Selling Online! eCommerce is the new kitchen table sales system

This webinar is all about ecommerce. While the sessions are usually more about marketing strategies; how to generate leads, and how to get more business, nothing matters if you’re not selling. 

If you’re familiar with our training, you’ll know we focus on a system, called the 12 Step Roadmap to achieve accelerated results. When you combine each step with others, it will help you grow your business. Synergy is what it’s all about. And when you create synergies in your business, you come out on top.

For instance, if you have a great website and add ecommerce but you’re not ranked on page one of Google, or you’re not driving leads and opportunities to your website, then your website and ecommerce system will probably not do well. Every single one of the elements on the roadmap is interdependent. 

So, we’ll recommend that you follow the system and implement the right things, in the right order, at the right time, to truly gain the results that you can from each one of these steps. 

1. Tech. Brand. Website.
2. Content Writing
3. Conversion Systems
4. Local Marketing
5. Reviews. PR Reputation
6. Social Marketing
7. Search Engine Optimization
8. Paid Advertising
9. Content Marketing
10. Print. Scan. Email. Text
11. Video Marketing
12. Mobile Application

ECommerce Strategy

Build your Brand. Drive more Leads. Close more Sales. 

In today’s environment, things are changing rapidly, but what’s not going away is the fact that when a consumer needs something, they Google it. The search might turn up hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages. 

Is your business or store and the products and services you provide an option to those consumers looking? That means it needs to be seen on page one of Google, in the top ten organically, in the map, or on an app. This boils down to understanding these steps;

1. What Do You Want To Sell?: What services or products do you want to sell?  
2. Where Do You Want To Sell It? 
3. Who’s Searching For It?: Who’s looking and how frequently? 
4. Are You An Option?: Are you an option on the first page of Google when they’re looking? 
5. Do You Look The Best When They Get There?: Does your website look professional? Does it look like it has a message to market?
6. Website Conversions: Do you make it easy for consumers to be able to do business with you based on what they’re familiar with, based on how they like to shop, get a quote, checkout, subscribe, call, text, email, and so on? 
7. CSR & Sales/Tech Conversions: How strong are they at converting? Are they easy to work with? Can they handle a question like, “I was calling for a different HVAC company, maybe I called a wrong number”? Are they well trained? Are you collecting positive reviews every time you do great work? Are you repeating the cycle with referrals because you’re staying in contact with your existing database?  
8. Maintenance Plan: Are you taking a one-time customer and turning them into a loyal subscription? The goal of any business is to turn suspects into prospects. Then turn them into customers, and finally into a loyal fan, i.e., a revenue-generating subscription. 
9. Reviews Reviewed: Are you getting amazing reviews? Do you have a review appreciation program? 
10. Referrals Received: Are you rewarding referrals? What is your process for staying in touch with your return customers and continuing to generate new referrals? 

This process has to be mastered for continued growth, lead generation, and improved profit over time. The only way to drive costs down is to be able to increase prices. When you don’t have enough leads and opportunities, you tend to discount your way out of business. 

When the technology you provide warrants that you can charge premium prices, you get better margins on all of your products and services, you’re able to pay your team better, you’re able to recruit better quality staff, and then you start a cycle of growth. 

Are You An Option?

This funnel starts with, Are You An Option on page one of Google? If the answer is yes, the answer is you’re working on it. You’re investing in a SEO strategy, have content, link building, a great website, and so forth. Then you have an opportunity to be seen by people who are looking to do their research and make decisions well before sitting at the kitchen table.

• Customer Searches (Are you an option?)
• Impressions (Were you seen?)
• Click Thru Rate [CTR] (Were they interested?)
• Bounce Rate (Not what they were looking for?)
• Conversion Rate (They want to do business!)
• Acquisition Rate (Ready to do business)
• A Customer!

