web site optimization | No Smoke and Mirrors

Is Your Website Invisible to Buyers? Are you Sure?

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The way buyers buy today is different than say 10 or even 5 years ago. Buyers use the internet and are highly educated on the products and services they buy. Most if not all companies have recognized this shift and the importance of having a web site and creating content that helps buyers buy. With as much as 60% of the buying process complete before a customer contacts your salespeople being found early in the buyer journey is no longer a nice to have but it is now critical. A number of companies’ web sites are invisible to buyers conducting internet searches because of what the industry refers to as “Mobilegeddon”.

Is your web site invisible? Are you Sure?

My friend David Barnhart recently wrote a post about “being Ghosted” in social media. Being ghosted is when someone deletes you from facebook, twitter and other social media and stops returning your emails. Basically you no longer exist and you are now a ghost to them.

David shares:

“When it happens to you personally, you feel hurt and confused. It’s a whole different problem when Google does it to your business website. Would Google do that? Well, yes. Here is a quote from Google’s blog:

“We will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

We call this mobilegeddon. Google is now evaluating your website for mobile usability if it finds mobile usability errors you will dins this message in your Google Webmaster Tools (now called Google Search Console) account:

Google systems have tested 135 pages from your site and found that 100% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 135 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for Smartphone users.”

Why is Mobilegeddon something that should concern every business owner, President, and CMO?

Google announced “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.” I expect this will only increase so if your web site is not mobile friendly your site and all your valuable content is invisible to buyers you should be selling.

How do you know if your site is invisible? …take the quick test at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ . It only takes a few seconds but will quickly let you know if your web site is invisible to buyers.

I have been hearing about this and finally went to the site and tested my blog at the google test site above and was shocked to find my site was invisible. I have been writing since 2005 and now all my content on fixing sales problems and how to create sales velocity is invisible? It looked like this:

So I called my friend David at Business Blogging Pro’s. David knows how to make web sites mobile friendly and originally designed my blog. He taught me how to use my blog and has coached me on content and blogging for years. I have sent a number of clients to David when they wanted to create blogs to establish thought leadership in their industries and drive traffic to their web sites. Within just under a week David redesigned my site and now it looks as it does today.

Is your web site Invisible?

Can buyers find your company in Google searches today?

Can you afford not to have your web site found today?

If you agree that more web searches are being done on mobile devices than desktops and as much as 60% of the buying journey is completed before buyers contact you…you must make sure your web site is mobile friendly. If you are like me, you understand the importance of this but find your web site is invisible, I highly recommend you hire an expert to make your web site mobile friendly.

Good Sales Results Today Does Not Immunize Your Sales Team From Poor Sales Performance in the Future

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By Mark Allen Roberts

Assuming since you have never experienced poor sales results you never will is like assuming since you have never caught the flu you will never get sick. I hear it all the time; “Mark your content about staying close to how and why your buyers are buying is interesting but we don’t have a Sales Problem to fix”. Congratulations, and I hope it stays that way. My personal experience for over 30 years now has seen however businesses operate in cycles. One predictable cycle you want to avoid is when the phone “just stops ringing” and you don’t know why.

The leading cause of why businesses experience poor sales performance is losing touch with their market, their buyers, and specifically how they buyers buy and the criteria they are using today.

I returned home from Walgreens after getting my annual flu shot and my mind was racing with all the misperceptions the others in line were sharing about the flu, how you get it, how to cure it and so on. Imagine my surprise when my own wife said “why do you get a flu shot every year?….I have never had a flu shot and I have never had the flu” I went on to share with her that I am happy she has never been sick with the flu, and that just because she has never had the flu it does not mean she never will. The flu changes, evolves and new strains are born everyday and she may have been immune to the past strains but that is no assurance she is immune to current or future viruses.

I will close out this train of posts on how just as there are myths about the flu we also find myths about sales, sales performance and how to prevent poor sales performance. Myths that become beliefs over time are dangerous as they often impede and impair the preventative measures that could have kept your business healthy. Businesses you do not stay close to their markets and their buyers run the risk of poor sales. If your business is in the practice of telling your market as apposed to serving your market are already infected and will experience a poor sales performance outbreak often at the least convenient time. As someone who helps businesses get back on track and build sales velocity, I listen for common statements that indicate a virus is present in the core of their sales team. I listen for comments like;

Our buyers don’t need that…

Our buyers do not value …..

No one in our industry does…so why should we?

Our customers are not smart enough to understand…

Everyone in our industry has this policy …

We have been in business for 50 years we know what our buyers need…

We can not afford to ….

