TRANSCRIPT: 

00:04

Hello, welcome to the sales show. I'm Maree Kirkpatrick, your sales and business strategist. I'm a mom, a wife, and a multi-business owner myself. With over 15 years of experience in sales and business, I have worked with startups all the way through to multimillion-dollar companies. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I love helping service-based businesses make an income as well as an impact. Let's jump into talking about all things sales and business. 

00:03

I am your host, Maree Kirkpatrick and I want to welcome you back to the sales show. Are you ready to unlock the potential of your sales assets and supercharge your sales strategy? Today, I'm going to delve into the world of creating powerful sales assets. And my goal for this episode is to give you some really valuable insights into how you put them together effectively so that you can really elevate your sales performance and boost your business. Sales assets are kind of like having a toolkit filled with resources that are designed to captivate your audience address their needs, and really drive your conversions.

00:44

Let's kick off today by understanding exactly what are sales assets. And why are they so essential for sales success? Sales assets are resources that you can use in your business to attract, engage, and really convert prospects into customers. They can include things like presentation decks, brochures, case studies, testimonials, templates, products, demos, scripts, and anything that you feel your ideal client would want or need for either their business or just in their life in general. So they are crucial for sales success because they serve as tools to communicate the value that you offer, and to overcome any objections that people might have. And to really guide your potential clients through the buyer's journey. And ultimately, our goal is obviously to lead them into working with us, which will increase your conversions and obviously, your revenue, right?

01:48

So I guess one of the main questions I get asked is How can I strategically create sales assets that help businesses stand out? Now, the key word here is strategically I see a lot of businesses just throw things together and hope that it works. But if you strategically create sales assets that are tailored to the needs and preferences of your target or audience, it'll really help your audience and your ideal clients differentiate your brand and your offerings, in what can potentially be a crowded marketplace. There's so much noise going on these days, and there's so much free content out there. We don't want to put things out there just for the sake of it. So by crafting these assets by addressing specific pain points, highlighting your unique selling points, as well as showcasing the benefits, the benefits and the outcomes of your products and services, you can really capture the attention of your potential clients and position yourself as the solution they have been searching for. 

02:56

I'll let you into a little bit of an insight or an experience that I had. A little while ago, I was looking to revamp my social media. And so I was looking for a social media plan or something that can help me just drive my social media a lot harder and be a lot more easy to manage and effective. And so when I saw this specific business, talk about a free download that they had, I jumped in, I gave my details and my email address ready to download this piece of content. But what happened was, I was really disappointed, because all it was was an Excel spreadsheet that had dates marked off for the year 2024. Now, I don't know about you, that's not what I was looking for. When it came to planning out my social media,

03:54

 I was looking for something that was really going to address my pain points, it was really going to give me one step closer to me feeling clarity around my social media, and having a plan and a clear understanding of what it is that I needed to do to execute it. So don't just through any sales assets out there, I really want you to tailor them and be clear on who it is that you're servicing. Now sales assets can be tailored to businesses and budgets of all sizes, and they can really play that crucial role in driving sales growth, regardless of the size of your company, whether you are just starting out or whether you have been in business for a little while. And like if I give you an example a small bakery might create sales assets around product photography for their social media. Or they may give some recipes on how to use you know their different brands or anything along those lines that really highlight the unique offerings and why the people in their neighborhood would go and deal with them.

05:05

 Now these assets, even though they're on a small scale are essential for attracting and converting customers. Now, these assets, even though they're on a small scale are essential for attracting and converting customers, even without a large marketing budget. It's not about pumping a whole heap of money behind the sales assets, it's about making sure that we are attracting the right type of clients, and that they are converting the job of the sales assets is to convert and to really drive home why people would work with us. And they can be absolutely customized to suit any industry or market. And they're effective. Their effectiveness lies solely in how they address the needs, the pain points, the desires of the target market. Now, what I've seen over the years, is that there's this misconception that you're supposed to just create these sales assets, and they should just work automatically without you having to do anything, it doesn't work like that. They do not require minimal maintenance, you want to make sure that a good sales asset is regularly updated, and optimized to remain to make sure that it remains effective, and keeps up to date with markets and trends and customer preferences that evolve over time, as well as keep up with your business. And as your values change or your offers change. Or even if your positioning in the market changes, you want to make sure that your sales assets are keeping up for that. 

