Full Episode Transcript

Hey, hey Erin Kelly. So this is where we're gonna dive into sales very specific. Because I know we've talked about a few things in the earlier episodes where I touched on sales, but let's actually really dig into sales in the next two episodes.

So in this episode, I want to cover some things that you can do to optimize your sales, increase your sales, on an existing product that has already generated a handful, at least a handful of sales. So again, if you're listening to this, and you have a brand new product that hasn't had any sales yet, do not start optimizing. I've, I've had a couple people reach out and say, Oh, is this action labs going to be good for me? Like is it ready to optimize? But I haven't actually sold anything on this product yet. And the answer is, in my opinion, that always my opinion, but in my opinion, no, I mean, it is too early to optimize. Because when you are first starting out, you don't have enough information yet.

And what you need to be focusing on is really getting your product in front of as many people as possible. So that's like your biggest focus is sending sales messages, posting about it, talking about it, making sure that people are actually checking it out, and then following up with your hot leads inside of MemberVault. You know, just really, really putting a lot of your effort there, until you have at least a handful of sales, and then you can come in and start optimizing your sales page, and all that good stuff. And this is how I do it.

I mean, I have I have sold products with very, very, very minimal sales pages with just like the most crucial information. And I didn't go back,you know, I didn't spend energy on really optimizing the sales page, until I had generated some sales validated it. And that, you know, I knew it was something that we wanted to continue offering. And then you can go back and optimize it.

So if you are listening to this, and you have a product that hasn't generated any sales, yet, I would not start optimizing it, I would put your energy into more initial sales activities. So sending lots of emails reaching out to people talking to people talking it up on social media. So if you're listening to this, and you have a product that has started to generate sales, at least a handful, then this is for you.

So the first thing and this this episode is going to be more about like things that you can do from a like you can do it at any point, it's not external, it's not you're not sending out any emails, it's all about how you can optimize the product itself. So I would recommend looking at your sales page. So here are three things to check on your sales page.

So first of all, you want to make sure that you're including all of the basic information that someone is going to want when they're thinking about purchasing this thing. So it's like the whole who, what, when where, you know, how much time is it going to take them? So Who is it for? What is it going to do? When are they going to get it? Or when do they need to show up? If it's a live event? You know, where are they going to be showing up? So is it going to be a video call? Is it going to be something that's going to come to their email? Is it going to be something that you're texting to them? So you know, that's very important. And then, and this is a place that a lot of people skip or forget to add? And it's really valuable in terms of when someone is trying to make a buying decision? And it's how much time is this going to take them?

It's very compelling, especially if it's something that is going to save them time. How much time is this going to take Is it is it going to be something that I have to put like multiple hours in every week is it going to be something that I can just dip my toes in and it's like templates, and it's going to save me all time is not going to take me much time at all the how you do the sales messaging around this depends on the product itself.

Because that's not to invalidate, or to diminish a product that is going to take a lot of time from someone, because presumably they're going to be getting a massive amount of value from it. But they are still going to want to know how much time am I investing in this thing? Like what is it? What am I signing up for. And, you know, I would if it's if it's a big number, like if it's like gonna take a lot of time, I would make sure to on the sales page, immediately follow that up with this is how much time you're gonna be putting into this. But this is how much time it's going to save you, or how much money it's going to save you or how much money is going to make you or, you know, this is how much frustration it's going to take out or that you're not going to have to hire a whole nother team member.

You know, again, this depends on what the product is. But make sure that if if it's something that's going to make their eyebrows go up, if the answer on how much time it's going to take them to do this product makes their eyebrows go up, make sure that you counter it with immediately with a but this is why it's worth it so that they don't see that and then pop off your sales page. Right? So that's a that's like a little side note for you.

