspend you on traffic, and you’re business will suffer from lower profit margins, reduced market share and lost opportunity.
When you get all three of these areas right, your business will grow and outperform the competition. To do this, you need an online sales process that’s “balanced”, like this:
A balanced sales process generates superior cash flow, providing your business with the ability to expand (in terms of advertising to generate more traffic). It converts more visitors into leads, growing your list and market influence. It also attracts more resellers and affiliates, who want to get in on the action, to get their piece of the pie.
A balanced online sales process also provides you with the ability to invest more into R&D, developing (or acquiring) more products, increasing your average value per customer. And it solidifies your position in the market as a leader – and market leaders garner the most market share, customer loyalty and virtually unstoppable market momentum.
So, if we just have to get those three areas into balance,
why is it that many online sales processes look more like this?
Many businesses have online sales processes that are “out of balance”, where they have one or more of the 3 pillars of online success either underdeveloped or outright “broken”. As shown in the above diagram, for example, it’s common to see: a) businesses who haven’t invested properly in testing, tracking and optimization – so they don’t convert visitors into leads and then sales like they should, and b) because they’re not converting enough leads into sales, they can’t afford to advertise like they should, so they don’t have the traffic required to run and grow properly.
It’s also common to see business where one or more of the 5 P’s haven’t been properly vetted (or even tested), so the product part of the success equation just doesn’t work for the majority of potential buyers.
As a result, the unbalanced online business produces much smaller profits, can’t compete effectively and loses ground (or goes out of business completely):
Worse yet, businesses with unbalanced sales processes typically can’t afford to get the help they actually need to:
1. Identify what’s broken
2. Come up with a plan to fix or replace the broken parts
3. Bring the right people into the mix to get things fixed and operating smoothly.
Now, having said all that, many business are doing okay, rocking along or doing well making some sales. That’s because they have a balanced (or partially-balanced) online sales process in place. The key for these businesses is to optimize sales conversions, then take as much traffic away from competitors as possible to grow market share and profits over time.
I hope this 3 pillars model helps you identify the areas of your business where you need to focus to succeed and grow…and find your rightful place in Sales Paradise!
About the Author
Rick Braddy is CEO of WinningWare, helping clients launch, grow and optimize their online sales processes. WinningWare provides do-it-yourself product launch software and sales optimization solutions and professional services that address the 3 pillars of sales success, for launching new products and sites and growing existing businesses.
{ 6 comments }
3 Pillars of Online Sales Success http://winningware.com/blog/2011/06/3-pillars-of-online-sales-success/
You are absolutely right that it’s all about balance. All 3 of these elements need to be working together to find success. You can optimize your website and get traffic, but if the website is of poor quality and doesn’t have clearly defined call to actions, it will be difficult for the user to convert.
RT @rickbraddy 3 Pillars of Online Sales Success http://bit.ly/kVaVgM
Yes you are right if you want your business success than the balance of these three is must. Other wise we should not expect much from our business.
3 Pillars of Online Sales Success http://bit.ly/kVaVgM
RT @rickbraddy 3 Pillars of Online Sales Success http://bit.ly/kVaVgM
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