Successful Blog

Give your site a pulse with live chat help

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“A shopkeeper should always have a ready smile”

One of the most impactful changes my company has made in the last couple of years is our addition of live help on the website. It has made a big difference in sales, and I’m convinced that it’s our version of the “ready smile” mentioned in the Chinese proverb.

The cheery greeting “bonjour!” rang out every single time I entered a shop on our trip to France years ago. It didn’t matter if the shopkeeper was in the back, sweeping out front, or behind the counter. It made us feel welcome–and more likely to linger and strike up a conversation.

live chat is a smiling shopkeeper

To power our “ready smile,” we’re using a service called SnapEngage, but there are a lot of other options out there, including LiveEngage, Moxie’s Chat Spaces, and Velaro.

According to a Velaro white paper, “although statistics show that over 66% of all ecommerce shopping carts are abandoned, online customer service (live chat) improves the chance of a purchase by 40%-60%.”

But it’s not really about the technology. It’s about having a person with a ready smile on the other end of the chat. We often get people question the popup box, “are you a robot? or are you a real person?” Our staff is likely to reply with a friendly joke. What better way to make a connection with a visitor than making them smile?

Here’s how to maximize the benefits of live chat on your website:

  • Be selective about where you use the proactive popup. Consider disabling it on pages that show video, or other media that might be interrupted by the popup.
  • Wait a few seconds before it pops up. Let the visitor come all the way in and take a peek before you prompt the chat window.
  • Make sure someone is staffing it. It does take a commitment to staff the live chat; make sure you have internal staff ready to respond if you have the chat window enabled.
  • Train employees to react appropriately to different questions. Incoming questions from visitors can be unpredictable…it can be sales oriented, a customer question, a technical question, or something completely off the wall. Be sure your chat staff is prepared. Does the sales team want an email address collected from prospects? Ensure that message is communicated to those staffing the live chat.
  • Analyze the data (what types of questions, where are they coming from, what browsers are they using, what pages are they lingering on). You’ve got a treasure trove now. Use it to inform your content strategy, your marketing materials, your sales messaging, and perhaps even your product documentation.
  • Define the purpose of the popup (is it customer support, or sales, or both?). Make sure it’s clear to your visitors, and your chat staff is informed.
  • What’s your business personality? Share with your chat staff the tone you want to communicate. Are they free to use smilies? Can they make jokes? We go for a tone of friendly professionalism; often it’s a good idea to follow the lead of the visitor.

A live chat service on your website can be a direct conduit to your visitors’ thoughts.

But perhaps more importantly, it’s a technological version of your “ready smile.”

How do you greet your website visitors?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Important news about Internet sales tax changes

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small business and internet sales tax changes

By Bill Fay

Small Businesses and Nexus Rules

If your business is involved in online sales and you don’t have a legal representative interpreting whether you should or should not be collecting sales tax, now would be a very good time to “lawyer up!”

Not satisfied that business owners have enough head-spinning rules to deal with on a daily basis, Congress has come up with something called the Marketplace Fairness Act (S.336). It passed through the Senate 75-24 on March 23. The vote is purely symbolic because it was non-binding and only indicates the Senate supports the legislation.

A similar bill exists in the House. Interpreting the wherefores and whereases of this legislation is going to take experienced legal skills … and some really good guesswork! More on what “might” lie ahead in a moment.

First, let’s take a look at the rules as they currently exist. They are a tad confusing, but not nearly as complicated as what may or may not be coming, based on the whims of Congress.

Right now, you must collect and remit state taxes based on your “business nexus,” a term subject to some interpretation, but which generally speaking means you sold to someone in the state where you have a physical presence. That physical presence could be your office, property you own or lease, or people you employ to do work in that state.

Court-Ordered Interpretation

That is based on a 1992 Supreme Court ruling (Quill Corp. vs. North Dakota) that said that a business had to be physically present in a state before that state could require it to collect taxes. Having customers in another state was not enough.

