Sometimes, I ask myself, “did the sale scripts alone increase profit for me?”
Using sales scripts was huge, but putting a system in place made my business run like a well oiled machine. The system was;
Ad ——> Sales Page ——> Order page ——> Sale script ——> Delivery ——> Support Emails
Someone tweeted at me earlier last year and said
“all these diagrams don’t work.”
Today, I will not try to convince you that it works, instead, i’ll take you on a journey, show you what I did and how I made it work for me.
I will also show how I started using sale scripts and the impact it had on monthly sales, so here we go!
I had it all figured out.
I was going to build a successful business, then retire to Cape Coast, Ghana.
I built a website to display my products and process orders I got.
I played around with Facebook. I tried instagram too.
And yes, I ran an easy-to-use content structure on both platforms.
I say this all the time, “when using content to market your business, you need to be patient but even I was frustrated after 3 months of no orders.”
I felt I was doing something wrong but I didn’t know what.
I came across an article on giveaways and saw it could get me;
- More traffic,
- More engagement,
- More sales.
So, on October 1st, I did a giveaway. I worked with 8 other Nigerian companies and 4 Instagram influencers.
I still say the giveaway was the original launch of the business. It didn’t bring in a lot of sales but it got me the buzz, I wanted.
From October to December, 2017, sales increased from N29,000 to N58,000 per month. I still wasn’t making profit but I was happy because sales were steady.
I had a successful Christmas, Red Box sale on my personal Instagram page that same year. I sold 107 items within a 24 hour period, so I decided to use the strategy for my skin care business in 2018.
In February, I did a Valentine, Red and White Box sales promoting my skin care business and I made N65,000.
I revamped my products and repeated the same strategy in April. I did an Easter box sale and made N78,000 but I wanted more.
I sent out sale pitches as Direct Message to;
- My personal instagram followers.
- Instagram followers of other Nigerian skin care companies.
- Instagram followers of lifestyle and skin care influencers.
- Instagram followers of my business account.
This is an example of my sale pitch
By June 2018, my monthly sale was N100,000 but I wasn’t excited. The increase in sales was good but I was running at a loss.
In July, I stopped all marketing activities.
Why did I stop? I was angry because I wasn’t making profit.
I wanted to understand why. These are the 4 reasons I came up with;
- High cost of production,
- Bad pricing,
- No marketing budget,
- No system.
As scared as I was, I had noted a few things.
- Businesses are willing to sell at a loss, just to get that first sale.
- To be in front of the right people, who will buy what you’re selling, you must spend time or money.
I was still searching for a solution to my problem when I came across Ronald Nzimora’s tweet thread on e-commerce.
He showed me where to buy affordable products from
He showed me how to buy it directly from manufacturers.
He showed me how to run facebook ads and increase my market reach.
He showed me how to sell at markup prices that was profitable for me and my customers.
I found a system that worked.
I spent the next few days reading product reviews, comparing prices and searching for shipping companies.
I ran a facebook ad for 3 products to see what will happen. That day I got 3 orders.
I remember being terrified because I didn’t have any stock of the product I was advertising. 14 days later, I got the products and sold out. I spent N30,000 and made N118,000. Remember, I was coming from making no profit to making N88,000, so this was huge.
I bought more products, increased my ad budget and waited to see what will happen. I still got orders but something was different.
A lot of the orders had wrong delivery information.
A couple of them refused the package at the delivery point. I even had someone tell me “I was just ‘testing’ to see if it was a scam.”
This taught me a valuable lesson. In the Nigerian e-commerce space, an order does not mean the sale is in the bag. it is simply an indication of interest.
I remembered a sales certification course, where I was taught the importance of asking questions. The more questions you ask, the more you understand what the prospect wants, the more you will be able to position your offer as the solution. Asking questions show you who really needs your products.
I decided to do this too. I drew up 6 questions. They are;
- What they hope to achieve once they buy the product,
- What problem they have and want to take care of,
- What they’ve done in the past that has worked or failed,
- Show them how to exploit the benefits of the product,
- Confirm their delivery information,
- And ask their permission to make the delivery.
Knowing what to ask and how you ask are 2 different things. Someone once said
“in sales, asking questions is the conversation”
but it needs to be done right. Asking prospects questions must feel like a real conversation.
I’ll use the example of movie stars. All movie stars practice lines. We all know this. However when watching them in the movies, it feels real. The same applies here, in fact, sales scripts is the thing.
I discovered many people hope to make a sale.
That’s wrong. You must be prepared to make a sale.
You must anticipate your prospect’s move and have a response for it.
The way to go in prepared is to have a sales script, practice using the sales script until it feels natural.
I created the sales script in June 2019 and by July, I did over N500,000 in sales.
In august 2019, I outsourced the sales aspect of my business to focus on other things and my employee did just as good as I did.
Did I still get bogus orders? Yes, but I spent less on failed deliveries.
Did I still get failed deliveries, even after I confirmed? Yes but it drastically reduced.
Here is an entire conversation I had using a sales script on WhatsApp.
Sales script changes lives.
No one should wing a sales conversation. Go into it prepared. The best way to be prepared is to have a sales script and practice using it, till it almost feels like second nature to you.
Just like I did in the conversation, you can use these 6 questions as guidelines to create a sales script for your business.
I host a free telegram class where I teach business owners 3 sales techniques that can get you sales even if you just started, been in business for a while, or are just looking to hone your sales skills. Register here
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