17 Ways You're Killing New Sales Opportunities

0:00 this is a recording of a presentation I gave at the photo booth Expo and mobile Entertainment Expo in 2023 it's titled 17 ways you're killing new sales opportunities first up my name is Judd lillestrand I'm one of the co-founders of Chuck cherry and Check Cherry is part CRM part shopping cart and part scheduling app and we make doing business 100 percent easier

0:30 and at the show we were showing off our new iPhone in Android apps we've gotten a lot of great feedback from customers most of the content in this presentation is based on observations from customers and feedback that I've gotten from them so on with the show 17 ways you're killing new sales opportunities so just a warning these slides or are in no particular order I just

1:02 wanted something that flowed well and entertained the audience and it's just where they landed I have a goal and that is to give you one solid takeaway you'll likely get more from this presentation but if you just get one I'm gonna be happy and it's going to be worthwhile there's a lot of good stuff in here so let's start with number one you're killing new sales because

1:26 people think you're not a professional and this is really important because when people think you're not professional they're going to trust you less and be less likely to hire and sign a contract that type of thing so what are some reasons I would say uh first off if you don't have a website people are going to think you're not as professional as you could be

1:47 and that's because a solid website is going to make you look established right like even if you're not an established business or haven't been in business for a long time it'll really give them that feeling so it's highly recommended it should answer common questions and that's going to give them trust that you know what

2:06 you're talking about and you can identify with them and it'll demonstrate that it's not your first rodeo right you're open for business you're ready for business buy now let's do this a simple modern website is better than no website and I had a conversation with my co-founder Matt and we were kind of discussing whether no website was better than a really bad website and we kind

2:32 of came to this idea that hey look just a simple modern website is better than no website I suppose it's possible you could have a really bad website that is actually harming sales but chances are just get something simple get something modern and that's going to be better than nothing at all all right they'll also think you're not a pro if you take too long to respond

2:54 with answers right common questions especially specifically so no one likes to wait um you know we're just kind of in this world where we want quick responses you know like be ready to close a sale right like let me know what I'm looking for I want to move forward or move on and find another provider that's a good fit so be prepared to respond to Common sales objections right that's

3:17 going to make you look more professional so hey why do you cost more you know don't get offended just have a good answer to that and I think there's a lot of answers right everything from carrying the proper Insurance backup equipment experience you know all kinds of things and just keep in mind your website should be the most helpful resource for people looking to hire you so

3:41 answer a lot of those common questions with your website if you keep on getting the same questions I think you really should consider putting on your website it's going to help people they're going to like you more they're going to trust you more they're going to be more likely to buy as a result okay number two you're killing sales opportunities because you make it hard to sign the contract and

4:03 so this is something where I see people will send emails with PDFs or Word documents and want scans that type of thing just know that electronic signatures make it easy for both you and your client to do business and it's just 2023 it's highly recommended checksery provides this as part of our service there's a lot of different Services out there that do e-signatures

4:27 you know really Implement electronic signatures if you're not sign those contracts protect yourself protect your business number three killing seals because you make it hard to pay a deposit and this could be everything like oh you have to mail a check after you sign the contract to oh I don't take cards so therefore I can do Zell and then you know that person doesn't have Zell so it

4:52 means just all these hoops that they might have to jump through to pay a deposit just make it easy you know I think cards are by far the easiest way to pay uh for customers and also keep in mind oops let me back up one here uh also keep in mind with things like Apple pay and Google pay make it really easy for people to enter a card number from their phone and so if you can send them a proposal

5:20 they can electronically sign it and then pay with Apple pay for example on their phone the deposit it's really going to make the sales process smooth and easy for them to buy and in my experience a business is better off raising prices by five percent and just making it easy for people to pay right try to avoid those surcharges just make it easy for people to pay and move on and close

5:42 that sale okay on to number four you're killing sales because you don't show up on Google Maps I did a search for photo booth Reno Nevada this would be a common search could see somebody searching that if they're interested in a photo booth and pick box voted with company came up here and you'll notice this is everything above the fold on my MacBook and you'll notice that uh