The Quill Corp. vs. North Dakota ruling originally involved catalog sales. Internet sales weren’t around in 1992, but once they sprang up, it was decided the same rules would apply.

When Internet sales boomed, some states created a gray area in the law by interpreting “physical presence” their own way. People realized that they could buy items online, especially large appliances, and avoid the sales tax. The $2,000 refrigerator at Amazon cost $2,000. If you bought it down at the street and added sales tax, it was $2,120. States were losing out on that $120.

That did not sit well with state governments, but there was little they could do. Twenty-four states did form a group that tried to make online retailers voluntarily collect and remit the sales taxes, but that has had very limited success. Their average collection for the period from 2005 to 2010 was a mere $30.7 million, or about $5 million a year.

E-commerce growth kept skyrocketing, but the states knew they had to wait for Congress to come up with a law that gave them business nexus over Internet transactions across state lines. It took a while, but the federal government appears to be coming through with the Marketplace Fairness Act.

New Rule is a Doozy

The MFA would allow states to force Internet retailers to collect state and local sales taxes, if they do more than $1 million in sales, and remit the money to the appropriate place, just like the brick-and-mortar stores do. States would have to implement provisions of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) or meet the minimum specifications spelled out in the SSUTA, including providing retailers with free and regularly updated software to collect and remit sales taxes.

Huh? As tangled as that is, it only gets more puzzling as you go along.

There are approximately 9,600 taxing districts across the United States, each with its own requirements for registering and filing. There also are an incredible number of definitions of what is a taxable good and what isn’t, and let’s not forget the special “tax-free holidays” some states sponsor.

Imagine trying to keep up with all that! Or, as the legislation suggests, hoping your state provides “free and regularly updated software” to do so.

This purpose behind this is a noble one. It’s aimed at leveling the playing field for brick-and-mortar stores, which complain that customers window shop merchandise in their outlets, then go home and buy the item over the Internet because they don’t have to pay sales tax.

States obviously lose money when that happens. How much do they lose? Estimates vary, with one source putting it at around $12 billion for 2013. Whatever the amount, you know no government wants to miss out on a chance to spend/waste that kind of tax money.

What’s Next?

So what should small business owners selling online do? And no, punting is not an option.

For now, all you can do is check your business nexus – i.e., Do you have a physical presence in that state? If you do, collect sales tax when you sell to customers of that state … then sit back and wait on Washington.

The good news is, given the pace of play in D.C., you should have plenty of time to find a lawyer who can effectively interpret whatever Congress ultimately produces.

Author’s Bio: Bill Fay is a staff writer for Debt.org. Bill has a wide-ranging background in reporting and writing, including for daily newspapers and magazines and also for public officials.

Steps to Optimize Your E-Commerce SEO

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By Brian Taylor

Optimizing the SEO on your e-commerce website is vital to selling more product. It will help your pages rank better on the search engines and keep prospective buyers on your pages longer, increasing conversions and sales. With that in mind we have put together a list of steps that you can use to optimize your e-commerce site’s SEO.

Read them, use them and watch them help increase your revenues greatly.

Concentrate more on each product page

Every single product that you have should have its own product page where as many questions can be answered as possible. It will need a great description, a unique title tag and unique description tags as well. Not only that but it should have relevant internal and external links and have all the social media sharing buttons as well so that it can be ‘shared’ online. Think of every product page as its own website and make sure that:

  • As many questions are answered about the product as possible so that a customer doesn’t have to ‘leave’ the page to finds an answer.
  • All technical specs about the product are included on the page.
  • The product title, the manufacturer of the product and the SKU are text, not images.

