When Selling Feels Too Hard

Crazy that Christmas is literally next week. This month feels like clinging to the side of a moving car that won’t stop! 🤪

Anyway, in this week’s issue of the newsletter, mixing it up a bit by not talking about WordPress the whole time. We’re going to talk about making sales with our sites.

First up, a look at offers and why sometimes it feels like it is too difficult to make a sale and there’s little interest. What do you do? What’s missing? It is actually fairly simple.

And I also want to tell you why you might want to delete some of your offer choices. I think I’m going to delete one of mine, actually.

So, let’s get into it….

When Selling Feels Hard

OK, I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m some sales guru. I’m not. But, I do know a few things. 🤪 And I’ve also experienced much during my years in business. See if this feels familiar…

You are trying to sell something. An online course or a membership, perhaps. Maybe some kind of group coaching program.

And, it isn’t selling well. It feels hard. It feels like there’s constant friction. And you’re getting increasingly frustrated by the whole thing.

You’re trying things. You offer sales and discounts. You use urgency and deadlines. You might even feel just a wee bit slimy for doing it, but in the end, you need to drive some sales.

It shouldn’t be this difficult.

One common mistake is to concentrate on the particulars. Things like the price, or payment plans… or sending more emails, or sales funnel arrangements.

All these things are important, but definitely not the most important.

In fact, there are times when even when you offer something at an almost stupidly low price, you feel as if the interest in it is lackluster.

Price doesn’t sell. Sales gimmicks can only do so much.

The most important thing is product/market fit. That’s “fancy talk” for having an offer that is so custom tailored to the precise PAIN your crowd is experiencing that they feel they absolutely need it.

You’ve probably heard this before but… if you’re selling a meal to somebody who is absolutely starving, then the price simply doesn’t matter.

All too often, when an offer just isn’t converting, it has nothing to do with the price. It is because the offer simply isn’t connecting. It is either trying to solve a pain they don’t really have… or it simply isn’t being communicated to them in such a way where they would see that.

In the absence of truly offering a solution to the pain they’re actually experiencing, then it feels like you’re pitching.

That’s when sales feel yucky. And nobody likes that feeling.

It all starts with understanding their true pain. Understanding what that experience is like for them. It needs to be a PRESENT pain, too. Something they’re experiencing now.

And you want to be able to point at it. That means it needs to be something real, that they can look at and point at it. They can see, hear, touch, smell or taste it.

This is the biggest reason so many personal development offers flop. Because it isn’t being put in real world terms and things people can point at. Instead, they lace their offers in wishy-washy, fairyland language that just talks right over people’s heads.

Don’t start doing lame pitches that start with the usual drivel. You know… “Are you tired of _______?” You can’t point at being tired of something. Being tired of something is a symptom. What are the real things they can point at?

How do you learn this stuff about your audience? By talking to them!

You have to have conversations with them. Ask them questions and explore their present pain. What effects that is having on their life. The things they’ve tried and what worked and didn’t work. And you’re looking for real life things they can point at.

And THEN you custom tailor your offer and your marketing to that pain. Offer them a plan and a solution they can see. And when that solution is paired exactly with the pain they’re experiencing…. then it doesn’t feel so difficult to sell.

Whenever selling feels really hard, you should get back to basics by talking with your people. Find out what they really need and want. And make adjustments as needed.

Always remember…. you’re talking to actual people. People with real experience. They are not just entries in your database to be “blasted” emails at. And they’re not so stupid that by putting some magic price which ends in “7” they’re suddenly going to buy.

Real people buy to solve problems they actually see and experience. And if you’re not offering them a solution to that, they’ll gloss right over all your sales tactics. They might even find it annoying.

Related Training: From the Video Library, one of my classic courses is Offers that Convert. In this course, we will cover the art and mechanics of selling. Selling without being pushy, but selling what people actually want to buy and presenting it to them in the way they’ll want to buy it. Available to all ONEPass members.

This Week In Concierge

I periodically have Concierge clients mention getting some spam through their website forms. Things like spam through their contact form, spam bot registrations, fake orders in WooCommerce, etc. And I thought I would speak just a bit about this….

First and foremost, we can never reach 100% perfection on blocking spam form submissions. To a degree, this is just part of having a website up on the internet. It sucks, but it is what it is.

But, here’s the things I usually do to help minimize the issue….

• We enable form honeypots. Both the built-in honeypot options of the form plugins, but I also like to use WP Armour which is an improved honeypot.
• Unless there’s a strong strategic reason to have blog comments turned on, I’m a massive advocate for disabling comments completely. This gives the bots a lot less reason to bother with your site.
• We, of course, use solid web hosting. I partner with Rocket for hosting client sites. By using the Cloudflare Enterprise system with a built-in firewall, it prevents a lot of spam bots from ever reaching sites to begin with.
• When needed, we make use of Cloudflare Turnstile. I’m not a lover of traditional Recaptcha and generally would like to cuss at the world at large when I have to click on all of the photos containing motorcycles. 🤪 Turnstile tends to work better and it is more user-friendly.
• When necessary, make use of email black lists. For instance, I just had to set up an email blacklist for one client for all Russian email addresses with the .ru extension because her site was getting spammed.

I’ve looked into paid anti-spam tools like CleanTalk for use for my clients, but after some research decided against it because I was hearing of too many cases of false positives. And the last thing I want to do is replace one problem with another one that could end up cutting valid communications.