6:11 it's all map results effectively right and what's cool is you get things like Star reviews and you'll see pick box has a 10 plus years in business and even a quote there and a link to the website really powerful stuff this is a great great feature and you can get on Google Maps simply by creating a Google business profile it doesn't mean to show up as number one but I think

6:35 this is a really important step um most of you are probably local business operators that you drive to the venue or the event and so by creating a Google business profile you're going to start that process of showing up on Google Maps in your area and they might call it something different they've changed that name quite a few times by the time you're watching this but create a good Google

6:58 business profile I thought people would ask about chat GPT and I was kind of curious myself you know there's a lot of talk about Ai and replacing you know Google search results that type of stuff but I did a search and so this is what came up at the time it says who is the best photo booth company in Riverside California that's what I asked and it chat GPT basically gave me tips

7:23 for how to find a good photo booth company and you'll see number one is check online reviews Yelp Google reviews and Facebook um and I think that that's good advice to check online reviews um ask for recommendations certainly compare pricing and packages absolutely good feedback or a suggestion and then check their portfolio right we want to look and see what quality work

7:46 they do I think this is overall good advice I would really focus on one of those reviews and that is you're killing new sales because you don't focus on Google reviews Facebook has turned into kind of recommendations where you're kind of plus or minus or thumbs up or down the recommendation Yelp has developed somewhat of a bad reputation in suppressing reviews that type of thing if you

8:09 don't pay them a lot of service providers don't like them um I think Google reviews is where it's at as you've as I've shown you it's search result friendly so that's really an important component I think generally trusted and because it's generally trusted I think it provides social proof and people are going to like it and trust it so just remember Google still rules the roost in

8:35 Search and so I wanted to pull some numbers this is from stat counter and they said 92.9 percent of search engine market share worldwide is Google and in the US it's down just a bit but still extremely high 88.11 I mean just a tremendous uh market share for Google so Focus there number six you're killing sales because your website has bad calls to action and this is important to me

9:13 um I'm you know I've experienced doing web and and developing websites that type of thing and so it's super easy to fix a lot of these things but let's just build ourselves a quick website and uh first off a call to action is something like this right it's a button that sticks out and the best call to actions right they're going to help the website visitor you're going to help

9:36 somebody move along the process they're going to be intuitive so I'm not gonna have to like wonder where I'm going when I click that button it's going to be very straightforward it's going to stand out right and so here it's big it's right in the center it's a different color and this one's client login and I think this is a big mistake uh and I see this from time to time and you shouldn't

10:01 use client login or anything like that because your website's primary job is to sell right when somebody's already become a customer you know certainly have a link to client login maybe in your nav maybe the footer maybe both but you really want to push people through a sales process and assume that they're not a current Customer because they're visiting your website

10:25 and it's an easy fix right so we could change that to something like view packages and that's going to be much better because I'm just going to show up I'm going to say Hey look it's a photo booth I'm interested in a photo booth let me see what their packages are I'm gonna click that button right away

10:41 just remember most people who visit your website will never reach out so you really want to take the time and effort to position your business on on the web in a way that's going to help people you know make a good decision they're not going to reach out and want to be sold and convinced why you're so awesome your website should be doing much of that

11:03 right doesn't mean people won't reach out or you shouldn't talk to customers but just in general have your website do a lot of the selling number seven you're killing new sales opportunities because you drive people away from your website and I know what many are thinking who are watching this like oh I don't do that no way and it's

11:24 really common actually and you'll see here in the top right these social media icons and just keep in mind that social media should be driving people to your website not the other way around also social media companies make money based on user engagement how long people stay on stay on the website so they're really sticky so if I click on your Tick Tock icon to watch a 360 video

11:52 um in all likelihood I might get distracted right like a notification is going to pop up another video something of that nature and then I'm off your website I'm not buying I'm not evaluating I'm not deciding and also just keep in mind the top right of your website is the most valuable real estate right so you really want to take that keep that in mind

12:14 so let's get rid of those icons potentially you move them to the footer if you really have a good uh presence that that'd be fine but certainly don't put them in the top right and don't push people away so that's better we're making progress now it's really important to find your ideal sales process and optimize it and so one common

