Right now the big buzz word in online business is “funnel”. Email funnels, lead funnels, marketing funnels, sales funnels… they’re useful in any sales situation. They are defined as, “the buying process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products.” It’s not a new concept, just a new term.
Whether you’re online, on the phone or in person, your pitch and your process should be set up as a funnel. Meaning, you think it out from front to back. A great funnel, like a great pitch, has the ability to bring in the widest possible audience to know about you, your product or your service. Then it guides them along a path until the purchase—and keep purchasing.
I’ll cover 4 steps in your pitch today that will help you build out your “funnel”.
1. Awareness
Many people have no clue you exist, so the first stage of your pitch is letting them know who you are. This is also where they become aware of the existence of a solution to their problem. Common mistakes in the opening of your pitch are a lack of clarity, conviction and no sense of how much time you are taking.
People have short attention spans and you will lose them fast here. You must figure out how to be impactful in seconds—without using any conversational etiquette. A great pitch disregards conversation and social protocols and hooks people so that you can take them from awareness to interest. Stop asking people about the weather. Just get them the info, get the lead, and get out.
2. Interest
As with any funnel the further you go down the fewer people continue. If you pitch 100 people (awareness) you may only have 60 move to interest—that is natural.
In this stage of your pitch don’t focus on those who didn’t show interest focus on the customer that reacted positively to your big claim of your product or service. My interest pitch is, “I help companies increase sales 40% in thirty days.” That’s a big claim but I know it’s true because it’s what I do. Once a customer has an interest, you can take them further down the funnel.
3. Decision
This is where you determine if they are ready to buy. The fact is, not everyone who is interested is ready to buy. They have gone from unaware to aware, they’ve gone from cold to warm, but they still aren’t ready to say yes to you. More likely, however, is that you may not know how to bring the customer to a decision.
There is a simple bridge between selling and closing, and it goes like this: “Have you seen/heard enough to make a decision?”
4. Action
This is the where the funnel gets the smallest. After losing a portion of your audience at each stage, you finally get to those who are willing and able to purchase. If your customer wasn’t able to pull the trigger earlier, here you’ve found the actual decision makers and influencers. This is where you close the deal if it hasn’t closed already.
The bottom line is that your pitch should work like a funnel to guide your customer through from awareness to action. The inability to pitch yourself, your product, or your business is the biggest problem you have. If you fix your pitch, you can get as much money as you want, the life you want and build indestructible wealth.
Prepare your pitch with training and practice.
Nobody builds a successful sales funnel overnight, it takes planning and practice. Remember, success rewards preparation and the most seasoned sales professionals are always re-strategizing their pitches to see what is most effective. Plus, a pitch isn’t just used to sell to potential customers—you need to have a pitch for almost everything in life if you want to persuade people on your ideas and dreams.
If you want to grab my Millionaire Booklet free and see how my funnel is set up, head over here and get into it now! Take notes!
Be great,
GC