Why a Sales System is a Necessity To Build Your Profitable Business

A well-thought-out sales system to handle sales, follow-ups, and even customer support automatically is a necessity to build a profitable business. At its most basic, your sales system must contain:

• Your funnel. This begins with discovery (the top of the funnel) and continues through low-cost products and services, right down to your high-end VIP coaching program. 
• Payment system. Whether a shopping cart or a simple PayPal button, you have to have a way for people to pay you, and for them to receive their product. 
• Customer support. Not just a help desk, customer support includes everything from your FAQ page to follow-up messages and encouragement. The last thing you want is for your clients to feel they’ve been abandoned as soon as they make a purchase. 

Sales System Part 1: Your Sales Funnel

Entire books have been written about sales funnels, but here’s the basic idea: 

• Your sales funnel begins with your free offers—your blog, social media updates, YouTube videos, etc. These are the things that anyone online can access at zero cost. 
• Following that, are your free items that require an opt-in. The cost of access isn’t money, but rather an email address. These include checklists, worksheets, video training, small reports, resource guides, etc. 
• Below that in your funnel are low-cost items. Depending on your market, low cost might be $7 or it might be $70. Only you can determine what your “entry-level” rate is. 
• Next are your mid-range products, followed by those top-end, elite coaching offers. 

Ideally, your sales funnel will work in conjunction with your social media, your blog, and your email autoresponders to move people from the top through to the bottom over a period of time. If you find that people opt-in for your free offer, buy your low-cost items, but don’t purchase your higher-end products consistently, you have what’s called a leaky funnel. It simply means that buyers are “escaping” your funnel at some point. Identify where your trouble spots are, and you’ll be closer to your earning potential. Do your email messages, follow-up marketing, and other information work together to move buyers through the process? 

Sales System Part 2: Payment System and Product Delivery

The cart you choose and the method of product delivery can mean the difference between making a sale and not. While a PayPal button is really all it takes to collect payment online, you may want to invest in a shopping cart solution.

Your cart should also be as professional as possible. WooCommerce is a great option (it’s free, after all) but make sure you customize it for your business. Let your clients know you’re committed to your business—and to them. Two other options I have used with my clients are Spiffy and 1ShoppingCart.

Product delivery, even for your free offers, is best when handled automatically, not only for you, but for your clients as well. Imagine if you make a purchase at 8pm on a Friday evening and have to wait until Monday morning for the delivery because the seller is offline for the weekend. You won’t be thrilled with the experience, and neither will your buyers, so be sure whichever cart you choose has the capability to deliver products automatically, within minutes of purchase. 

Your cart should also handle refunds, coupons, bundles and other ecommerce components with ease. Sophisticated buyers have come to expect this of the merchants they buy from, and if you don’t offer such things, you may be passed over in favor of someone who does. 

Sales System Part 3: Customer Support

From the moment of purchase onward (and really, even before!) your clients and customers deserve the best support you can offer them. It begins with product delivery, which we’ve already covered, continues with follow-up and encouragement, private and group calls, your help desk, product updates and more. 

Begin by incorporating a series of emails that encourage clients to both use the products they’ve purchased, but also participate in any groups or other live training available to them. 

One coaching program does this by requiring mastermind members to complete a questionnaire by Friday afternoon each week. One of the questions is, “What was your biggest accomplishment this week?” The following Monday, the entire group receives an email listing the upcoming events, and detailing everyone’s greatest moments from the previous week. This keeps members engaged, and makes it far less likely they’ll drop out part way through the year. 

You can offer encouragement to your buyers whether your program runs live or is a self-study plan. Simply set up your emails in an autoresponder to go out on a regular schedule, and your clients and customers will be much more likely to not only complete your program, but to purchase others from you as well. 

Your help desk is an important part of your customer support system as well. By providing fast, courteous help, you’ll build a loyal fan base that will happily sing your praises and refer new clients to you as well. Whether you maintain your help desk via email or with a dedicated app such as Zendesk, take the time to set up a FAQ page. This will help your buyers find the answers they need without you having to spend time responding to easily answered queries. For those questions that do require an answer from your team, canned responses can easily take care of 80% or more of the tickets you receive. Not only that, but you can (and should) craft your responses to gently nudge your readers more deeply into your funnel. 

If engagement on social media, your blogs and email is rocking, but you’re not making sales, it’s time to take a look at your sales system. If your sales system is good, but you want to increase your profits (who doesn’t?) then take a good hard look at your funnel and determine if it’s in order. Also, check your follow-up system if your customers buy once but never again. 

Every business should have a sales funnel, which is a visual representation of how to attract people into the business and convert them into paying customers. Yet so many business owners procrastinate or are scared to create a funnel for various reasons. Most commonly, they get overwhelmed at the idea of having to have multiple offers for their prospects and like anything else, once you start to overthink an idea, it gains a life of its own and seems impossible to create.

That’s why I’ve created, Creating Implementing and Optimizing Your Sales Funnel.  You’ll get 8 easy steps you can follow to create your high converting sales funnel along with worksheets, and exercises. Get your copy here.