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Before we jump into how to make a sale, here is a quick term clarification so that everyone can follow.

Sale: Convincing someone to donate money or buy your products.

Product: can be a service, a physical product, donation membership.

B2B: When you are selling your product to other businesses.

Benchmark: Comparing what other competitors are doing in your market.

There are plenty of problems in this world, so why should people prioritize our issue of saving and restoring nature?

This goes on when you want to convince people to donate to your cause or to buy your product. By now, people have tons of options. So how can you make sure they support you?

That is the reason why learning how to set up the best sales strategy is so important. So let’s get you up to speed.

3 ingredients to boost your sales to new levels

I worked in sales for most of my career. I sold clothes, holidays, ideas, services, etc. So I can confirm to you that those ingredients are crucial and work.

Yet, you might still doubt if I know what I am talking about. So I present you the 3 ingredients one of the best salespeople on this planet identified.

Jordan Belfort, also known as the Wolf of Wallstreet. He wrote a great book called Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success, which I can highly recommend.

All those 3 ingredients are needed, and all go on a scale from 0-10.

0 you don’t have the ingredient at all, 10 the ingredient is already at maximum.

All ingredients are needed for NGOs & businesses alike. Keep in mind as an NGO, you are still selling. You are selling the positive impact.

So what are the 3 ingredients that you need for every sale?

You will laugh in a second. Because they are no-brainers. Yet, we often fail to use them to their full strength.

Ingredient #1 Make people fall in love with your product

Told you, a no-brainer.

Yet, many of us struggle with it.

To make a sale, the person needs to fall in love with your product. On a scale from 0-10, they need to have 100% certainty that this product will help them to achieve whatever they desire.

How to step by step make people fall in love with your product:

• Build a special page on your website just for your product.
• Make a 1min video to explain it.
• Develop a slide deck that runs people through your product (when working in B2B).
• Create a story around your product instead of focusing on features.
• Create an easy onboarding experience.
• Provide them with help material in case they are blocked.
• Ensure that customer service is available when they encounter a problem.
• Make the pricing as transparent as possible.
• Show testimonials to prove it works.
• Use beautiful pictures.

On a scale from 0-10, how many points do you give your product? Write it down for the end of this newsletter.

Ingredient #2 Get people to trust you

Wow, mind-blowing, right? Of course not.

I hope that is what you take away from this. Sales are actually not as tricky.

We tend to forget that humans take all decisions. You can have the best company or a great product, but if the person on the other side doesn’t like you, they won’t buy it.

Plenty of other fish in the sea to support.

This is how you can concretely create more trust so that they support you:

• Create a detailed section about who the people are behind your company/NGO
• Use a good profile picture of you (no sunglasses, not blurry, not grumpy).
• Clean up your social spaces no matter if it’s Linkedin, Insta & co.
• Be authentic, there are so many sales sharks out there, so being refreshing and different goes a long way.
• Start to create a personal brand on one platform to show what you are about and your knowledge.
• Be honest, again, in today’s world quite a unique skill.
• Use the language of your ideal customers (you don’t talk with teens the same way you talk with scientists).
• Make a quick video to introduce yourself.
• Emphasize the possibility of calling you via a video call.

And what is your score from 0-10 this time?

Ingredient #3 People need to trust your company

Ok, last ingredient. The one that people probably know most about.

Yet, if it would be so easy, why aren’t there real competitors to companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Disney, and co.?

Because trust is hard to build and easy to destroy.

If you are the kindest person in the world and people actually like your product, they would still hesitate if they don’t know your company / NGO, or even worse, hate it.

Here are actionable tips on what you can do to boost the trust people have in your company:

• Create a brand. This is sooo crucial. Does Nike really produce the best sports shoes? Probably not. But everyone buys them. (How to create a brand goes beyond this article. Check out the book called Brand the Change: The Branding Guide for social entrepreneurs, disruptors, not-for-profits and corporate troublemakers, if you want to start today).
• Be transparent about your impact and financials as much as possible.
• Get other people to talk about you through PR, Influencers, etc.
• Keep your promises.
• Invest in a good website. It’s basically your home planet, where every visitor from Newsletter, Social Media, PR, etc., comes back to. So make sure it is first class.
• Work with trusted partners bigger than you, so their credibility rubs off on you.
• Benchmark what others are doing in your field.

And what’s your score this time?

Your turn: time to implement the best sales strategy

What was your final score?

0-10: Don’t be too hard on yourself! You got this. Start with your product first, then with your company, and then with yourself.

10-20: Ok, some room here to improve. Take the one where you scored the lowest and use some of the tips to get those numbers up.

20-30: Congrats! You are doing great already OR you are biased. Check in with potential customers if they feel the same.

Block yourself a timeslot for next week to increase your ingredients. What about Tuesday? Usually not as busy as Mondays.

WBM’s cheat sheet to make a sale

In a nutshell:

3 ingredients for every sale:

• love your product;
• trust in you;
• trust in your company / NGO.

Recommended book: The Way of the Wolf

Set up time: Depending on how you scored, can be hours to weeks.

Maintaining time: 1h per week

So boost up your sales with those 3 ingredients. More money should mean that you can have a bigger positive impact.

See you next week. Have a wild one!

Oliver

Whenever you are ready, there are 2 ways we can help you:

1. 1-to-1 business consulting. Detailed and personalized consulting to double the impact of your biodiversity organization in the shortest possible time. Not sure how good your pitch deck is?

Sign up for the waiting list by writing us at oliver@wildbusinessmates.com (unfortunately, we are booked out at the moment).

2. Wild Business Mates in Action. Wild Business Mates help you execute in areas you are struggling with. Tech, Marketing, Sales, Communication, etc. We can realize all the steps I mentioned above.