Take advantage of category and brand pages

These pages are very important. The average person is not going to be very specific when they first start searching for something online. For example, they won’t search for a ‘Honda Civic DL Sedan’ they will search for a ‘mid-sized car’ and then refine their search as they go. If you have a well done category page with all the possibilities listed someone who’s searching will be taken to the category page first and then be able to refine their search right on your website without leaving. These so-called ‘umbrella pages’ need to:

  • Have all the basic info for each product.
  • Have a descriptive category title on page and META.
  • Include at least a paragraph of content describing them to help prospective customers know what’s being shown as specifically as possible.

Create unique categories to group products

Even though you already have everything listed on your website you should create unique categories to be able to attract even more attention to specific items, like sale items at the end of summer for example. Most e-commerce sites won’t make a new page for ‘bikinis on sale’ but instead just make a ‘note’ on the existing webpage that they’re on sale.

Better to create an entirely new category (and page) to display these items so that they won’t be scattered all over your site but will all be grouped and found in one location.

Heavily incentivize user reviews

This may be the most important step. User reviews are the life-blood of many e-commerce websites. Just like positive reviews about movies will have people lining up at the theater for a new flick, positive user reviews will attract people to your site through SEO. And once they land, they will help persuade them to make a purchase.

The best thing you can do to get reviews is to give your customers an incentive to leave one like an extra discount or something similar. The more reviews the better and, if possible (and it is possible) they should be placed on the product page itself for even more selling power.

If you follow these steps your website will attract, convert and sell more products so don’t hesitate to start using them all ASAP and watch as your sales and revenues start to increase.

Author’s Bio:
Brian Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forix SEO in Portland, OR. a team of crack SEO experts with an impressive record when it comes to results, experience, and expertise. Forix offers affordable and ethical SEO services in Portland helping small businesses with their Internet marketing needs.

How to Drive Sales Using Pinterest

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Richard Franklin

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11.7 million unique U.S. Users had hit the social site in January, making Pinterest, the fastest website to ever exceed the ten million marks. The aforementioned is a report published about the growing popularity of the social site. This user attracting site has now become a great platform for marketers to generate sales online.

Pinterest users publicize their favorite images, and can also manage the subject groupings into their interests, such as hobbies, travel, favorite foods etc. People make use of Pinterest to promote their personal passions. And now, businesses have ventured with the expertise of a social media marketing agency to use this new social networking platform to earn exposure for their brands.

How to Drive Sales Using Pinterest

Here are few factors that will encourage you to incorporate Pinterest in your social media marketing:

Referral traffic more than any other site

Business on Pinterest can earn benefits from winning referral traffic. It has been discovered in the studies that Pinterest brought more traffic to the sites in comparison to Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn.

“Is your content pinnable”- this is the first requirement of tapping the referral feature of the site. For monitoring the transferring frequency of your content to Pinterest, you can install “Pin it” button on your toolbar. Besides, you directly install a “Pin It” button on your site.

Detailed information with quickness

You cannot just get advantageous with the referral traffic but you can also know what audiences think about your product. Being a great source of consumer insights; make a quick keyword research to expose with the facts what audiences are discussing and sharing about the keyword. You can investigate about competitor’s activities, and can also compare the products and services. There is a category search on Pinterest to get the insights or follow the pinners to get exposed to the things that are trending.

Gather ideas and thoughts

From color palates to food styling and camera techniques to dressing; Pinterest has become a diverse platform when it is about fetching the innovative ideas and inspiration. Companies cruise the site to get inspired with new ideas and also get exposed to the trends.

People on the social site not just share to inspire but also share so that they can be established as a thought leader in their field.

Ground for recruitment

Pinterest’s benefits are also actively utilized by many HR departments to appoint top talent. After all, it has become a medium to associate with people over shared interests. Besides, companies are also using it to flaunt their unique culture by pinning the highlights of the employees. Companies have grown creatively with features of Pinterest.

Author’s Bio:
Richard Franklin is a social media strategist and wants to share his knowledge with people who are about to hire a social media agency for their businesses. He writes about latest trends used in social media companies. You can find Richard on Twitter as @AgencySEO.