Okay, so those are the things like that's kind of like your bare minimum, make sure that you have all that information. And I this is definitely one of those things that people kind of argue about, on whether you should have the price in the actual sales copy or if you should only have it if they click Buy it. I am on the team that says make it crystal clear make it super easy for people don't make them do extra clicks to find out information that they need to know before they buy. And I know that the argument from the other side is what if they really wanted it? If they really valued themselves and the results? it wouldn't matter how much it is. But that's I don't know, I think. I think that's very minimizing. I think that money does matter, people's budgets do matter. It helps them make a buying decision.

And also, the reason why I wouldn't today, immediately drop that amount is because we just did a huge investment we just brought a new team member on. And so keep that in mind is that like, by making it easy for your people, yes, it is potential, like having the having the price like on the sales page, you might lose people faster than if they like, click through to the buy button, but they still would have abandoned it like they still they wouldn't have bought that, to me, it's like, you're not trusting your customer, when you try and like trick them into like clicking through, because they're not buying it because they're not ready.

And so either it's because they just invested in something or it's not the right time, or you haven't made a compelling enough argument yet. I don't think that having sales, though the price on your sales page is the problem there. And I think that you're making it a lot easier for your person. So you were kind of like all those little decisions.

And even if it kind of scares them off initially, like I actually literally just looked at a sales page. And I was looking through it, and I was like, Oh, this looks really good. And I had all it's from someone who's a copywriter. So of course, it like, included all the important elements, and it was super compelling. And then I got down to the price. And I was like, Ooh, okay, that's, that's an investment. And I immediately was like, totally worth it. But I closed out it because I'm like, okay, like, I'm not going to close by right now. Like, I need to think about it.

But the fact that she had it on her sales page did not change the fact that I still see value, and that it is very likely something that I might invest in, in the future. And in the future could be tomorrow. You know, she said something else in it in it in, it just lands at the right time, and I'm ready to make the jump and everything.

We call them customer centric decisions, like all of those decisions that you're making to make your life the life of your people easier. that builds little, like micro doses of trust. And so that that ultimately, will probably shorten your buying cycle. And it has like all kinds of intangible goodness and stuff like that.

So I always I'm like, Okay, well, if I was looking at this, like how would I? How would I want to look at it like what would I want to know, and I would want to know the price, I hate the ones that like make you contact them. For the price. That's like who anyway, I kind of went on a little tangent there. But that's my opinion on whether you should include the price on your sales page.

So the next really important thing that people forget, is that you write all about the features. And you don't write very much, if at all about the outcomes that they can expect from your product. And I know that when you're first starting out one of the arguments is like, well, I can't guarantee that they're going to get a certain outcome.

And I mean, I think that that comes from like, as you start selling these products and seeing people get results, you'll feel more confident. There's also, you know, if you really feel uncomfortable that you can always have some kind of little disclaimer that's like, I can't guarantee these outcomes. But this is what our past clients have seen, or this is these are the types of things that you might experience, you know, you can, you can play around with your language.

But regardless, you know, you have to follow your comfort zone, and where you are in your business and confidence and all that good stuff. But your people are going to want to know, they're going to want to visualize the outcome that they can expect that is going to help them make a buying decision. When you just say like, it includes a workbook and it includes two live calls. And like just the features. That's not compelling from a sales standpoint.

So be thinking about things like imagine if you could do x instead of y. And so x is the reality that they want. And y is their current reality, right? So that's again, you're not promising that they're going to have that outcome. But it is something that your product directly supports them being able to do for themselves, right?

So really, really pay attention to your sales copy. Are you talking about outcomes? Are you only talking about features that is such a common thing, and features are not going to sell your product, it is going to be the reality that people can visualize for themselves. And so the more you can paint that picture for them, the higher your conversion rates going to be.

So the next thing is really important, especially with more and more people accessing, accessing sales pages on their phones. And is it easy to read, right? So is it really easy to scan? Read it? Can I just like, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll and get the point of it and then maybe like, go back and like, refer to some of the chunkier text if needed. Can I get the overall 'Is this for me?' really quickly.