12:35 thing I'll see with websites is this kind of this stack nav where there's like two navs and it's like a phone number an email book now you know and then there's also this idea of a contact us in the right and I think what happens is as uh business owners we want to be really flexible in accommodating hey if you want to text or call like you could do that you could email you could

12:59 book online you can contact us like however you want to start is fine with me but I think it's really helpful if you just you know when people show up if you really tell them how you want them to proceed they're going to feel uh more comfortable if it's just really obvious what to do next right and here it's not obvious you know what to do next right there's so many options

13:20 um so I think that that's a mistake so I would ditch the whole top nav you know move that stuff to the footer there's nothing I think it's good it's professional if you have your phone number and and email address and and can offer online booking and I think it's all awesome but move it somewhere else I don't know that that needs to be in the top uh of your website and this this idea

13:42 of contact us is probably um you know again this is our most valuable real estate this is probably the most common uh what I'll say is a call to action uh on websites new signups that I see at Chuck cherry and I think contact us is really weak it does not tell the the visitor hey this is click here to proceed to buy basically like contact this could mean anything right contact us if you have a

14:08 problem with your uh booking or if you want to get copies of photos or if you want to interview me or anything right it's not kind of it's not really telling the visitor this is how we want to buy so number eight you're killing sales because you're not making it clear how to buy right make it really like ask for that sale let them know where to go next and

14:34 so I think few packages down there is a really good one um contact us I'm a huge huge huge fan of having a pricing call to action button in the top right I think that most leads people looking to hire somebody like a photo booth company they show up they see hey they offer photo booths they look decent enough okay how much can I afford it and I think it's a really natural

15:03 sales process or natural process of evaluating a company so consider that number nine you're killing sales because you never mention the market you serve so most of our customers serve one area you know one metropolitan area if you will and it's an easy fix right so an example like this you could say hey instead of just Premiere photo booth we're gonna say Houston's premiere

15:31 right like that's going to be great for SEO to include Houston in there I've seen people put several regions or counties in their uh the website's footer I think that's good but just give people some indication that you service their area it's going to make them feel more comfortable and they're more likely to kind of proceed with the buying just remember you can

15:56 declutter your nav by moving links to the foot of your website so I think less items in the nav again it's about kind of really directing people what they should do next is good more options is not necessarily better and you can move all those links that don't sell so to speak to the footer number ten you're killing sales because you use ginormous lead forms and so this is also really

16:22 common perhaps your contact us leads to something like this uh please don't link pricing and then send them to a contact form I think that's going to just irritate people uh but hey get started please fill out this giant lead form and make my life easier at the cost of fewer leads I think that's what happens right because you just like hey I want to know all this information

16:43 and it's like everything's going to be required right like don't become a lead unless I have all this information I can give you an accurate quote and it's just going to result in fewer leads and some people might not know the answers to all these questions you know just remember people don't want to fill out long web forms to get started start with some basic information you

17:03 know find some strategies that you can use to um you know mitigate basically uh you know bad leads um you know at check Cherry we have an online booking uh process where you can basically go through and and let people book you online and we broke it up into multiple steps because we know people don't like to fill out giant lead forms and so we still need to collect a lot of

17:28 information to get that booking and let them sign and pay but we start the first step you know uh is to view a package and then the second step is hey give us some contact details and then after this step we actually save a lead which is really handy even if they don't finish but it's just much more palatable to fill in a few things of information that I do know especially after I've been given

17:51 things like your price it's just going to make me feel more confident that I'm not going to end up in a sales cycle of a service that I can't afford or don't want number 11 you're killing new sales opportunities because you let the competition control you so there's another one of those where people say hey I don't let the competition control me I'm in control of my own business and so if you

18:15 hide your pricing because or you know primarily because you don't want the competition to see it I'm going to argue you're letting the competition control you there are certainly reasons why a service provider or a service does not have advertised pricing on the website you know there are various reasons you know what I've seen is most businesses really benefit from

