Ryan Dohrn explains why buyers research online before talking to sales and how to build a self-service portal with transparent pricing, videos, and downloadable materials. He recommends adding sales automation and lead-scoring to qualify prospects faster.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here, and we're talking sales and marketing. And whether you're listening to the podcast or watching us on YouTube or whatever, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss all the new stuff that we're putting out. And don't forget the podcast, the videos, we're trying to make a little bit shorter so you can get what you need real fast and then get yourself back to work. All right, today what we're talking about is self-service sales. Okay, jot it down or make a mental note of it. Self-service sales. What does that mean? Well, when I come to your website, as a potential customer? Will I get enough information to basically figure out if I'm gonna use your product or service myself, or are you forcing me to talk to a salesperson? Alright, we're all in the sales business. I'm not gonna disparage the industry because I love it. I've been successfully feeding my family for quite some time with the sales, with the sales game. What I want you to think about and really recognize is from a self-service sales perspective, what is it that you're providing online to get your buyer as close to the finish line as possible without intervention from your sales team. Now, I'm not trying to eliminate salespeople. Don't get me wrong. I'm just recognizing 2 important facts. The first, from a company called SparksIQ. Well over 40% of buyers expect to get the majority, like 80%, of their information from your website or from your company through a download or whatever before they want to talk to a salesperson. It's a lot. Second thing we want to recognize, and it was a few years back, but SAP did a buyer study, and the buyer study revealed that 89-some percent of buyers would rather go to the dentist than talk to a salesperson. Well, when you think about that, friends, it's vividly important for us to make sure that if that is the case, we're working hard on the internet side of things or on the downloadable side of things to make sure that people can get the information they need without having to talk to our sales team. Now, you might be saying, well, Ryan, my price product is— the price point is high. I need the opportunity to talk to somebody. You might say, hey, our customers are dense. They need to talk to a salesperson. I'm just here to tell you, friends, if your self-service sales portal contains videos, contains information including pricing that people can download, contains a great lead gen form that drives your sales automation, you can actually qualify and disqualify people a lot faster. You can score people better that are coming into your CRM, and you can help people, really guide them through the overall sales process. Now remember, there was a time out there when you really needed to talk to salespeople to learn about products and services. Heck, I'm not that old, and I remember before the internet was really viable, the only way to learn about a product was through a salesperson. Now the vast majority of us walk around with a cell phone in our hand and can Google things faster than a salesperson could ever talk about those things. All right, again, I am not trying to eliminate salespeople. As a matter of fact, sales pros out there, what I'm trying to do is make your life easier. Here's what happens when somebody comes to one of my websites. They get stats, they get facts, they get videos about our readers, about our products, about our services. They get testimonial videos. We give all of these things that happen to get somebody excited about engaging with a salesperson as we begin to close out the process. The other thing is you better be taking advantage of sales automation, the good AI that is out there. When somebody submits a lead form, those systems, those CRM systems, will automatically send them an email with an introductory video. Then 3 days later, we'll follow up with them immediately if they don't request more information, with more information. Sales automation helps me as a salesperson do way more with less. I can actually follow up with a person over the course of 2 weeks and never have to send them an email because our sales automation is built in such a way that when the form's submitted, we begin to send them information the way that I used to do it by hand. Remember something, friends, as you get busier and busier, sales automation is really going to be able to help you get more done throughout your day. All right, what are the 3 main components of a great self-service sales portal? First of all, don't be hiding your pricing. I know some of you, you're like, oh, I can't put pricing online because my competitors will get it. Okay, your competitors already have your media kit, your rate card, and things like that. Now, what I like to do is, if you want my pricing, you gotta fill out my lead form, and it says on there you will get immediate access to the media kit and pricing, right, if you fill out this form. It also disqualifies Gmail, .me, Yahoo accounts. It says, please, no @gmail, @yahoo. I don't want those addresses. So what I do is I say in the little sentence, this is going to be emailed to you at your business email address. Gmail, Hotmail, etc. are not accepted. And then my form will kick out an email address that's on Gmail because I don't, I don't want those. I need a business email, right? All right, the second thing besides my pricing behind a form is videos that explain things. So whatever you think is important to your customers about your audience, about your industry, about your community, Testimonials are great videos to have there. And then the third component is give people the ability to download anything that they need, anything that they need to make sure they can make a really good decision. Remember, most people want to research, definitively have a pretty good understanding of your product or service before they talk to a salesperson. If you hide behind the salespeople, guess what you're going to get? A lot less leads. Friends, trust me, I do this all the time. I get plenty of leads from the website, and where I get most of them is through the self-service sales portal. What I find is my clients come to the meeting already knowing what they want from me. Basically, the portal has sold them, which allows me just to close the deal and begin to present. Great customer service. Self-service sales. I've been talking about it for a few years. Now it's important for all of you to wrap your arms around it, embrace it, friends, because guess what? Self-service sales. It's going to increase your sales, reduce the stress of your salespeople, and overall what it's going to do is help you be a more well-rounded sales organization and improving your sales process. Friends, I love what I do. I love to train, I love to coach, I love to speak, love to come to your national sales meeting and pump up your team and get them motivated. To find out how I can help you, reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, stick around, stay close, more sales advice Straight ahead here on the YouTube channel or on the podcast. See you next time.