The reality now is that there’s a shift and a trend towards consumers going online and doing more and more shopping for products and services. It’s affecting every industry, including the trades. Particularly with what has happened over the last 12 to 18 months, people staying home more, the trend towards online shopping has accelerated. 

People are now conditioned to expect that when they visit a company’s website, there’s a way to transact business with that company. The HVAC and other trades have a huge opportunity to meet the consumers where they are. The old days of showing them a toll-free number or a ‘Contact Us’ form are behind us. Everyone wants it now. They want to see pricing, they want to be able to do research upfront, they want to control the buying process. 

When you follow the above funnel model, it’s the SEO, paid ads, social media, email, and all of those things that make you an option to consumers searching for a specific product and service mix, like AC repair in Carlton, Texas. 

Now, the Click Through Rate. Were they interested? While they were there, how many of them left (bounced)? We’re noticing that our customers with an Ecommerce system, click-to-call phone numbers, online scheduling, the ability to take a text message, and the ability to chat are getting significantly higher click-through rates and significantly lower bounce rates than those without all that. This is because it makes it easier for consumers to do business.

To try out our Ecommerce program, we’re going to look at the site of one of our customers, Comfort Pro, and also a demo site that you can test.

On the site, you’ll see there’s an area to shop, request an estimate, schedule service, check out reviews, click to call, view us on Google, chat, and other conversion styles that consumers like. 

Instead of going to Amazon or the hardware store, your customers can go to your site and shop for those filters and other consumables. They can put them in their cart, go through checkout, sign up for a subscription, and have them delivered automatically and on schedule. Homeowners love this. They want to change their filters on time, but they forget, or it’s too much of a hassle to run to the store or call the dealer to come out. 

Customers can set auto-delivery or place a one-time order. It’s like Amazon but on the dealer’s site. It lets you sell filters without having to store, ship, or stock them. 

Customers don’t have to go to Amazon to patronize you. You can utilize local delivery fulfillment centers that drop ship these directly to your customer. For you, this is money in the bank without lifting a finger, and this system is free. 

The ability for you to get this filter shipping system on your website costs nothing. You don’t have to store inventory, don’t have to pack it, you don’t have to ship it. All you have to do is offer it, promote it, and help your clients sign up for it. The higher success for dealers using this is that you build more loyalty by having your brand in front of them all the time. So, when the system breaks down, they think of the dealer who’s been helping them with their filters.

The second element of the Ecommerce strategy is services. Just like people search online for physical products, they are searching online for services, like maintenance plans or one-time services like a drain cleaning or to provide and install a wifi thermostat, and other services that you flat rate price. The more convenient the process is for a consumer, the higher the chances you’ll find a new customer. 

Next is the area where you can shop for systems. Here, your local customers can shop, answer a few questions on your website, and be presented with some options. It’s appealing to consumers because they don’t feel pressured, and they know they’re getting a fair price. It’s also easy for the dealer to close the sale since the client already has an idea of the price and is interested. 

Using this software, the customer can choose a system and place it in their cart and place an order for it, but the critical step in this process is that at that point, you schedule a site visit, go out, and meet with the customer, just like you do today. 

Next, you verify the job details, make sure there’s nothing that needs to be modified or updated about the scope of work and the price. Source the equipment through your existing suppliers, do the job, and collect payment at the end of the project. 

This screen reassures the consumer of how that process is going to flow and makes sure they know that their card won’t be charged until the project is completed to their satisfaction. 

All the steps in the workflow are very flexible. The idea on the front end is to keep it simple for the homeowner. The quicker and simpler this is, the more people get through this workflow and become leads and place orders. Behind the scene, there’s an algorithm that helps match up what the customer is saying with the system options built into our software to make sure we’re presenting them with the right option. 

You have the option of showing the prices or not showing them. It’s up to you, the dealer. As for taxes, since some of you bridge multiple states, you can configure the program to take all of that and charge the customer the correct amount of tax when it is appropriate. 