So make sure you look at do you have headlines you have compelling headlines or you know subtitles that are like breaking up your text? Are you breaking things up with bullet points? Do you have some if this fits your brand? Do you have some gifts, or fun images that are breaking up the text because if someone sees a wall of text, I know my husband and the CTO of MemberVault, Mike Kelly, he hates reading. He's a typical developer, he like he hates reading English, you can read walls of code, but like walls of English, make him click off immediately.

Whereas I'm a little bit more flexible. Because I'm a fast reader, and I like reading. And so there's going to be a little bit more flexibility depending on who your audience is. But no matter what, this is an important thing to pay attention to, is it? Is it a non stressful sales page? Like, is it something that someone can pop onto, and they're not just immediately like, Whoa, that's just a wall of text. So look at how you're breaking it up, make it easy for them to scan, read, and get the important points from the headlines or subtitles. You know, make it make it fun, if that fits your brand.

So, the next thing is, so those are the three things, you know, really check in with your who, what, when, where, how much time? Are you speaking outcomes? And then is it easy to scan? Read your sales page? The next thing is, are you telling a story? And so this is what I spoke to for the outcome? Like, are you telling a story, can they visualize what this product is going to change for them.

So that's that whole, imagine if you could x instead of y, and the x again, is what they want. And the Y is where they are right now. So you are helping them like in their head, because we're all emotional buyers. And so it needs to trigger a motion, we need to be able to see that by buying this, I'm getting not have to deal with whatever it is that I'm dealing with that I don't like.And so the next thing is very much in that same vein, you know, are you speaking to their emotions, one of the big things is people, people typically will, will buy if you can really prove that you're going to be saving them time, money, or frustration. Or conversely, like you know that you're giving them more time or you're helping them make more money, or you're streamlining something, right.

And then I can have this future reality, this future self that I want this future result that will make a difference for me. And this is applicable to any business. So just make sure that you are really that you're telling a story and you're helping people really visualize.

So those are really important, like, are you speaking to the emotion can you really help them visualize what their life is gonna look like, after they go through this product, right. And so those were like for the optimizing the actual sales page, you know, really just make sure you have all of those kind of core components, and some of the, you know, some of the sales stuff, in terms of speaking to their emotions, telling a story, making it easy to scan rate, I mean, that also applies to the sales messages that you're sending with the emails that you're sending, just to make sure that it's not really stiff, and formulaic, and all about features like you really wanted to loosen up and tell a story and speak to those outcomes.

So the next thing that I would recommend is to mentally work actually go and look through check in on how many places your link is available. So are you sharing it in your email footer? are you sharing it on social, are you in this, if it's evergreen, I would be like, make sure you have it in as many places as possible. If it's a launch, then you're going to definitely have it in all of your launch emails, you're going to be talking about on social, potentially, like change your header images on all of your social media accounts, to speak to this thing that you're launching, make sure that it's on your website very prominently.

So make it really, really easy for people to go and buy that thing or to go and check it out. Because again, especially if it's a bigger investment, like, like I said for myself, like I saw one that I really today that I really liked. And I didn't immediately buy it because it's a really big investment. And so I have to think about it. And it's not the right time right now, because we just made another big investment. So I'm going to be keeping an eye on it and has nothing to do with the product. The product is incredibly valuable. And it's something that I do actually think I want so it's just not quite the right time.

So if it's something that's evergreen, make sure that it is everywhere and that you are mentioning it over over time. It's not like you just I just created this product, here's the thing, and then that's the last time you mentioned it and then the last thing to pay attention to when you are optimizing. And this is again, something that you can do at any point is are you giving options. So for for payments, so I always, unless it's $100 or less, I always have a payment plan. Again, I know, I know there's people that are anti payment plans, again, because it's that whole like it if they really care if they really wanted it like they would make it work. But that's just not true, especially right now.