Thank you, Richard! Will you be pinning this?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What if Your Salespeople Stop Selling?

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Meet Larry Bailin

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A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with Larry Bailin to talk shop. Larry is a talented internet marketer and a nationally sought keynote. Larry’s in his second edition of his book, “Mommy, Where Do Customers From” and enjoys continued success at his firm Single Throw located in Wall New Jersey.

The two of us sat across from one another and covered all the requisite mainstays like what portion of your mix should comprise PPC, how much of your social footprint should be automated (Larry says none and incidentally, I think he’s right) and the two of us agreed that Seth Godin is a keeper. But the typical talking points of our conversation, while enlightening and entertaining in general, didn’t move the needle.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s fun to talk to other internet marketers – particularly those that the industry leans on as much as it does Larry. But no. The conversation was cool, but the majority of the time largely academic. The majority that is. You see, something fascinating DID happen. Something was unearthed. A fortuitously excavated idea emerged from an otherwise casually enjoyable dialogue between two passionate internet marketers.

The Fortuitous Idea

So what was so gripping about our talk? What topic emerged that did, in this marketer’s opinion, move the proverbial needle?

It was this: salesmanship. Specifically, how to disarm buyers when engaging them.

Nothing special right? I mean who among us doesn’t understand that disarming buyers is critical to earning a customer’s confidence? None that I know. But Larry helped me stumble upon a model for appealing to buyers that, for me, called upon marketers and product makers to sell as much, if not more, than is expected of the sales team.

It’s an uphill climb … Salespeople are gods of optimism. Salespeople have a tough job. We all know it.

Selling well takes a scientific understanding of the human condition. Being great at it requires all that, plus the grace of a ballerina, the poise of a Super Bowl quarterback, and the precision of a brain surgeon. This is why selling is often perceived as Herculean. Just ask any seasoned seller. They’ll tell yah: sales is not a vocation for the weak. And it’s because the nuance and complexities of the sales dance, that establishes trust with buyers is a salesperson’s toughest obstacle — they face built-in quantities of both skepticism and doubt.

To their credit, the ever-hopeful salespeople press on, despite a century of data that tells them every day that 95 percent of their effort, or better, is a waste of time.

Wow. Nearly 100%? Just wow!

It’s Time Salespeople Get a Hand

What if your salespeople weren’t the only ones selling? What if she wasn’t the only one attending the all those breakfast briefings, tradeshows and mixers? Not so novel you’re thinking, right?

Scott, our salespeople do travel to these events with product specialists and marketers.

I know, I know. But let’s dig a bit deeper into the potential role that supporting cast could play in securing that sale for our valiant sales peeps. We’re bringing them, but are they helping?

Ok so, what if – just what if – the salesperson wasn’t the salesperson?

What if the product makers were also marketers … what if marketers were also salespeople? What if every person on the team was all three?

I told Larry that I never seem to come off appearing like the salesman toward buyers, although I’m always selling my stuff.

Says Larry, “It’s because you’re not the salesman, Scott. Someone else is the salesman. You’re just Scott. A nice guy with great ideas.”

And the church choir erupted in sonic ecstasy! And birds softly propped on slate roofs everywhere, all at once, scattered in a flurry into the dewy fog of an early May sunrise! And there it was.

“But Larry, my brother, I am selling!”

I am the salesman, the marketer and the product expert all at once. And I should be all these things if I want to help my sales folks make the sale. And because I am not actually the salesman after all, I get to say, “Hey buyer, I’m not the salesperson.” When I bring the salesperson to meet the buyer, I get to say, “This is Jane. Jane handles sales. I’m Scott. I just help.”

This tag-team method of prospect engagement builds relationships in these ways.

  • It disarms the buyer.
  • It tells the buyer that they’re not dealing with a pushy, pressure-fraught situation.
  • It likewise tells buyers they’re dealing with a person who helps with problems and isn’t driven by thinly veiled sales agendas.

