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Easy 7-Step Sales Letter Template for B2B Services

Here's an easy-to-follow, 7-step sales letter template for professional or business service providers.

1. Get attention
Getting the attention is the primary importance of any direct marketing piece. The goal is to engage the reader enough to get them to read the rest of the letter. The key to doing that is to make it interesting enough, but also it must be believable.

Here are several ways you can grab the reader's attention in a sales letter...

Promise a benefit ("Reduce your marketing costs in half in just 90 days"

Ask an intriguing question: ("What do 90% of all small businesses overlook when saving on income taxes?"

Make an offer ("Reply now and get a 10-page free report to help you get more customers").

2. Identify the problem your reader has
After you get the reader's attention, you immediately want to identify the relevant problem the reader has that your service can solve. Generally, the problems for most businesses fall under these general categories:

- how to save money (reduce costs)
- how to make more money (increase revenues, increase profits)
- how to improve operations, increase productivity

You'll want to state the problem in a way that the reader can recognize it. In a essence, you must help the reader discover (or rediscover) a real problem, pain or predicament they have, so that they will be thinking about when you introduce your service as the solution to it in the next step of the letter.

3. Position your service as the solution to the problem.
Now that the reader is thinking about or feeling the pain of the problem you just identified, you now want briefly position that your service is the solution to that problem.

4. Prove that your service is the solution to the problem.
To prove the case, there are three basic items you should try to include in the letter to reinforce your position.

- mention the primary benefits of your service, and how they can measurably solve the problem the reader faces.
- mention any "social proof" that you have that your service provides the benefits you are promising. This can be done by mentioning testimonials of real clients, or describing "mini case studies" or success stories of previous client projects. It's important to note results here, not just just make claims.
- what credentials do you have? In support of the other two items above, you can weave information about your experience, training, technology you use, professionalism, etc. While these credentials aren't usually effective on their own, they do help support other types of proof in your letter.

5. Give them an offer
All sales letters need an offer.

Are you offering a free seminar? A free special report? A complimentary assessment or one-hour consultation? Or perhaps a low-cost introductory sampling of your service?

What is it that you are offering to get them to reply to you?

Offers can be spiced up by adding two elements: scarcity and/or exclusivity. Doing so you state that the offer is good only for a limited time, or for a limited number of people.

Examples:
"Our seminar only has 30 seats available."

"We are only offering the report until Dec. 31"

6. Make sure it has a guarantee.
A guarantee helps "reverse" any risk the reader might be worried about if he or she replies to your offer.

If you're offer is free, you might try something like "The consultation is absolutely free. There is no obligation to purchase the service."

Other guarantees include:
"If you aren't satisfied with our work, you don't pay."

"Everything is done in 30 days or less, or your money back."

7. Tell them what to do
This is the "call to action." Many sales letters forget this part, even though it seems obvious to include it.

You must tell them exactly what you want them to do to get the offer -- and make it easy for them to respond.
Some examples:
"Fill out the postage-paid reply card and drop in in the mail today"

"Go to .www.ourwebsite.com and enter your email address on the top of our home page."

"Call us at 1-800-XXX-XXXX and our trained representatives will get the report out to right away."

It's also a good idea to provide multiple ways for readers to respond (such as mail, telephone, fax, email, etc.). The more way they can respond, the higher potential for response.</P

Scott Thompson
31 Mar 2007
www.onehourmarketing.com

Finding A Common Interest To Increase Your Business Success

The first thing required for successful communication - be it in sales or something else - is to find a common interest.

Success is achieved when two individuals agree they have the same goal and are discussing which of them is going to do what in order for them to reach their common goal faster, easier and with greater certainty.

If the person you are talking with feels, even slightly, that he has been cheated or that you took advantage of him - by him being your means to reaching your goals - he folds from the game. Often, this other person could be a customer who feels your greatest desire is selling your product - without considering whether that product will meet his needs or desires.

If you don't first harmonize, by finding a common interest, you end up creating a situation wherein each party is engulfed in defending their interests: one is proving why something is good and beneficial to the other and the other is defending himself by proving why that same thing is of no use to him and doesn't suit his needs.

By doing this, you presume:

1) You will convince the other party to accept your truth, or worse ...

2) You can make the other party feel so "good" about the purchase that they will be back to buy more from you!
This is often impossible. Sure, your prospects may actually buy, sometimes - but this doesn't come even close to securing a long-term relationship with them and ensure they will repeatedly purchase from you.

The solution is somewhere else, and a very simple one at that: once you discover the common goals you and your prospect share (such as ensuring greater success for your prospect's company), you help him realize those goals.

Mr. Ron is a sports shoe importer. He was always having problems negotiating with his suppliers. Then he changed something. Before he sat down at the table again to negotiate with his supplier, he said:
"Look, we all have the same goal - getting your top-notch sport shoes to the public. Let's not waste time arguing and fighting over petty issues. Why don't we imagine there's a customer standing here in front of us right now. Let's all put our suggestions on the table and discuss how each one of us can help make this customer's decision easier and faster and what we can do to make him want to return more often and buy more of your shoes from me."
Just saying these few sentences placed him and his supplier on equal and common ground to negotiate. A few days later, he sent me a note saying this was the best and fastest deal he ever made. And it was so simple ...

How an Importer Cultivates Loyalty From His Customers – Even When The Competion Offers Higher Percentages

How do you negotiate in the real world? How can you convince your prospects to buy something from you and keep buying it over and over again? The easiest and most successful aproach is helping the store (in any way possible) sell your goods as fast and easy as possible so that they will see buying from you as an opportunity and not like purchasing from you is a liability.

That said, the best starting place for negotiating is: develop an efficient marketing system for your product (purchasing, logistics, marketing, sales, after-sales activities, follow up, etc.), test it in the real world and then offer it to the store along with the product.

This way you're not just selling your product as if you were saying: Here it is, now make the best of it ... and by the way, we're not through yet; whether you buy something from me today or not, I'll be back soon to sell you this product (if you decide against purchasing it today) or a new product...

Offer the tool and the solution. The fabric and the scissors.

When would you rather buy an unknown product from someone to sell? Would you choose the untested product or the one that that has been market tested, comes with a case study that precisely shows the marketing system they used and how to handle its marketing, sales, product education, market approach and similar?

And what if they could even forecast the actual and approximate sales success for this product, on the basis of previous experience, based on your sales team working according to the suggested system (in other words: if you already knew approximately how much risk the product presents for your company)? Or, what if they even showed you how all these procesess work in practice? Or even further, what if they offered you sales team training along with the product?

If you offered all this, you really wouldn't need to have any polished »negotiating skills« to generate the client's interest – you are already offering them exactly what they want and need ... and more. If you did all this consistently and as part of your work ethic, you would find yourself in the desirable situation of you being able to choose whom to trust to sell your product.

The sales people would be seeking you out instead of the other way around!

This is negotiating for the new era that is not only marked by greater sales success, but also by deeper and more friendly human relationships, an excellent flow of information, the ability to act without fear or bad feelings, and above all, alot of satisfaction, pleasure, respect and joy. This is what happens when you solve problems where they begin: at their cause!

Nikola Grubisa
02 Apr 2007

Nikola Grubisa is a European Marketing and HRM Consultant and the co-author of a European bestseller "The Millionaire Mindset: How to Tap Real Wealth from Within". If you are wondering how top marketers are marketing in Europe and at the same time want to discover the path to true wealth, please subscribe to his new free eZine "The Millionaire Weekly Memo". Click here: http://www.TheMillionaireMind.net?a1-aa