There is a specific problem that occurs in a great majority of sales. Whether you’re a salesman, marketer or copywriter it is not the largest problem you’ll have to overcome but it is big enough that if you don’t spot it for what it is, your sales conversions could stink. And stinky conversions equate directly to a dry bank account, which also stinks.

To carry the mystery on a bit further, this one thing alone can stop a good, about-to-happen sale right in its tracks. It can make an infinitely interested customer suddenly walk away. It is the one thing that makes salesmen scratch their heads and wonder, “Uh, what the hell just happened?” And it’s the one thing that makes marketers and copywriters crumble up version after version of ineffective sales copy.

We are, of course, talking about the dreaded four-letter word:

DOUBT

I know, I know. You astute readers surely know that “doubt” is not really a four-letter word. I’d remind you the “b” is silent, so it might as well be.

Salesmen have a tough job. They spend countless hours perfecting their sales pitches and copy, tweaking each word for effectiveness, interest and even rhythm. In a perfect world each tweak would put them one step closer to making their customers salivate, but the moment they begin to introduce their product they’re instead hit with suspicion.

They use words in their headlines like Greatest and Best, Clearer Skin and Happiness, Fame, Fortune and Rock Hard Abs. In return their potential customers reward them with a smooth blend of disbelief and skepticism, lightly shaken.

Why this is is beyond the purposes of this article, but the next installment will be about how this doubt can work in your favor and very easily.

Charles Pabst is a freelance author, marketer and public speaker. His work can be found at Work From Home Business Source and his personal blog, Blargy.

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Do you often wonder why it is that some coaches and other solo service providers seem to be well-known and sought after in their niche and while others, many others (you, perhaps?), still struggle to attract all the clients they’d like?

I can give you a simple (really!) solution to that problem. It’s called the Marketing Funnel and if you implement it in your business, I promise that you too can enjoy being considered an expert, in addition to selling more of your products and services. And you’ll just have more fun!

You know what a funnel looks like, right? It’s wide and the top and tapers down to a narrow opening. When your prospects enter your funnel through your ezine or other (usually) freebie offering, they are in the “getting to know you”level of the funnel. Once they get to know you, like you and trust you, they likely will move down to the next level, which will include your for-fee products and services, your least expensive ones first, increasing in value and cost as they continue downwards, until they eventually get to hiring you one-on-one or to your other big ticket item. That’s basically how the funnel system of marketing works.

I see a lot of coaches and other solo service professionals offer a freebie at the top of their funnel, and then their one-on-one service packages at the bottom, with nothing in between. I’ve made this mistake myself. It’s important to have offerings at each level of your marketing funnel so people can continue to get to know, like and trust you, as well as get to know, like and trust your products and services.

And when you offer your products and services at different price points, you are lowering the financial and emotional risk for your prospects. You are essentially making it impossible for them not to buy from you!

Implementing this system is easy. Get started by attract prospects into your funnel. Create a freebie offering (an ezine, mini ecourse, ebook, report, guide, checklist, etc.) and put a sign-up form ‘above the fold’ and prominently on your website. You’ll want to add a link to your freebie offering in your email signature as well.

For example, one version of my current email signatures says:
“Are you on the verge of giving up on your business because you don’t have enough clients?

Don’t turn your back on your vision for entrepreneurial success. Get your FREE 5-day ecourse ‘5 Keys to Driving an Abundance of Clients to Your Business’ by sending a blank email to clientabundance@aweber.com.”

This is one highly effective way I attract folks into my funnel.

Once you have prospects in your funnel, find ways to give them more valuable content at increasingly higher prices as they go through the funnel.

For example, the second level of your funnel might offer an ebook for $27 or an ecource for $39. The third level might have a home study course for $147 or a series of teleseminars for $77 each. The fourth level might offer a boot camp for $347, and the fifth level might offer your one-on-one services for $500.

Get the picture? Fabulous - now go to it!

Copyright 2005 Alicia Forest

Alicia Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Licensed Coach, & Founder of http://www.ClientAbundance.com, helps coaches and other solo service professionals to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately make more money.
For FREE tips on how to create your own Client Abundance, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com

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One commonly overlooked method of advertising offline is flyers. Flyers are extremely easy to create. They also allow you to exhibit some of your creative side, making it just that much more fun to make money.

In some areas, you may be able to put up over 1,000 flyers! The more flyers you put up the better chances you have of making money.

Just go to the web site of the product your promoting, and save their web page to your hard drive. Modify the page a little bit so that it is in the form of a flyer, and be sure to include your own affiliate link on the flyer to ensure you make money.

Once you are satisfied with the way it looks, compile a list of all the possible places you may be able to put up your flyers, and get out there and start hitting them.

If your flyer directs your potential customer to a web site, then the only traffic you will receive are those people who would take the time to enter your web address into their Internet Browser. That’s pretty qualified traffic!

Let’s break it down and estimate the amount of sales/traffic you could receive from a well planned offline flyer campaign.

Say you print 500 flyers promoting an affiliate product that you signed up for. If you put up 500 flyers on bulletin boards that allow your flyers for two weeks, you have an almost 100% guaranteed exposure number of 500 times 14 or 7000 impressions. If 1% of 7,000 are converted to a $30 dollar sale, you have just made $2,100 or 70 sales.

Now that’s good money if you ask me.

All you have to do is find a way to convert your affiliate products web site to a flyer, and print out 500 copies. Then the small task of plastering the neighborhood.

I ran a campaign similar to this, and I had begun to receive sales the day after I posted all my flyers. Pretty Amazing Stuff!

“Discover A Little-Known Offline Advertising ‘SYSTEM’ You Can Use (Right Now) To Get COLD HARD CASH Flooding Into Your Bank Account With No End In Sight!”

Log on now at http://www.onlineprofitsoffline.com and sign up for the Free Seven Easy Steps To 25 Sales Email Newsletter

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