It’s been my experience that the buyer ultimately ends up saying to me,” Hi Scott. What’s your story?” And the sales process has begun.

So before your sales team gears up for the next event, get your product people, your marketing people, and your salespeople in the same room to talk about how to evolve your sales process.

How might your team captivate buyers with a disarming and helpful approach?

Kudos Larry. Great talk.

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Author’s Bio:
Scott P. Dailey is a Web designer, copywriter and internet marketer. Scott’s blog, ( scottpdailey.com ) makes connections between social networking etiquette and the prevailing human social habits that drive on and offline business engagement patterns. You can connect with Scott via Twitter at @scottpdailey.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Do Your Homework, Listen, and Don’t Buy It Back!

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A curious thing happens during the first two months of a new year.

Whatever the cause, for the first few weeks of the new year, I find myself restating boundaries because a subtle sort of bad behavior starts showing up. Let me explain what I see at this time every year that I’d like to see less often …

  1. my string of “talk at me,” inappropriate email pitches increases.
  2. more strangers act as if I work for them — as if it’s my job to review their book, their blog, their strategy for free — and they act out “feelings” if I mention that my time is committed to projects and my family.
  3. more people try “clever” tactics to get me to buy in — Do they really think the subject line “Following Up … ” will earn them points when I find that they’ve simply tricked me into opening their email?
  4. more people waste time trying to convert me long after I’ve made it clear that I declined their offer.

    5. And saddest of all

  5. more people who have my attention keep on pitching and selling even after I’ve said a definitive YES!

Maybe it’s a rebound response to all of that holiday generosity. It could be simply that we’ve depleted our resources contributing to the celebrations and now as bills come in, we’re tired, feeling poor, and “peopled-out.” Or perhaps it’s just a new resolve to “hit the new running” that gets people starting off on the wrong foot.

Do Your Homework, Listen, and Don’t Buy It Back!

All five groups don’t believe in what they’re “selling.” So they use words to override the objections they’re expecting. And to keep safe from the possibility of rejection, they make sure to keep pushing the offer.

Here are three things to keep in mind when you’re about to make an offer.

  1. Do your homework. They say it’s a game of numbers and that you have to work hard. Yet, the successful people would rather spend their time identifying 5 people who have a high probability of wanting the offer than blanketing 5000 in hopes of capturing a few more. They like the confidence of knowing as they go in what the person is about and why that person might want what they’re offering. Those successful people also know that it takes time and is often embarrassing to set things straight when someone hasn’t done their homework — if the offer is a business success program and I just sold my last business for billions, more talking isn’t going to change that situation.
  2. Shut Up and Listen Successful people understand relationship can only strengthen the transaction. Saying hello and establishing a conversation lets people know you have confidence in them and in what you’re saying. Pushing through to the pitch before you’ve made that personal connection allows the person you’re talking to (or at) the latitude to also not consider you a person. More words, longer emails, sent to the wrong person won’t get anyone the right connection. Clever tactics that get attention soon backfire — people don’t “buy in” to ideas from someone who tricked them. Talk some. Ask questions. Then listen. You may hear some reasons your offer is a great match for your audience. If you’re using email, try an email or two to get to know the people you’ll be making offers to in the future.
  3. Don’t buy it back! When someone says, they want what you’re offering. Stop talking. Start listening. Let the person tell you why they’re buying. Don’t continue explaining how great the offer is — even if you didn’t get to your favorite benefits. Start making it easy to get the offer going. If you keep talking, you’re likely to “buy it back” by talking so much that person decides that you love the offer more than getting it going.

Luckily by spring, these behaviors settle some, though they never fully fade away. So be aware of them. We all could do with a little more homework and planning. We all could be a little better at listening instead of talking. We never want to be buying back what we’ve already successfully sold.

What behaviors would you like to less often?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!