We’ve made the system flexible, so you can bring your preferred financing company and connect it in. You can see your best deal in the ‘As Low As’ section. As the customer walks through the checkout process, they’re able to click a link, fill out an online credit application, get approved, and then set up the site visit. 

Making financing easy for consumers on your website is very important for many reasons. Those who offer financing first typically have larger tickets, much bigger profit margins, and can take advantage of rebates. And you can use those rebates to pay for growing your business. That is a smart business model. 

Whether it’s wildfires in the West or the Pandemic, there’s a lot of air quality concern out there. So air quality products are in demand. This section is flexible. You can offer what you want in the dropdown. 

If you build out your service agreement to entitle the customer to a discount after the system purchase, it will apply here. 

At this stage is the add-to-cart section. What happens here is that there are big dollars involved, and a lot of the customers haven’t even met you yet. So, their credit card is captured, but there’s no payment yet. It’s just an authorization and to make sure the card has the right amount of money. Then you visit the site.

The other option for the customer is to click the ‘Request More Info Button’ where they fill a lead form and get hold of a member of your sales team to talk it over, whether you’ll schedule an appointment in their home or talk more over the phone. 

You can set the system up to accommodate your different team members so that the customer can click and choose who helped them with the order, and at the back, you can tell who earned what commissions. 

Dealers that are signed up for the Ecommerce program have a web-based back office that they can log into to create multiple users, different commission levels, notification preferences, and all the product catalogs. They can also do the mockups, system setup, customers order, subscriptions, coupon codes, leads, reporting, so you know what’s going on with your store at all times. 

You can access the data anytime you want to. You can export it to a spreadsheet or integrate this Ecommerce system with your dispatch management system. 

What you should think about is, five years from now, will more or fewer people be shopping online? With this, you’re supercharging your website, future-proofing your company, and setting yourself up to be ready for that growth to come your way.

This is one good way to not look like or sound like everyone else. If all the prices are the same online, what makes a business stand out? Now you have this technology that will allow you to stand out from others. 

This system is fully integrated with a payment processor so that all the transactions flow automatically to a clearinghouse account. At the end of each month, they’re automatically directly deposited into the dealer’s bank account. There’s reporting in the back office so that the accounts team can tell how much is product sales, service sales, system sales, sales tax, and so on.

The only cost involved in a function like this where customers can make payment is the credit card processing fee, which goes to the credit card processor, and is around 2.9% for all card types. 

For the selling fees of this program, there are three plans. The Intro plan doesn’t cost anything at all. This lets you sell the dropship filters. The Pro level costs $99 a month and opens up additional functionality; selling services, taking invoice payments, and more. 

If you sell a non-drop ship item like a maintenance plan or a tune up, there’s a 2% fee which folks often build into their pricing and pass on to the customer. The Power plan is $249 a month and includes all the features and benefits, all the technology, including the most important piece, which is the systems. 

If you process and capture the payment at the end of the job, there’s a 1% processing fee for using the platform, which is waived if the customer hands you a cheque or you use some other credit card processor you’re already working with. 

If you’re wondering if we have any filters that offer community service or support organizations, well, we have a brand of filters called ‘Philanthro’ where 10% of sales go to charity. Customers love it, knowing they’re supporting a good cause. 

If you want to build your customized ecommerce system, it’s plenty of work, which will require a five or six-figure budget and take six months to one year. By which time it may be outdated. Here, you have a dedicated team that is testing and evolving the application. Once you sign up, our team does the integration and trains your team. 

In closing, we’re trying to help you guys create a “digital-first” culture. And a digital-first culture is leveraging digital-first transformation, being first to offer financing, pivot during the pandemic, selling online, flat-rate pricing, online scheduling, and first to selling high efficiency. Digital-first culture companies are those that are the first to adopt next-generation technology and connect with consumers faster.

Summer’s around the corner, and we want to make sure that you guys are ready. So, sign up for your free Filter Sales System today! For more information, text ‘ecommerce’ to 877-839-1122.