And my recent personal favorite: No buyers in our industry use the internet or social media in making buying decisions.

As I have said before, (and will probably say again soon) you could say that…but you would be wrong!

As someone who spends time in markets, a variety of markets, meeting with buyers on a regular basis one common trait they all have is buyers use the internet to educate themselves. The role sales once played as keepers of the product features and benefits information keys is over. Industry statistics show 70%-80% of the sales process is over before the buyer calls you today. Where are they gathering information about products that can solve their immediate problems? We see they are using the internet, social networks, industry trade group forums, and utilizing technology to gain product referrals and recommendations.

Not sold yet? Don’t believe me? Ok….In a recent Forbes article the author shared 19 things successful people do using social media. The article shares how 69% of adults admit to using social media. Ah ..I hear those voices again …”Not in OUR industry Mark”…Really?

Lets take a look at a recent white paper by HIS Global Spec titled; Social media use in the Industrial Sector. I really want everyone to download and read this report’s content. Some of the findings included;

81% follow business / groups within their industry
26% reference or read work related content
36% had a Google + account
47% view you-tube for work related purposes
85% viewed you-tube product demos
80% viewed How to video on you-tube

Why? Why and how are people even in the industrial B2B sector using Social media?

52% keep up with the latest industry news and technology
48% reach additional contacts and network
37% find peer reviews and recommendations

If your business does not believe that up to 80% of your buyers are doing their homework on the web prior to calling your salesperson, or that your buyers are not using social media I can only guarantee you one thing; your company is invisible to a large number of buyers who are actively searching to solve problems your company can solve for them. Web sites that are basically virtual brochures that take up cyber space because we are supposed to have one because everyone else does do not help sales teams achieve sales goals or create a 21^st Century Sales Pipeline.

Market leaders understand how their buyers buy, where they shop and gather information and leverage technology to insure their product or service solution is found.

Has anyone on your team said: “our buyers do not use the internet”?

Have you been in a meeting where a senior leader said we do not need to invest in that social media mumbo jumbo…?

How were your sales results from your last new product launch?

Are your salespeople asking for more or less qualified leads to meet with?

Some business leaders believe because they have never had sales problems in the past they never will and this is like believing if you have never had the flu you never will. The reality is just as flu viruses change over time so too will your buyers, their buyer journey and buying criteria. One change we all must face is buyers today are using the internet more than ever before and they are leveraging social media. To immunize your sales from future sales problems you must embrace the process of understanding how your buyers buy and strategically embrace new technologies the buyers are using today.

Assemble a 21st Century Sales Pipeline

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By guest blogger Dave Barnhart

Have you ever said, “If I’d known that before I bought, I would have chosen that one instead of this one.” ? That is Criteria Evolution at work.

There has been paradigm shifts in the way people ask questions, get answers, and make buying decisions. One of the casualties in that shift is the pre-sales conversation has been foreshortened. As a result, buyers are sometimes missing crucial facts that would otherwise cause them to make the buying decision in our favor instead of our competitor’s.

Case to point: The number one complaint by kitchen remodeling customers is the dust and trash created by the contractor, yet most customers are blissfully ignorant of this when they make their buying decision. A smart contractor would:

Institute procedures such as the use of an air scrubber to eliminate the problem.
Engage in a proactive campaign to make prospective customers aware of the problem and how you solve it.

Now imagine your prospect learned this information from your website, an article online you’ve written, or from a strategically placed testimonial. While your prospect is talking to contractors on his short list, what happens when she asks your competitor, “Do you use an air scrubber?” You’ve just eliminated a competitor who cannot answer ‘yes’, and done so with no additional incremental effort on your part.

There is only one way this happens:

You must view your website, collateral, and all of those online articles and discussions as part of your company’s sales team, each with a role to play.

Start by putting your successful sales under a microscope. Become intimately familiar with the journey your customers take from complete stranger to paying customer. What do they want to know? What resources are they using to educate themselves? How to they find you? What are their buying criteria? Who else is involved in the buying decision?

The Truth Will Set You Free But First It Will Make You Miserable

Expect to learn that some of the time, energy, and money you’ve been spending on sales and marketing are being wasted. Expect to discover you are losing sales in ways that never occurred to you. And expect to find things that are working.

With this information at hand you can begin to assemble a 21^st century sales pipeline – one that is tuned in to your customers’ buying process and actually helps them buy.