Most Concierge clients don’t have much of a spam problem. When issues come up, the above is mostly what I go for. And again, even with those things, we can’t reach 100% perfection. From time to time, bots will find a way. And we just adapt as it happens.

WordPress Quick Bits

Judge Sides With WP Engine. The judge issued a preliminary injunction for WPEngine in the case between them and Automattic. Basically, the judge looked at the case and pretty much completely sided with WP Engine, ordering Matt and Automattic to restore things to the way they were until such time as the entire case is decided. I will say, this FEELS right because of the horrible and stupid way Matt has approached this entire affair. However, at the same time, one must back up and look at the big picture. Like it or not, WordPress is currently structured in a way where the costs of providing the dot-org services rests on Matt. And the judge just basically ordered him to provide free services to WP Engine. The solution, though, is that things need to be decentralized away from Matt and Automattic. This is a fundamental flaw in how the ecosystem works right now. In fact, when you back up and look at the big picture on this entire affair, it is all a symptom of the centralization around Matt and the lack of clarity in how he has run things.

Open Letter To WordPress Community. Some anonymous contributors and leaders of the WordPress community issued a rare open letter calling for reform in how WordPress is governed. You can read the full letter here. These contributors were siding with the community and…. against Matt Mullenweg. Interesting that they felt the need to be anonymous about it. Apparently, the letter was signed by 19 people and The Repository verified who they were, but agreed to safeguard the anonymity. They were afraid of retaliation from Matt. For what it is worth, I agree with the letter.

TutorLMS 3.1 Released. TutorLMS has been upgraded. Now students can control their own email preferences and you can issue refunds automatically. Read more about the update here.

Test Orders for WooCommerce. Robert DeVore has been on a real rush lately with a ton of new plugin releases. His latest is a Test Orders plugin. This free plugin adds a “Test Order” payment gateway to your list of payment methods. Then, you can run test orders by simply choosing that payment method rather having to put Stripe into “test mode”.

Advanced Mode For Block Editor. A new tool called Blockera has been released that provides advanced tools for the native block builder. Basically, it adds a lot of page builder features that tend to be missing from the native block builder. Looks pretty cool, actually. Generally not needed if using something like Kadence Pro already, but this tool looks nicely done. And like I said, it is a freebie.

Automattic Acquires WPAI. Automattic has acquired an AI Startup called WPAI which is focused on building AI solutions for WordPress. No real surprise here and makes sense as a strategic acquisition.

SEOPress 8.4 Release. I mentioned in an earlier issue that I began using SEOPress as my “go to” SEO plugin. And they just released 8.4. One of the upgrades is an enhanced block for Table of Contents. Now, one point I want to make here is that if you’re using the TOC block from any SEO plugin, that can present a problem for you if you end up switching SEO plugins. I was using RankMath’s TOC block and when I stopped using RankMath, I now had a block across a lot of blog posts that no longer functioned. For this reason, I’d tend to recommend using a TOC block that is part of your site’s core builder – in my case Kadence.

The Real Problem With WordPress? Joost De Valk wrote a blog post about the problems with WordPress right now an what should be on it’s Roadmap. He argues that WordPress is now being hampered by the fact that it is technically stagnant, insecure and too difficult to use. He makes some solid points in this piece.

Don’t Make Them Think

Last week, WebFlow announced some price changes. And, a lot of people found it super confusing. Some people even joked they needed a “Webflow pricing for dummies” guide. 🤪

But, I think this brings up a solid lesson. One that is a nice extension off the idea in the article above about product/market fit.

Because, what would happen if somebody has already decided that your solution is the one that will solve their problem…. and then you meet them with a menu of a bunch of different choices?

They might just go cross-eyed and give up.

Because you gave them too many choices. You got them to the point of reaching for your solution… then gave them another problem.

In sales, that’s called decision fatigue.

You made them think!

You ever sat down to watch something on Netflix only to end up doom scrolling through all the available movies, unable to make a choice… and end up watching nothing? 😂

That’s decision fatigue.

It kills conversions.

The solution is to present only one choice. And if you’re going to have more than one, they need to be so clearly different that it is pretty much a different offer.

What you want to avoid is presenting multiple choices to people where the process for selecting one involves them having to make a bunch of decisions. Or presents confusions.

One commonly sees membership sites with different tiers. It seems like it might make sense to do that. But, what you could find if you were to talk to people is that they were confused on whether they would need the higher plans. Should they start with the lower-end plan and see what happens? Is the higher plan a better fit? They don’t know… and usually that lack of knowing means they don’t make a choice at all.

So, lean toward simplicity with your offers. And if you have a whole bunch of offers, maybe you need to just get rid of some to simplify your product line.

In fact, it is funny…. as I am writing this, I am even re-evaluating my own main core offer which is Concierge. I think, perhaps, I’ve made things too complex with the presence of the Growth plan. I may just get rid of it. 😇

Remember not to create decision fatigue with your offers and with your landing pages.

I recently had one client who made a landing page which presented membership options which were only minutely different on the same page. And at the same time, presented monthly and annual options for each. So, there were FOUR buttons on the page! That’s decision fatigue! It kills conversions.

For most memberships, offering ONE option is the best approach. And if you’re going to present monthly and annual payment plans, present those on a different screen. Only ask them to make one decision at a time. And that decision should be bipolar – YES or NO. That’s it. The moment you present more branches in that decision tree, you’re going to have people fall off your radar and err toward making no decision at all.