How To Make Sales Every Day (Without Being "THAT Guy")

Before we get started…

If your sales feel like a rollercoaster (big month…dead month…repeat), the buyers you want are already sitting on your list…you just need a way to spot them (more on that in a minute).

That's also why we're hosting a brand-new live training called 4 Playbooks, where we give you the exact playbooks we use to create sales every single day inside the companies we own and scale.

Click here for the details and to grab your seat.

Ok, back to this week’s issue…

You want more sales. We all do.

But the fact is, if you want to make sales every day, you need to be willing to SELL every day.

And that's the rub…

If you sell too hard, that list (and brand) you spent years building will burn out.

If you go the "patient" route, you'll watch as competitors with crappier products close deals that should have been yours…

…all because they were willing to sell and you weren't.

Fortunately, there is a balance, and that's exactly what I'm giving you. I’ll get into the systems and templates, but here’s why it works:

At any given moment, only 3 – 6% of the people on your list are ready to buy.

The problem? You don’t know who they are.

Two people fill out the same form on your website.

But in your CRM, both leads look identical.

So how do you push hard to close Lead B (because she’s going to buy from someone) without pissing off Lead A and the 94 - 97% of the leads like her?

In this issue, I’m giving you three systems that allow you to sell to the Lead Bs while waiting patiently for the Lead As to become Bs.

Let’s get into it…

The first system is nothing more than a subtle, pressure-free question that lets the leads who are “ready now” identify themselves.

But here’s the key: it must be a genuine question… NOT a sales pitch in disguise.

The second it turns into convincing somebody they SHOULD be ready, you're pressuring, and they can feel the difference instantly.

You can deploy one of these “Ready Now?” questions anywhere you're already talking to leads. Here are my favorites, from simplest to most involved:

1) A checkbox on your lead magnet page.

HubSpot used to put a single checkbox on all their lead magnet opt-in forms that simply said: "Yes, I'd like a free, personalized demo of HubSpot’s software."

The leads that checked it were ready (and were segmented off to sales).

The leads that left it unchecked stayed on the list and were nurtured with content until they were ready. (More on that in System 2.)

2) A "Want some help?" question on the thank you page.

After someone opts in for a lead magnet or additional information, ask if they want help NOW.

For example, when someone downloads one of our tools, like the CEO Dashboard, we ask if they'd like our help implementing it and give them the option to book a meeting.

Leads who are ready book the meeting. Leads who aren't just stay on the list and get value until they are.

3) An "Oh, by the way…" question at the end of in-person or phone conversations.

For example, "Oh, by the way…before I let you go, is this something you're looking to handle in the next 30 days, or are you still gathering information?" The ready ones will express urgency. The non-ready leads will say some version of, “I’m just looking around.”

None of these require your best salesperson, and that’s the point. Again, the goal is not to convert “later” leads into “ready” leads. The goal is to identify the 3 - 6% who showed up ready.

The 10-minute version: Pick ONE method from that list and add it to ONE place. The checkbox is the easiest…it can be live before dinner.

Think about popcorn on the stove. A few kernels pop right away (your 3 – 6%), but most need a little more time to heat up. And if you get impatient and crank the burner, they don't pop faster…they burn.

But what if you could apply just the right amount of heat, to just the right kernels, at just the right time?

That's what this second system does.

Segmentation campaigns allow you to sell every day, because you aren’t selling to everybody at the same time.

You do this by providing value to your main list while also providing subtle, passive opportunities for ready leads to “raise their hands” so they can be segmented off and sold in private.

Here are three ways to get hands in the air:

1) Hand-raiser emails

These are short, one-to-one emails that make it stupid-easy to reply:

If they're interested, they reply (and step into a real sales conversation). If they're not, they scroll on. No harm, no foul.

By the way, I wrote a whole issue on handraiser emails, complete with three copy-paste templates you can access here.

2) Re-registration campaigns

If you aren’t asking your leads to re-optin to get access to new resources, webinars, coupon codes, or other forms of premium content… you should.

Not only does it re-engage the relationship (think “date night” for married couples), it also runs them back through the “Ready Now Offers” you set up back in System 1.

3) The Perfect P.S.

This is just a simple call-to-action in the P.S. of every email you send, reminding readers what you sell. Here’s one I use a lot:

Only your most engaged, ready-now readers ever make it to the bottom of your emails…so they're the only ones who even see the ask. Everyone else just sees content.

(Want another example? Scroll to the bottom of this email. Meta, I know…) 🙂

The 10-minute version: Steal one of those three hand-raiser templates and send it to a segment of your list this week. Whoever replies is ready now.

One catch with everything I've shown you so far: both of those systems find the people who are already ready.

They don't give anybody a reason to BECOME ready.

So at least once a quarter (and ideally once a month), your goal should be to create a conversion event: a promotion, a launch, an event…anything with a name and a deadline…that identifies and activates the 3 – 6% who are ready right now, but who might have missed your more passive, evergreen communication.

Because nothing will grab someone's attention faster than saying, “Hey, did you hear what’s happening…”

Before you create yours, here’s the one rule that matters most: a promotion is not a discount. You can sell the exact same thing at the exact same price with nothing but a different wrapper on it. The only job is giving people a reason to move NOW. Three ways to do that:

1) Seasonal Happenings

This one is simple: just lean into the calendar your customers already live on: gift-giving in December, New Year's resolutions in January, "summer beach bod" season, back-to-school in the fall.

And don’t think if you’re B2B that this doesn’t apply to you. When do your ideal clients set their budgets?

Pick the ones that map to what you sell and build your promotion around them.

2) Industry/Community Happenings.

If you're B2B, that's the week of your industry's biggest conference or trade show, when your entire market is already paying attention (whether you bought a booth or not).

If you're B2C, that's a day like Prime Day: "Come see us, and we'll beat whatever Amazon is showing you." Everybody already has their wallet out…go get a share of it.

3) Manufactured Happenings.

If nothing's going on, make something go on. Amazon didn't want to fight over Black Friday, so they invented Prime Day from scratch.

Mattress companies run St. Patrick's Day and Presidents’ Day sales, and last I checked, mattresses have nothing to do with the Irish (or Abe Lincoln). But it works, because any reason to buy now…even a silly one…is better than no reason.

Finally, when a conversion event works, save it.

You're not inventing twelve new promotions a year. You're building a small stable of proven promotions you can run over and over again… year after.

The 10-minute version: Put ONE date on the calendar in the next 90 days and give it a name. Naming it is what makes it an “event.”

⚡️ Action Step: Block off 30 minutes this week and knock out the three ten-minute versions, in order:

You don't need more leads. You just need to stop guessing who's ready…and start asking.

Give it a shot and let me know how it goes…

-Ryan

Ryan Deiss
Co-Founder and CEO, The Scalable Company

P.S. If you want the done-for-you version of everything above, that's exactly what our upcoming live training, 4 Playbooks, is all about: the exact playbooks we use to create sales every day inside the companies we own and scale…without burning out our lists (or our teams).

Click here for the details and to grab your seat.