Coach Marketing Secrets - Shopping Cart Mistake #1 That Will Kill Your Sales

Do you know the 5 biggest mistakes coaches and consultants make with their shopping cart that kills their internet sales?  You will once you read this series.

If you’re making any of these mistakes, just follow my simple recommendations, and you’ll definitely see an improvement in your sales conversion.

Mistake #1 - Accepting only one or two forms of payment

The more forms of payment you will accept, the more sales you will make.  I remember one instance when I really wanted to purchase a higher priced product, but the trainer couldn’t process my American Express, only VISA and MasterCard.  He loss that sale.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you start accepting chickens or bushels of apples in exchange for your products or services.  But you could offer any of the following:

• Multiple debit and credit cards: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover
• PayPal (Many people consider their PayPal balance disposable income and PayPal is trusted worldwide thanks to eBay.com.)
• Checks that can be mailed to your business address (Not everyone likes using a credit card.)
• Monthly payment plans (If you offer a 90 day guarantee on your products, why not offer two monthly payments as an option?)

In our next article, I’ll share mistake #2: not streamlining the checkout process.

About Karen: Karen Brunet is an award winning web designer and a “Shopping Cart Queen Certified” service provider and Shopping Cart Secrets member. She provides PayPal and 1ShoppingCart expert services to coaches and consultants.

3 Questions You Must Ask Before Investing in Any Traffic Generation Program

Traffic - it’s the lifeblood of any online business. You’re looking for ways to get more of it to your coaching or consulting website.  And it’s most likely one of your top business goals for the coming year.

There are dozens of ways to get traffic.  Almost every week, I’m hearing about a new course or method.  Someone is finally revealing their “push-button, easy traffic generation method that practically runs itself.”  Sound familiar?

Some of these automated techniques do actually work - for the right type of businesses.  However, I find that many are not good choices for coaches or consultants offering services online.

In this article you’ll learn how to avoid wasting money on traffic generation methods that won’t work well for you.

The next time you see an offer for a traffic generation program that’s supposed to send you a flood of traffic, ask yourself these three simple questions. Read the rest of this entry »

If Coaches Ruled the World…

What if coaches ruled the world?  What would that look like?

Here’s my favorite response from a contest Milana Leshinsky held asking that very question.

Being a web consultant for coaches and consultants, I just nodded my head and laughed when I read it.

“Presidential elections would take place via Twitter and Facebook and everyone would have access to the total vote count.  Healthcare plans would come with a bonus CD and opt-in to a health coaching program to provide ongoing, life-long, optimum health.

“Coaching would be on the education curriculum from the 10th grade, and colleges would offer it as a degree program.

“Spouses would no longer be able to cheat on their partners because whomever they approached would insist on giving them coaching to work things out with their partner.

“The worldwide slogan would be, “Whatever problem you have, there’s a workshop for it”

- Heather Markel, www.culturetransition.com.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did!

New FTC Rules and Guidelines – Do You Need to Delete Old Testimonials?

In light of the new FTC rules, do you need to delete old testimonials?  There was a lot of concern about this issue when the new guidelines were announced.

Quick Recap: Part of the new FTC rules stated that any testimonials used should reflect the current opinion of the person giving the testimonial.  The important word here being “current.”  Just how current does the testimonial need to be?

Here’s some clarification from the interview between Jim Edwards and FTC assistant deputy, Mr. Rich Cleveland that addresses this question.

FTC Opinion: The FTC’s opinion seems to be that it is misleading to continue to use a testimonial if you don’t know that the person who gave it still feels the same way about you or your product.

Depending on the company and the product, the FTC considers testimonials that are two to four years old to be stale.

And let’s face it.  Some sites use testimonials that are so old they might as well be hieroglyphs written on stone tablets.

Now two to four years is still a broad range.  How does the FTC determine which are “stale” testimonies for your business? Read the rest of this entry »

Websites for Coaches – Get High Ranking in Google for Your City Keyword

After our recent SEO for Coaches class, I got this great question from Allison. It’s about gettting high ranking in Google for a city other than the one you live in.

“I just finished the SEO call for the second time. I realized that one of my issues is that my pilates studio is located in Mechanicsburg, PA. This is a suburb of Harrisburg, PA (the state capital). I am at the top of page one in Google for Mechanicsburg Pilates. What can I do to get high ranking in Google for Harrisburg? Since the two towns touch, I would expect about half of my clients to search for Harrisburg and not Mechanicsburg Pilates.”

Answer:

That is a really good question. As coaches and consultants, we can often live anywhere and don’t necessarily have to live in a big city.  On the other hand, our clients are often searching for our services online under the “big city” name and not our little suburb.

This is especially a problem for people living in metropolitan areas, like Chicago and Los Angeles, where your city is now a part of the whole area known by one name.  But your mailing or street address is still the smaller suburb.

So what do you do?  Here are a few strategies to help. Read the rest of this entry »

New FTC Rules and Guidelines – Use Your Own Results for a Testimonial

Do the same rules about “typical results” that apply to customer testimonials also apply when stating your own results?

Here’s another highlight from the interview between Jim Edwards and FTC assistant deputy, Mr. Rich Cleveland that addresses this question.

First a quick recap.  If you have a client who gets phenomenal results with your program - results that are not typical - the new FTC guidelines limits your use of those results in testimonials.  I discuss this in more detail in a previous post: New FTC Rules and Guidelines - Using Typical Results in Testimonials

You may have seen several emails in the past couple of weeks from marketers that they are taking down their old case studies from the Internet in order to comply with the new FTC rules.  This is what I am talking about - phenomenal results that are not typical.

So how do you let your potential ideal client know the incredible results that are possible with your program or product if you don’t know what your client’s “typical results” are?

Solution: Simple. You tell them about your results. Read the rest of this entry »

Websites for Coaches - Easy Keyword Strategies to Attract Clients and Get High Ranking in Google

This is a great question from Sheri following our recent SEO for Coaches class. It’s about an easy, little known strategy you can use with keywords and keyword phrases to attract clients AND get high ranking in Google at the same time.

“I found the keyword “alkaline water health” and liked the search volume of 880. Do I need to have those exact words without any words in between in my copy? Or can I have something like “alkaline water is good for your health”?”

Answer:

The answer is you want BOTH.

Remember what I said in the tele-class about not reinventing the wheel.  Use the keywords exactly as you see them.  Here’s why.  “Alkaline water health” had a search volume of 880.  But “alkaline water” is a different keyword so its search volume will be different.

If you are targeting your webpage for “alkaline water health,” then be sure to Read the rest of this entry »

New FTC Rules and Guidelines – Using Typical Results in Testimonials

The FTC is very concerned about typical results used in testimonials.  Here’s another highlight from the interview between Jim Edwards and FTC assistant deputy, Mr. Rich Cleveland.

As a general guideline, the FTC recommends that you avoid using testimonials that are an extreme example instead of those that are closer to typical.

The great tip I got on the call is this.  Typical results can be for a sub-group of customers.

For instance, let’s say that you sell an eBook on how to stop smoking.  Most of the people who get the eBook never read the entire book and implement what you tell them to do.

As a result, only about 5% of the people who buy your eBook ever see any results.  But of those 5% who actually read the book and implement what you tell them, eight out of ten stop smoking. It is a typical result for that sub-group.  You know this because of customer feedback, surveys, or testimonials.

So according to the FTC guidelines you could use a customer testimonial something like this: Read the rest of this entry »