So you know how long you make your payment plans is up to you. Comfort zone, whether you have your payment plans be a slightly higher price, and total than the people that pay in full. Those are all decisions that you have to make, but and we actually personally make our payment plans the exact same price. We don't want to penalize people for needing a payment plan or wanting a payment plan. And that's just how we roll. So we like we always lean as far as we can take being customer centric.

And I don't want to create any friction where someone's like, I can't pay in full, the payment plan looks really attractive. But it's $50 more over time. So maybe I should wait until I can pay in full like No, I don't want that I want to get the thing. Like if you're ready to buy and you want to buy and you the payment plan is just like there was a little too much friction by having it be $50 more like, I don't want that there for you. So that's why we make it the same price.

The other thing, and this is something that is also very contentious is whether you shouldn't this is this is applicable to MemberVault currently. In the future, we want to have even more payment options payment processors, but right now we offer Stripe and PayPal. And so I know that PayPal has a lot of haters.

And there's a lot of people that are like I only do Stripe because which is you know, allows people to pay with their credit card. But they have to have their credit card information on them or saved. And not everyone does. And so when you take PayPal off the table as especially for low cost offer this is like especially especially for low cost offers, although I will say that I did pay for a couch through PayPal. So it doesn't have to only apply to low cost offers. But it especially does those impulse buy things.

I think you are really, really missing an opportunity if you don't have Stripe and PayPal. And I know Mike and I both even though we're very different buyers, with very different audience, we're very different audiences. Both of us have abandoned I don't even know how many shopping carts because it didn't have PayPal, like I Mike and I will rant he'll be like I just found this like really awesome thing. But it was when I was putting one of the kids down. And they didn't have Pay Pal. So like, like, I'll come back, you know.

And that is something that we have seen, we've had this conversation many times inside of our Collaborative, and on our social media accounts. And like I said, it's kind of contentious, because there's people that really don't like PayPal. But there's so many people that do and there's so many people that will comment and say I won't buy something if it doesn't have PayPal, or I have abandoned so many shopping carts because it didn't have PayPal.

So you are optimizing your sales when you give them options of ways to pay. And again, like I said, right now is the time of recording this like we only have Stripe and PayPal, but in the future, you know, we're exploring looking at like Square, I know people in other countries like the Caribbean, Africa, countries in Africa that they that PayPal is not accepted or not available. And you know, that becomes like problematically and we had someone reach out to us about the Caribbean. And she was saying like this is a kind of across the board problem in the Caribbean and that you can only do like wire transfers and then there was a couple of tools that she mentioned.

And so we're looking into those because again, we want to make it easy for our admins and people that are using MemberVault to sell we want to make it easy for them to give their people options that are going to fit their needs. So that is definitely a priority of ours. But for right now, right now, your two options are stripe and PayPal. And that's actually more than I know a lot of course tools.

So a lot of course we will choose not to work with PayPal because they're they're not really fun on the code front either. But again, people want to use them myself included and so by not having it you are actually losing sales so I would recommend adding both stripe and PayPal into your checkout process.

So those are all my those were kind of like my quick and dirty. Here's what I would do after you started generating sales, go back check and I didn't mention testimonials or anything because I know a lot of people don't have testimonials yet but that can absolutely help your your conversions on your on your sales page depending on what your buyer type is that you know, that's looking like as an early adopter.

Typically, I don't really care about testimonials. But there are people that will not buy until there's testimonials on your sales page. So definitely, if you don't have testimonials yet, make sure using quiz questions so that you can start generating them, and you can add them to your sales page, because that will help. But the things that I mentioned right now, you don't have to have anything extra, you can do it at any point. And it will absolutely boost your conversions. So hopefully, that's helpful.

The next episode is also going to be sales specific. And we're gonna be talking more about how to actually get your product out how to optimize how you're getting your product out. So now that you've optimized your sales page and how you're doing your sales messaging. I'm going to talk about how to actually get it out there more.

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• [Transcript] Optimize Your MV Product Episode 3: Does your sales page check these boxes?