06:51

An example of this is the use of obviously social media platforms, what worked as an effective sales asset on Facebook five years ago, may not or probably won't safe to say it won't yield the same results today, as it did five years ago. You know, algorithms change, user behavior changes, all that sort of stuff. And so businesses need to continuously assess and adapt their sales assets and their sales strategy overall right? To ensure that they are still resonating with their target market, they're still converting, and they are on track with the current trends and any technologies and changes that may be happening in the market. I know for me that if we were still selling the same way we did 20 years ago, our sales would be very small, because consumer behaviors have changed, even COVID has changed the way that people buy. And so I want to make sure that any sales assets I create are up to date with the market and the way that people are buying these days. I had a client recently who implemented three high quality sales assets into her business. And the goal of that was to actually move their clients just one step closer to working with them, while also adding enormous value. So we put together a PDF that address the customers objections and showcased are like the products benefits and the outcomes that the ideal client would get from working with us. They also incorporated how they do, how they do what they do, the impact it has on their clients as well as how they tailor their services for their clients. And this PDF was really interactive, it was visually appealing. 

08:43

And it ended up increasing their inquiries by over 40%. Now, I don't know about you, but there's plenty businesses I know out there that would love to have their inquiries increased by 50%, or even a 10% increase people would love to have these days. So putting together those high quality sales assets really drove traffic into their business. And it worked really effectively because we address those key areas of any objections that may be constantly coming up. We showcase their products and the benefits and outcomes, not just like this is what we do. And this is how amazing we are. But what are the benefits and the outcomes of working with this specific client? And over the years, obviously, I've seen ways that businesses could do this better, as I said, the clear plan for the social media, there could have been done a whole heap better, they could have put in their special dates, they could have given some tips or advice they could have given some suggestions on social media content that we could have created. All that sort of stuff would have made it so much more effective than a blank Excel spreadsheet with the dates of the year audit. 

09:55

So I was really disappointed and it really is gave me the wrong idea about the company that was putting it out.

10:05

And I don't want a sales asset or anything that you create to leave a bad taste in the mouth of your potential clients, we really want to ensure that we are showing our expertise, and helping our potential clients move forwards towards our business, or even giving them one step forward from where they are. A common myth I hear is that people say that they don't want to give away their best content or value for free. And I totally understand that right. But this is not what our sales assets are about. It's about an insight into what it is that we do, how it would be to work with us, and to show how amazing we are at what we do with just a small taste of what we offer. So to wrap it all up, I want to recap that effective sales assets are crucial for your business. Doesn't matter what size your business is, it doesn't matter what industry you are in, there is always ways that we can add sales assets into your business. So having that toolbox when you are wanting to turn on your marketing tap, or when you're wanting to really ramp up your sales, that you can use these sales assets to draw people into your, into your database and into your business. And remember that they do require maintenance and optimization to remain effective. And the best way to do that, and I know I probably say this in every podcast, but it is what it is, you want to make sure that you are tracking your data. So how many downloads? Are you getting? 

11:43

How many click throughs? Are you getting? How many new clients are you getting? Or not even clients, it can just be inquiries from that sales asset, you can then also track what I am sales assets, draw people into your business to them becoming paying clients. So we were talking about this over the weekend about looking back at our data and understanding where most of our clients came from. And a lot of them came from one specific sales assets that we created. And so looking at that, and if I was to really ramp up my marketing and put some money behind it, then I would put money behind the sales asset that is really drawing those people in. And it also allows us to be really clear on what it is that our ideal clients are looking for. What sort of tools are they looking for? What sort of, you know, PDFs are what really draws them in to go? Yeah, that's something that I'm looking for, and what are the challenges that they're having that we can create a sales asset around to stay competitive in today's market and really stand out in the noise that is business in general, right. So I highly encourage you to set aside some time to assess your sales assets, or to create some new ones, maybe if you haven't looked at creating some in the past. And to emphasize, I really want to emphasize the importance of regular updates and optimization so that for you maybe every quarter, so every three months, every six months, every 12 months, whatever it is for you. I really encourage you to conduct that audit of your existing ones. Identify any areas for improvement, experiment with any new tactics to really help you stay ahead of the curve. 

13:38

I would love you to share your thoughts and experiences with me and any questions that you've got relating to sales assets, or assets and creations, or any other sales questions that I can potentially help you with. All you need to do is just email [email protected]. And I will be on the other end of that answering any questions you've got. I may even be able to do a podcast for it. If you're wanting some help with your messaging, your marketing and really boosting your sales. You can also come and join her sales club. All you need to do is go to Mareekirkpatrick.com/club. So until the next episode of the sales show, keep selling from a connected and relationship focused space

15:00

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the sales show. Please share it on social media for your friends to see and make sure you tag me at Maree Kirkpatrick, so I can personally say if you would like to show me some love, leave me a review on Apple podcast. I'd love to hear from you email me at [email protected]. And if you'd like to work with me further or see any of the free resources mentioned on today's show, they can be found at MareeKirkpatrick.com I truly hope this podcast provides useful information and so much value to you. So you can build a business with impact and Income