Management

The Ps for Profit

One of the often asked questions is: “How do I know if my web site sells?”    

This time the story starts with an acquaintance when we met outside a main carriers phone shop. My friend explained he was interested in purchasing a new smart phone and was here to be convinced to buy the latest, newly released model. He had also just recently renewed his web site and hence that question.

The art of selling has been and continues to be defined by the five Ps.

Actually that number can be fluid depending on how far one chooses to define the steps of that process.

This basic model was defined as “Product Pushing through Personality, Persistence and Price”. This was the land of the “born salesman”. These people had an engaging personality and tenacious persistence. With a low price and playing a simple numbers game, they could make sales. Even today, people wake up in the morning and decide to go into selling with few or no skills. Today the game is a tad harder since we have to reproduce this as a web site for our business.

However, before I could really answer him an eager young man approached and offered to assist my friend. As it turned out his experience with that sales assistant was a brilliant and serendipitous example of the answers he was seeking from me.

My friend asked the sales assistant about a particular feature he had heard of and wanted it demonstrated. The salesman immediately retorted that this particular feature did not exist and indeed was technically impossible. My friend then asked about three other features he was particularly interested in but only had two of these demonstrated as our sales friend could not locate the third.

Well, what about price was the next question? The price quoted was much higher than those readily available on other local web sites and to make matters worse the particular colour desired was not in stock and its availability was uncertain. Was the owner of the shop available as he may know the answers being sought? We were then informed that our salesman was actually the owner of the business. Clearly my friend was disappointed but thanked the salesman for his assistance and left the store.

So where do the five Ps come in and how did our experience in the shop provide an answer for me? Its simple in his case; product, presentation, price and persistence!

The product was certainly available but the presentation failed miserably. Our salesperson was not only wrong with his answers he also failed to present the product in a way that would excite and reinforce interest in it. His price was way out of court which implied he was a rip-off merchant or he just plain did not know his market or competition. He also failed in the persistence department. He could have tried to sell a different colour or made a serious attempt to confirm when delivery became available. As you can see there are many more options he could have availed himself of to keep and finalise the sale.

As luck would have it I had an earlier model to the one being sought but which was operating with upgraded software and could demonstrate all the features my friend was interested in. He also grasped the significance of his experience.
Since he was in the accommodation business, as most of you probably are, I would modify the number and meanings of the Ps used in selling and thereby design concepts for a web site.

I would substitute the P words with the following: people, place, peace, pace, and price.

One does not have to be a genius to start filling in the answers to each heading. The heading people just means your target market. Is your offer suited to all ages or groups? If it is for a specific genre then that may indeed help your ranking. Just spell it out clearly and the use of subheadings/categories would be helpful to both the human and our search engine robot.

Peace should describe whether the place is quiet and relaxing or does it jump like a disco? Pace allows you to promote options. The surrounds maybe peaceful but if taking a stroll down the road produces frenetic activities you have something of contrast to sell.
Another acronymic prompter is FACE. If you are a musician you will recognise this as the descriptor of a note sequence on the treble clef. In our industry it is intended to provide further headings of food, alcohol, culture and extras.

I don’t think it is necessary to belabour this itemisation as their intent is obvious. What is important is that you recognise the sequence and content that should be provided.

Obviously your content writer must be experienced and also understand keyword selection and placing within the text. You, as the client, should however test those efforts with these rules in mind. Remember that these anchors also impose page layouts and design formats for the coder of your site. After all they too are the underlying selling features and provide the visual lever in selling and have to work hand in glove with the text and the descriptor sequences. Simply put: packaging!

Since we were equipped with our latest technological gizmos it took no time at all to visit his site for a quick evaluation. The first thing that immediately jumped out at us was the fact that the design was not “mobile ready”. It did not take my friend very long to apply the P rules and decide that some modifications had to be made.

As for me I had the satisfaction of knowing that what I was taught many years ago in the sales classes I had attended was still fresh today. I cannot recall the source but today, there are 204 identified skilled competencies in 31 categories in the five major segments of the sales process. That gives you plenty of scope to build your business.

As Thomas Edison once said: “Make it a point to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.”

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