This post was provided by Dave Barnhart of Klaroty Strategic Marketing.
Klaroty Strategic Marketing is a marketing firm focused on web development, website design, social media, and marketing strategy. We are based in Phoenix, Arizona with clients throughout the US and Europe. Dave’s firm actually designed my No Smoke and Mirrors blog and I have sent many clients who wish to have a 21^st century web site that adds sales to Dave. Dave’s popular blog http://blog.businessbloggingpros.com/ helps business leaders learn how to engage with buyers in their market earlier in the buying process.

Is Your Web Site Adding New Sales or Just a Virtual Brochure Taking Up Cyber Space?

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its hard to grow the sales of invisible products on the web

Lets all agree that buyers are buying differently today than they did 10 years ago. I think most of us will agree buyers are buying different than they did 5 years ago. If you are out doing win loss interviews you will also find buyers are buying differently today than they did last year. With 70% -80% of the buying process completed by the time buyers speak with a salesperson we must adapt. In my last post: Invisible Products; The death of your new Sales Goal I shared how buyers today are doing online research and market leaders understand this behavior and strategically place content to help buyers shape their perceived ideal solution. Market losers keep cold calling and missing their sales goals. One way to fix your sales problems is to insure your web site is an active tool in helping you drive sales.

After my last post I received one of three responses;

Sales people; what are you saying; we don’t play as key a role in sales anymore? (I thought you were one of us?

I am a sales guy at heart, I have lead sales teams for 25 years but I have been forced to learn about how buyers buy and how critical market driven marketing is to achieving my sales numbers by helping my potential buyers buy. Sorry, but you are no longer the keeper of the feature and benefit keys.

Sales leaders; I have a web site but sales in my business occur belly to belly with buyers…

Yes you could say that, but you would be wrong. Your buyers are now using the web early in the sales process and if you really want to crush that new sales goal, you must have a strong presence on the web to get invited to the dance.

Business leaders and owners: your post made me feel uncomfortable, if you are right how do I know if my web site is a tool to grow my business or a virtual brochure that looks pretty but is not adding any value to my bottom line?

I am not a web SEO expert but I will share the tests I do when helping a client determine if their web site is a sales tool or just taking up cyber space.

Does your web site produce inquiries from prospective buyers? If so how many and is it enough to achieve your sales goals? If your answer is; yes we have more than enough leads that are turning into a record breaking sales year…, quit reading and get back to following up on those sales leads!
Conduct a Google search for your products, your business. If you serve a particular region add that region. For example; “ ____(products and or services) in Grand Rapids Michigan” If your products and business is on the first page of the search give yourself a score of 10 points, if not give yourself a 0. If your product and business are in the top three listings give yourself another 5 points and if you have a pay per click add that is also on the page give yourself 5 more points.
Conduct the same process with Yahoo and BING. Score your results the same as above.
What is your web sites bounce rate? The administrator of your web site can tell you this number quickly. A bounce rate is basically what % of visitors to your site found your site but bounced; they do not open a second page. If your bounce rate is under 60% give your score another 5 points.
Does your website have content developed with SEO in mind? In other words content, stories that include key words your buyers use when searching for a solution to a problem they are having. If yes, give yourself 5 points.
Does your web site have a blog? Add another 10 points.
Does your web site have links to other thought leaders in your industry, supplier’s sites, complimentary products, and industry trade associations? If yes give yourself another 10 points for each link.
Does your site have a Face book, twitter, LinkedIn , and you tube links? Give yourself 5 points for each link you have.
Open your web site on a smart phone. If you can read your site and find products one of your buyers may be looking for give yourself 10 points.
Do you have a pay per click (PPC Ads) strategy to complement your organic search efforts? If yes add 20 points.

So how did your web site score in its ability to drive sales for your business?

150- 200 points – you have a good site and it is a tool to help your salespeople hit their

sales goals

100-149 points – you have a good site with a strong foundation you need to build upon

70-99 points – you have a web site but it is not driving the leads and ultimate sales it

could be

Under 70 points – your products and services are invisible to the buyers in your market

In today’s market buyers are searching for solutions to problems they are trying to solve using the web. Yes you and your team can still cold call buyers and possibly work harder to hit your numbers. However why not work smarter and help your products and services be found when buyers are searching? What would you rather have….a cold call with someone who might need your product?… or a conversation with a buyer searching for a product like yours to solve an urgent problem they have?

Market leaders understand how their buyers buy and insure their web sites are tools to help buyers buy.

The above is how I quickly do a gut check to see if a client’s products and services are invisible. Do you have other ways to check the effectiveness of a web site?

Invisible Products; Death of your New Sales Goal

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It’s that time of the year again with sales plans being launched and new commission plans being distributed. Meetings have occurred, financial modes built and presentations to the board done and the year’s sales plan was approved. Unfortunately, a number of teams will fail to achieve sales goals (often again) because their products and services are invisible to potential buyers.