18:37 packaging their services and displaying prices and I'll get into a little bit more as to why later but if you're just hiding your prices or is the primary motivation is because you don't want your competition to see it it's really a bad reason your competition is going to find out anyway and it's going to waste your time in all likelihood in the process right with fake leads that type

18:59 of thing another sign that you're letting the competition control you is you do something just because they did it right they added a new service they redesigned their website so you do it um you know they increase pricing you increase pricing they decrease pricing you decrease pricing uh something like that but it's just really important for you to listen to the feedback

19:20 from your ideal clients and make changes to your business based on what those clients are telling you right if you're losing sales because of a certain reason if you're getting a lot of requests for a new service for example um you know I think these are all the changes that make sense and not something based on trying to keep up with the competition or uh counter the competition just

19:44 focus on your own business and your customers and so just think about like the entire Market of a service right again we'll stick with photo booth great so here is your market right it's a small subset of the entire market and within your local market you're going to have your ideal clients so not everybody is going to be an ideal client this is a good thing this is going to allow you

20:08 to position yourself in a certain manner with pricing images whatever it may be and just keep that in mind it's really really important so number 12 you're killing new sales opportunities because you're wasting time on the wrong leads right so all of the time you're spending on bad leads then results in not really focusing on the good ones right not following up on the good ones

20:35 um not spending time uh you know basically calling them or texting or or doing things that are really going to drive your sales higher and not just waste time I think it's really important to focus on lead quality over lead quantity it's really easy to get caught up in this idea because it's an easy metric of how many leads did I get last

20:58 month this week whatever it may be and that is not necessarily going to help you grow your business and so think of your leads hey I got this many leads but really what we want to focus on is how many sales did I close and so we could have more leads close the same amount of sales waste more time in all likelihood we could also have viewer leads right and close the same

21:24 amount of sales and this could be good for example let's just imagine you paid for leads and you're paying less for leads now and you're closing the same amount of sales for example or you don't have to follow up with as many people you can you get the one the leads you are following up with you can take more time and and know what their status is more find ways to

21:46 let people filter themselves out so they never become a bad lead I don't believe that people want to be bad leads and in fact I think that one of the reasons that pricing is so effective and why people like it is because they don't want to become a bad lead right I don't want to end up in your sales process when I know I can't afford it you know at least let's just not do that right

22:15 so I think pricing is really effective at reducing leads and price Fishers and that type of stuff number 13. you're killing sales opportunities because you're not friends with some of the competition and I think for local service providers especially many are very small it's really helpful to be friendly with the competition again here's your

22:40 ideal client you could easily have somebody in your Market that doesn't have the same ideal client maybe they offer a different service that's complementary maybe they offer the same service but really geared towards a much different Market there are going to be times where you overlap with a competitor you could still be friends you might even not have anything in common uh with them but

23:05 other than hey you know we do Event Services and sometimes you're really going to overlap we both do the same service at very similar customers and you might be able to make friends with them and pass business back and forth if you're fully booked for example or if they're fully booked white labeling is popular with our customers there's just lots of opportunity there right

23:30 and I think it's really smart I mean if you want to grow your your local network in in be friendly you know if you have a lead that's not a good fit for you reach out to your competition and let them know right hey I got a lead uh you know are you interested in it or would you would you be willing to do this and and I'll give you a certain percentage

23:48 um something of that nature just just start that a lead is a great starting point to reach out to the competition let them know what's going on number 14. you're killing new sales opportunities because your packages are not compelling so just remember packages simplify the buying process and make it easier to buy and therefore sell uh they're really really effective and if you basically have

24:19 packages that create cater to popular customer profiles it's really going to help uh your sales process because people are going to feel like you you've got what they what they are looking for and so here's a screenshot of our demo account but this is common right you might break it up between weddings private events and corporate and so if I have a wedding and I come to your

24:41 services or to your to your uh website and I say hey they do weddings great I'm in the right spot let's proceed right like I'm getting that check mark I'm it's a green light let's keep on going and you really want to help people buy what is right for them right help guide them in the process hey this is great for you if you're looking for this if you're looking for a luxury

