October 26, 2009

Boring Brochure or Super Salesperson?

I challenge you to ask yourself a few tough questions about your company’s website.

1. Is your website stale and just taking up space on the web?
2. Does your website bring value to your business?
3. Is your website a boring brochure or a dynamic, super salesperson?

Hopefully, you feel great about your response to these questions and you’re pleased with your website – it is current and operates as an online salesperson bringing great value to your business.

If you are frustrated with the performance of your website and it is not an online salesperson for your business, keep reading.

Ok, first, a few more questions related to sales.
· Would you hire a salesperson and never check on his/her performance?
· Would you keep a salesperson that has a poor product or service presentation?
· Would you retain a salesperson that doesn’t bring value to your business?

Your answer to each of these questions was probably, “Of course not!” Salespeople are constantly working towards closing the deal. Now, take a look at your virtual salesperson; your website. In order to truly maximize your website, it is imperative to start with a sales mentality.

Every interaction with an online visitor should be viewed as a sales process. I’m not saying your site should be converted to an E-commerce website – that’s totally different. I mean that your website should be working hard; using every opportunity to build relationships and generate interest and credibility to drive new prospects to your business, just like a salesperson.

In order to generate interest and credibility your website has to be a great communicator. Your online salesperson must be:

1. Current and fresh
2. Visually pleasing with a good color palette and high quality graphics and imagery
3. Easy to navigate
4. Updated frequently with content that is relevant and engaging

The entire goal of your website is to engage the prospect or customer and encourage him/her to take action. The website ‘call-to-action’ is like a salesperson wrapping up his/her presentation and asking for the business. That online ‘call-to-action’ should trigger a sequence of events which either drive or support sales such as generating a lead by capturing prospect data.

Of course, an online super salesperson needs to be coupled with various marketing and media campaigns to drive traffic to your website – but that’s a completely different topic. (I’ll cover that in a future post.)

If your site isn’t bringing value to your business, I encourage you to take the necessary steps to make it a vital part of your sales team. You may need to partner with a marketing agency and/or web development firm that can provide the skills and guidance you need to transform your site.


Here’s the bottom line: A website should be focused on the role of a 24/7 online salesperson and should provide measurable value to the marketing and sales strategy of your business.

Learn how Encore Web Works can help you transform your website into a sales and marketing asset.

Visit http://ww.encorewebworks.com/AboutUs.aspx or http://www.notabrochure.com/