One of the main reasons people are reluctant to use webinars as a sales vehicle is their fear of selling. The assumption that you have to have “the gift of the gab” or be a good salesman is usually what stops people from using webinars. Selling is for most people, a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be that way.

By following the six tips below you can become extremely good at selling and increase the conversion rate of your webinars considerably without using cliché and sleazy sales techniques that would make anyone (even an experienced salesman) uncomfortable. In fact, when implementing the six tips below, going through the sales part of your webinar will feel like a breeze.

Secret 1: Features and Benefits

When going through your offer at the end of your webinar, it is absolutely critical you avoid focusing on the features of your product and instead focus on the benefits. In fact, try implementing the 80-20 rule. 80% of what you say while selling should be underlining the benefits of your product and 20% should be underlining the features. Remember, people don’t buy features, in fact, they don’t care about features, they buy a result.

For example, should you be selling a weight loss program which includes a recipe book (among other things), avoid saying “you also get a 200-page recipe book, with 40 healthy breakfast options, 40 healthy lunch options and 40 healthy dinner recipes.” In this sentence, there is no single benefit.

Let’s break down this sentence:

200-page: feature
book: feature
40 healthy breakfast options: feature
40 healthy lunch options: feature
40 healthy dinner recipes: feature

In the sentence above, no emphasis is put on the benefits of the book and unfortunately, since people buy results and not features, it would be highly unlikely this sentence would result in sales.

This is why, when adding benefits such as:

“you also get a 200-page recipe book, with 40 healthy breakfast options, 40 healthy lunch options and 40 healthy dinner recipes so you:

• Make sure you don’t over eat or under eat and lose weight faster
• So you don’t waste time trying to figure out what you should eat or not
• So your weight loss journey is enjoyable and you don’t even feel like you’re dieting
• So you don’t spend more than 20 minutes preparing meals
• So you know exactly what you should have in your pantry and fridge and avoid wasting money on foods you can’t eat
• So you follow the proven system for losing weight and avoid trial and error
• So you have plenty of meals to choose from so you never feel like giving up

In order to know what benefits you should be mentioning, try and put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and list their biggest pain points.

Secret 2: Offer Matching

Another way to ensure you improve your sales skills considerably is by making sure that your offer matches what you have discussed in the content section of your webinar. Although this may sound obvious, too often, people include elements in their product that haven’t been taught or mentioned in the content section of their webinar. For example, should you be running a webinar on “how to buy positive cash flow properties in Australia” don’t include in the sales section a product on American real estate. Why would anyone care if they haven’t been shown the power of it during the webinar? Another example would be running a webinar on fashion styling and then including in the offer a product on hair styling. Although hair and fashion goes hand in hand, if the audience hasn’t been taught during the webinar anything about hair styling and how it works hand in hand with fashion styling, it won’t have a major impact.

Secret 3: Enthusiasm

Have you ever bought anything as a result of someone talking enthusiastically about a product, with no intention of selling it to you? The answer is most probably yes. After running a few webinars, you’ll come to realise that selling is actually, just a transfer of enthusiasm from you to the prospect. Nothing else. Therefore, when presenting your product or service, it is absolutely critical you remain as enthusiastic as you were during the content section of your webinar, if not more! Most of the time, as soon as people transition from the content section of their webinar to the sales section, their tone changes. All of a sudden, they become shy, sound anxious and talk softer when it should be the opposite. They should sound louder, talk confidently and sound relaxed.

Secret 4: Don’t Teach When Selling

Another element that can stop even the most experienced sales people from converting more sales, is teaching while selling. Very often, because people include in their product elements they haven’t mentioned during the content section of the webinar, they automatically start explaining it. Therefore, instead of selling, they’re teaching! When you teach, you get people into a “logical” frame of mind, rather than an “emotional” frame of mind which stops people from buying. Instead, replace explaining your products with the benefits of your products.

Secret 5: Take your Time

Since selling can be quite uncomfortable, most people when transitioning from the content to the sales section of the webinar, tend to subconsciously speed up. Unfortunately, rushing through the close can cost a lot of sales. It is very important to keep the same pace as the rest of the webinar, not too slow and not too fast. Your pace should be slow enough to make sure it’s easy to understand and fast enough to make sure it doesn’t get boring.

Secret 6: Rehearse

If you had to rehearse anything before presenting your webinar, it’s definitely the close so there are no nasty surprises while you present. Sometimes, there could be typos, sentences or graphics not appearing at the right time, mistakes or even elements missing, which can get you quite flustered and affect your sales. Therefore, go over your close once or twice, pretending you’re in front of a live audience to avoid surprises on the day.