25:00 experience this is great if you're looking for the basics here I have this if you're looking you know just whatever it may be help guide them in the process of what's right for them so you know hey are you interested in an open air Booth a mirror Booth a 360 Booth you know that type of thing really important it's a common thing that I see is people have their packages be the same

25:23 except for they just have different hours and I don't think these are effective package tiers or effective package strategy it's not compelling um you really want to find a way to have more in some packages less than others make it a reason to upgrade that type of thing other than just hours it just just seems like a a very common thing and I think when you're first starting out you know

25:48 sure I mean you have one booth uh maybe you just have one you know you're just one solo operator um I think it makes sense to maybe have just a few packages and I guess just hours but quickly try to get out of that try to find a way to have more than just hours another uh thing is your packages should not have lengthy descriptions so I see people who have very

26:11 long descriptions just keep in mind it's your job to know the execution details and let your customers enjoy the experience get to what matters in those descriptions why would I select this package to help me understand um what's different and I guess if it's for me right or who it's for just make it easy to understand you know overall you know if a service does not sell much don't

26:37 show it to all customers right so I see where people this is especially true of people that have been in business for a while they'll accumulate accumulate a lot of stuff over time and as a result they want to show everything but meanwhile you know 90 of their business comes from a small subset of those things so I would just focus on the 90 sell that and then if

26:57 somebody asks about it maybe you have a web page for uh you know uh that array uh photo booth that you bought years ago sure you know and you show up in search results or something for somebody specifically looking for that but overall um just really promote and focus on what sells most number 15 you're killing new sales opportunities because your proposals look bad on mobile devices

27:23 so uh you know if you're sending somebody an offer to basically a proposal to sign and pay a deposit the chances are pretty good they're going to be looking in on their phone right I talked a little bit more about Apple pay and being able to just sign and pay it's a really smooth process that we offer with check Cherry's proposals but make sure they look good on

27:46 mobile do not send PDFs Word documents another thing I've seen is people also send invoices um you know to close a sale uh probably not going to work so well send those proposals give them the opportunity to accept sign and pay and make it really easy all from their phone but PDFs and Word Documents aren't there the text is going to be tiny it's just not going to be a good experience

28:10 for them on mobile so number 16 you're killing new sales because you want to look like a big company and I think this stems from you know we're all uh a lot of us have insecurities and and I'm a small company and I want to look bigger maybe I work at a big company my nine to five and so that's what I'm used to just remember big companies can't do things that you can right you could be more

28:36 personal like that's a good thing they can talk with the owner that's a great thing right you can bend the rules and policies to make people happy that's a really great thing right it's okay to be a small company use it to your advantage get those happy outcomes right which leads to number 17. you're killing new sales opportunities because you don't play the long game with clients

29:02 and the long game in my mind you know you basically just just take care of people right make exceptions you know if somebody uh if there's an air or something corrected um you know add something for free uh offer a refund if somebody's had a horrible experience whatever it may be just focus on positive outcomes make sure that that customer is happy

29:25 at the end of the day that's what you want because that's going to give you that referral potential right and referrals are the best way to acquire new customers I just love referrals invest in your customer experience invest in policies that make it easy to do business with you and and be flexible because you'll have more referrals and referrals are lower cost to acquire they have a

29:54 higher close rate right if somebody's referred you the chances that they're going to sign and not look around right are pretty good they're going to feel confident that you're going to be able to deliver for them in all likelihood pricing's been established with a referral so if my sister has a wedding and she had a photo booth there and I asked her hey how much was the

30:12 photo booth at your wedding I loved it and she tells me and then I get your card or go to your website I'm you know all likelihood you know ready to purchase and pricing's been established right so that's the presentation uh you know tell me here's my Instagram and check Cherry's Instagram one thing you loved about this session and one thing you hated

30:37 thank you so much for watching this video and thank you to the photo booth Expo and mobile Entertainment Expo for allowing me to give this session uh photo booth Expo mobile Entertainment Expo happened every February in Las Vegas I highly recommend it we exhibit at the show and it's just a really great show we we appreciate everything the photo

31:00 booth Expo has done for Chuck cherry and I highly recommend going it's a great time