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Your Irresistible Offer - Proposals that convert prospects into buyers

Guest post by: Jeff Mowatt

Article Overview: As a customer, you’ve no doubt received scads of sales pitches from companies trying to sell you something; the vast majority of which you ignore, tune-out, or reject outright. When the tables are turned, and you are the one making the proposal, there are three key elements that will make your offer more compelling. These three components make-up what’s known as your Unique Selling Proposition or “USP”. When I speak at conferences and for sales and service teams, this is one of the simple tips I share for converting prospects into buyers. Whether you’re making your proposal in person, through a brochure, or on your website, you’ll have more impact by including these three elements…

Your Irresistible Offer - Proposals that convert prospects into buyers

As a customer, you've no doubt received scads of sales pitches from companies trying to sell you something; the vast majority of which you ignore, tune-out, or reject outright. When the tables are turned, and you are the one making the proposal, there are three key elements that will make your offer more compelling. These three components make-up what's known as your Unique Selling Proposition or "USP". When I speak at conferences and for sales and service teams, this is one of the simple tips I share for converting prospects into buyers. Whether you're making your proposal in person, through a brochure, or on your website, you'll have more impact by including these three elements...

Translate Features into Benefits

Sales often get bogged down in detail when a product or service is overly-described in terms of features rather than benefits. A feature is a physical characteristic of a product or service. A benefit is what that feature does for the user. For example, a feature of an automatic garage door opener is when you push a button, the garage door goes up or down. A benefit is since you no longer have to get out of your car and be exposed to the weather, you save time, possible back injury, and maybe even reduce dry cleaning bills.

In your proposal, be sure to translate your product or service features into benefits. Here's an easy way. Briefly mention the feature, then use these six magic words: "What that means to you is..." Then describe the benefit. Translating features into benefits helps potential buyers fully appreciate the value you're providing.

Describe your Difference

Chances are, there are other suppliers of your kinds of products or services so it's important for customers to know what makes you unique. Rather than trying to explain what you do better than your competition, instead describe what makes you different.

That takes you to the third element of crafting your unique selling proposition...

Prove it!

Provide facts, statistics, examples, and testimonials that verify your claims. If your evidence is in the form of a client testimonial, be sure to include the client's full name and company. Otherwise, the ‘fact' looks like fiction. Obtaining customer endorsements is easy when you do good work. Simply ask for permission from your happy customers to feature their comments. Most people are flattered and will happily consent.

Finish with What's Next

If your proposal is in writing, be clear about the next step. Tell the customer what you want them to do; visit your website, phone you, stop in. If appropriate, also explain what they'll gain by doing this sooner rather than later. Perhaps there's a limited supply, or the offer ends at a certain date. You can also outline options for implementing. I don't recommend however, getting too detailed with implementation plans at this phase. Better to do that after the customer decides they want to move to the next step.

There are lots of other pieces of information you can include proposal. Certainly, your knowledge of your customers' circumstances and challenges is a good place to start. Just make sure that when you get into the substance of your proposal that you add the three elements of the USP. Chances are you'll address a lot of the buyers' unexpressed objections and make them more comfortable doing business with you.

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Article Tags: business proposal, Converting prospects into buyers, copy, sales, selling, webcopy, writing



Related Forum Posts
Business Card = Money $Machine$! - Chris, I'm not sure the line of business you are in but something to consider. I got this idea from Dan Kennedy's Gold Inner Circle Newsletter. He stated in addition to just stating what you have to offer you also need to position your business cards to get people to actually contact your place of business so that you can capture their details and keep in contact with them. By keeping in contact you build trust and credibility and usually after 7-8 contacts they can potentially become a paying customer. How do you do that? Dan suggests offering intriguing, valuable information that helps a customer save money, relief from a particular stress or fear etc. but it has to be free so that they are encouraged to make contact with you. This works for B2B and B2C. B2B have been providing numerous whitepapers for a while now addressing different ways they have helped other companies with similar problems and end with how their product/service helped remedy the situation. Has anyone toyed with including "An Irresistible Offer" on their Business Cards? e.g. Free one hour consultation on your website to identify ways to increase your Lead generation by 40%"
General Guidelines to sale - Without knowing more about your market, company, products, etc. all I can do is provide a general answer. Determine who is your ideal prospects, craft an offer or two that you believe, based on information you have about your market, company, prospects, etc., these ideal prospects will respond favorably to and then deliver the message. Methods of message delivery might include telephone calls, in-person visits, mail/email, advertising, etc. Does that help?
Important tips for online business - 1.Traffic. Without traffic, you have nothing. It is like having a store where nobody walks through the door. Without traffic, there is none to buy your product. 2. Your Sales Letter. This is where you sell your product. It is of vital importance that you have a sales letter that converts, and you should work on it continuously to increase conversion. Otherwise those prospects that you have got to your website will just leave and go somewhere else. 3. Your list! You should continuously be trying to build your list and your network. It is easier to convert a qualified prospect into a customer, and an existing customer in to a repeat customer. Hope this helps guys!
Sssshhhh...Just trying to slip in quietly... - Heard me huh? OK. Well, I guess as long as I have your attention, I'll just let you know I'm here to try and add as much value as I can when it comes to fielding questions and concerns about how to generate more sales leads from your website, email marketing and ads. I've been writing articles for the Evan Carmichael site for a couple of years and thought I'd check out the forum and figure out ways I could contribute. Got tons of sales and direct response copywriting experience that has helped my clients attract more prospects and convert them in profitable customers. I promise to chip in as much as I can so you can take advantage of my background and skills and apply it to your own business so you can grow your profits faster. Looking forward to participating.
Re: Conversion rates - Great point Kevin, word-of-mouth is a great way to convert leads as they are being recommended by someone they trust. My job is converting website visitors into leads, and of the leads we get from the website/s we convert around a 12.5% (of leads). At this point I think our website is the best leads vehicle right now.


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