I met with an entrepreneur who called and asked if I could help in fixing his sales problem. We met and after I asked him a number of questions I quickly understood what he described as “needing to fix sales his sales problem”.

Symptoms of the problem were described as;

failure to achieve new product sales goals on the last three new product launches
failure to grow new accounts, “it’s like my team is running a bread route”
0nly 40% of sales team achieved their sales goal last year
We lost one of our top accounts we have sold for 12 years
We lost two of our top salespeople in the last 3 years
I failed to hit the numbers I promised our board

Well I can understand why we were meeting…however what happened next was even more disturbing,… he went on to share how he felt I needed to fix the sales problem:

Sales Training – my guys need sales training, they need to sell through buyer objections
Time Management – they need to spend more time calling on new accounts
Compensation– we need to change our comp plan to there is more of an incentive to sell new products
People– I have been trying to put this off but I probably should hire a VP of Sales to herd these cats.
Product Training – we need to do a better job of training our sales people on products features and benefits
Process – I want a defined repeatable sales process , sales forecasts have been a joke , I need to know production can count on the sales forecast we give them

This is always interesting ….a hard driving entrepreneur calls and asks to meet with me, and they share their problems then proceed to tell me how to fix them. (I would love to just once have the courage to say; “If you know the problems and how to solve them…why did you call me? “ ) Now I know how my doctor must feel when my right knee is acts up. As opposed to just sharing my symptoms and where it hurts, I proceed to share how other doctors have fixed my right knee since tearing my ACL years ago and explain how he probably should go inside my knee and clean up the cartilage, drain some fluid and probably give me a prescription for pain and an anti-inflammatory… (Sorry doc).

I agreed to help with one condition; I would meet with buyers in his market, his salespeople, and we would regroup to make sure we have an accurate understanding of the “why’s” the above symptoms are occurring (clearly understand the real problem) and then develop a corrective action plan, a roadmap to achieving his teams sales plan.

What we found were a number of what the entrepreneur believed to be true were areas we could improve, however the leading reason why his sales team was not achieving plan, particularly new product sales was his products were invisible to his market’s buyers in the process buyers were using to search for solutions to problems they were having. This team’s web site was basically a virtual brochure that talked more about who they were and not the problems they solved for their marketplace. With 70%-80% of they buying process being done prior to potential buyers calling one of his salespeople, competitors had much more influence on buyers early on, helping them shape how they believed they needed to solve the problems they were experiencing. His salespeople were being invited to quote much later in the sales process as “one of three competitive quotes required to keep their preferred vendor honest.”

When I shared this market information his first response was…”this may be true with consumer B2C products but not B2C customers.” However when I shared specific account interview notes with buyers he was much more open to discussing his web strategy. I shared that your products need to be found when buyers are doing their homework. Once a potential buyer finds your site you have a minute to win it as I discussed in a previous post. I connected him with a web SEO expert I have used in the past and helped him interview web site developers to address this root invisible problem in the heart of his marketing.

How about your products? Are they invisible to potential buyers?

If you conduct a Google search, right now, are your products found? (go ahead minimize this blog right now and search. I can wait…type in an inquiry in the form of you looking for a solution to a problem; do not use your product brand name)

Are your products found on the first page?

Was there more than one entry found for your products?

As you look at the page, if you were a buyer who would you think is the market leader in solving the problem you were searching?

Are there any case studies or customer feedback? Any for your product?

Companies spend millions designing and developing new products but often fail to invest in marketing. In the above example this entrepreneur spends on average $280,000 in new product design and molds, another $27,000 in new brochures and a few trade ads, $9,000 for a booth and attending his industries’ trade show, and he had a friend of the family who did web sites on the side do his web marketing?

This entrepreneur had a sales team committed to achieving sales goals. Could they use some product and sales training? ….yes. Should we modify the current compensation plan to reward new product and new customer sales? …agreed. Should we work on designing a repeatable sales process based on how buyers were buying…absolutely! However if we take the time to do what I call “the market work”, his real problem was a marketing problem and not a sales problem. His biggest problem to solve that would produce the quickest sales return on investment was his web marketing. His web site had not been optimized, to the best of his knowledge…ever.

Products listed on web sites in the form of virtual brochures are invisible to buyers desperately search to solve urgent problems they have and must be solved and are basically the death of your sales plan . Yes you can have your salesperson’s cold call until the dogs come home, but why not invest in your digital salesperson and start conversations with buyers much sooner in the sales process.