Sales from the EDGE
Back Issue #011
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Sales from the EDGE Issue #011
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Sales from the EDGE
Breaking Through the "White Noise" Of Selling on the Net
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>From time to time, the EDGE publishes important updates that
you need to SELL on the Net. Most "latest and greatest" Net
marketing and sales developments simply waste our time.
Today's "hot new technology" is tomorrow's "whatever
happened to?"
Occasionally, though, something comes along that STICKS.
When that happens, the EDGE cuts through all the "white
noise" of Web marketing. It explains each important new
development and outlines clearly how you can best take
advantage of it.
SALES FROM THE EDGE is sent *ONLY* to owners of SiteSell
products.
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August 13, 2000
Issue #011
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
o SITESELL NEWS
1) MYWS! Launches
o ARTICLES
1) BEING Your Customer... Gift or Acquired Habit?
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>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SITESELL NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>-News-
---1---
>-News-
MYWS! Launches
Wow! What a start for Make Your Words Sell!...
David Carter, from Web Essentials Today
(webmastersdirectory.com), said...
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"It's all you'll ever need to write
order-generating, lead-getting,
sales-clinching words. If you ever find you
need another copywriting book, just use Ken's
money-back guarantee to finance that purchase."
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And Allan Gardyne, of associateprograms.com fame, summarized
it like this in his excellent newsletter....
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As you know, SiteSell OVER-delivers, packing
incredible value for money into every product.
"Make Your Words Sell" is no exception.
Whether you're an affiliate or a merchant,
you need this book, because everyone who has
a website needs it.
-------------------------------------------
And reader Sydney Freeman (mom@homemoneymax.com) had this to
say while she was still reading...
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MYWS is masterful! I love it! Last week I
bought a bunch of "how-to" books on
copywriting, just because I want to get
better and better. I'm going to take all of
them back.
(And then she sent a second e-mail...)
I have been trying for days to write this
wretched article/webpage on ebooks. I just
couldn't make it right - until MYWS!'s SWAT
technique came along. In an hour, it was
thousands of percents better than anything I
could create before.
-------------------------------------------
Not much to add, I guess. This may just be our best work,
yet. For more info on MYWS!...
http://myws.sitesell.com/
Dynamically priced, of course!
But don't buy it off the site. There's a special discount
area for owners of SiteSell products at...
http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
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>> THIS ISSUE'S ARTICLE
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---1---
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BEING Your Customer... Gift or Acquired Habit?
The bigger SiteSell.com gets, the more I realize how easy it
is to lose track of THE CUSTOMER. I used to answer all my
own e-mail... sadly, that's impossible now.
Since there's a team of people to do that, I started feeling
separated, somewhat unsure of what was happening at every
point that a customer CONTACTS our business.
Things could unravel and I wouldn't know. So we instituted
a weekly meeting between me and the support staff. Good or
bad, I want to hear anything that happens more than one
time. In other words, I want to know about any feedback or
problem that occurs more than once.
And we started an important policy. Every e-mail from our
support staff bears a sig file that says...
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SiteSell/5 Pillar Support
Dedicated to helping you build your business online
If this e-mail requires a reply, please reply-to this entire
e-mail so I can help you faster by following the thread.
Also, it ensures that your reply comes to me personally. :-)
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Sidebar from Ken -- Customer support tries its hardest.
If you are not satisfied with the level of support, I would
like to hear about it personally. If you are DELIGHTED with
the support, I would also love to hear about it.
I have set up a special e-mail box just to hear your feedback
about customer support. Let me know... help@sitesell.com
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So our support staff knows they are accountable. And I know
how we're doing (50-1 positive feedback -- personally, based
on the feedback from folks who deal with support, I feel
that our support staff does the best job on the Net!).
Bottom line? Even though we grow bigger...
My finger is on the pulse. Yours must be, too.
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>"If it's so important, why don't more companies do it?"
Boy, is that the million dollar question. And sorry Regis,
I don't know if that's my final answer! But let me tell you
a couple of short stories to illustrate...
I was invited to lunch the other day by Tal Bevan, President
of UUNET Canada. UUNET is Canada's #1 bandwidth provider.
So why was little old me invited to lunch?
Mr. Bevan had requested his sales force to pick
representatives from 10 companies to have lunch with him.
Why?
He wanted to know how UUNET was doing! At lunch,
interspersed with small talk, he asked his questions...
"what's good" and "what's bad" and "what should we keep on
doing?"
You should have see him scribbling away, especially when we
told him about problem areas.
But here's the point... Mr. Bevan felt that he needed to
strip away all the people between him and his customers. He
needed to get his finger on the pulse.
He also said something that stuck with me, and will stick
with me forever, as we grow...
"Never hire someone who is more than one step removed from
the customer."
Think about that... everyone in your company must either
"touch the customer" or supervise the people who do.
I'd push that one step forward... the supervisor should have
previously had direct customer experience, and should
continue to have some, from time to time.
If you lose track of your customer's experience at any point
where s/he contacts your business, you sow the seeds for a
growing, unchecked problem.
--
Second story... I still practice a little medicine at a
minor emergency clinic, every third weekend or so
(unfortunately, it's been getting less and less frequent).
I enjoy chatting with my patients, even though it's a busy,
rushed environment. A few months ago, I received a most
interesting lady.
She owned an ad agency. The agency had two large
pharmaceutical companies as clients. After a few minutes of
chit-chat, guess what she asked me...
"Would you keep all your pharmaceutical junk mail and send
it to me? Don't change what you do. Open the ones that get
your interest, leave the others unopened. Every couple of
weeks, just send me it all in a big envelope?"
Now... is this a customer-focused person, or what? Many of
these mailing pieces were designed by her firm, of course.
She wanted to see which ones worked, and what her
competitors were doing and how they were faring.
--
So what do you think? Are these people just genetically
brilliant? Does their customer focus come naturally?
Nope.
It just takes practice. It does not come naturally for
anyone. It's just too easy to fall back inside your own
skin.
It certainly didn't come naturally for me. During my first
year online, I kept a yellow Post-it note on my computer.
It said...
"What is my customer's experience now?"
Every time I looked at it, I applied that question to a
different part of the business.
With time, BECOMING your customer will be natural. And your
business will thrive because of it. :-)
Here's your ACTION STEP... Review EVERY POINT OF CONTACT
between you and your customer...
o on your site -- is everything clear/
o making the purchase -- easy to order?
o order fulfillment -- efficient and timely?
o your product -- does it deliver?
o support -- problems solved fast?
Is your finger on the pulse? Are you absolutely SURE that
every point is GOLDEN?
If not, put that Post-it note on your monitor! :-)
Think of it... if every point of contact with your customer
is GOLDEN, how can your online venture possibly fail?
-Ken
P.S. Just a quick reminder... See the Discount Directory
below? Please remember... visit the MYWS! site, but buy
MYWS! via the Discount Directory. Of course, if you forget
and buy it at full price, just let us know. We'll refund
the difference.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SiteSell Discount Directory~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
Please bookmark this page -- it's the only page that you
will EVER need to buy SiteSell products at an owners-only
discount. For owners of SiteSell products only, it provides
discounts on all products, except for the Electronic Version
of MYSS! -- if I reduced the price on it, I'd have to pay
*you* to buy it! ;-)
SiteSell Discount Directory
http://www.sitesell.com/discount-directory.html
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Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.,
President of SiteSell.com
(c) copyright 2000 SiteSell.com
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