59: How small businesses can nail Q4 sales - what you need and what you don’t
I don’t know about you, but every sales coach and marketer that I follow is talking about how to make it rain in the last quarter of the year. With all the hype and marketing about messaging, launches, and year-end promotions, it might feel like a lot of pressure.
If you've been in my orbit for a while, you know I'm all about finding an easier path forward in marketing, copywriting, and sales. In this episode of ill communication, I’m sharing how small businesses can nail their Q4 sales along with what you actually need and what you definitely don’t.
That's not to say building a business and marketing your offers don't take effort, time, energy, or money. They absolutely do! If you want to build a successful business, whether it's a boutique consultancy that operates around $100K to $250K per year, or if you're on track to grow a 7 to 8-figure empire, you need to do the work full stop.
But the toxic hustle culture go, go, go vibe can work for some, but not for many of us, and it has got to go.
That’s why I’m sharing a few things you do need and a few things you do not need if you want to generate more sales in Q4.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Why the sleazy sales tactics have got to go
The first step to mapping out Q4 for your business
The best framework for structuring your sales page
The five core sales emails you need in your email sequences
What you do and don’t need to post on social media
The most important thing you need during Q4 and everything you don’t
I hope you enjoyed these tips for your best Q4 yet. Remember, don’t hold yourself back during this quarter! You don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to believe that you can do this. Make sure to get inspired by out-of-the-box promotion ideas in Episode 58.
Get your ticket to attend the writing workshop: The (non-sleazy) sales email sprint for slackers, procrastinators & perfectionists at www.kimkiel.com/emailsprint!
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[00:00:03] Welcome to Ill Communication, Copywriting, Tips and sales strategies for small Business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and change makers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soulmate clients. Let's get started. Hello. Hello, my friend. It's episode 59. What the what? How can that be? I don't even believe that I'm at episode [00:01:00] 59. Anyway, today's episode is how to nail your Q4 sales, what you need and what you don't. Now, I don't know about you, but nearly every marketer and sales coach I follow are talking about how to make it rain in the last quarter of the year. And yes, you'll recall that my last episode shared 18 out of the box promotions you could use to boost your revenue in the remainder of the year. But with all the hype and marketing about messaging and marketing your launches and year end promotions, it might feel like a lot of pressure. And if you've been in my orbit for a while, you know I'm all about finding an easier path forward in marketing, copywriting and sales.
[00:01:43] That's not to say building a business and marketing your offers don't take effort, time, energy or money. They absolutely do. If you want to build a successful business, whether it's a boutique consultancy that operates around 100 to 250 K per year, [00:02:00] or if you're on track to grow a 7 to 8 figure empire, you need to do the work full stop. But the toxic hustle culture go, go, go vibe can work for some, but not for many of us, especially for those of us who are working parents. Balancing clients and business balancing service delivery, trying to make our finances balance and balance the demands of our busy families. For many of us, it's not possible, nor is it healthy to be constantly focused on our businesses, putting pedal to the metal and doing all the things to make money, money, money, money. Especially when a lot of those make money fast tactics use unethical, sleazy sales approaches that tend to do more harm than good. So in today's episode, I want to break down a few things you do need and a few things you do not need if you want to generate more sales in Q4. So I think it's pretty fair to say that where you need [00:03:00] to start with is a plan. Now, if you're a big planner and goal getter goal setter, you probably already have your Q4 goals set, you have content and promo plans mapped out.
[00:03:12] Congratulations. But if you're like me, you might be a little more a last minute fly by the seat of your pants. So I invite you to do what I did about a month ago and take just 30 minutes to think about the rest of the year. How much revenue would you like to generate in the next 3 to 4 months? How many clients would you like to serve one on one or in your group offer? How many sales of your digital products would you like to have? Try and set good, better and best goals? If you're really focused on a single goal and that works for you, do that. If you like to have more of a range, you find what works for you. I like having a good, better and best goal. Next, pull out your calendar and map out when you might [00:04:00] want to have any promotion or a flash sale to draw attention to you and your offers to grow your email list and to generate revenue. Make sure you overlay that with your kids school schedule. With any medical appointments you'll need to take your parents to. And don't forget about your own mental, emotional and physical needs. I invite you to go back to episode 58 for a few conventional and non-conventional promo ideas that might help you decide when to host your next promo event. Choose one or more windows of time where you'll have a short pop up promotion or flash sale to give you a little revenue boost.
[00:04:40] If you're planning multiple promotions, make sure you have at least a few weeks in between your promotions so you can nurture, deliver value, build content, and grow your audience of buyers. The last thing you want to do is have back to back to back sales and promotions. That's just going to exhaust your readers and your subscribers. [00:05:00] Once you've mapped out your plan for when you'll have a pop up promotion, then there are a few things you'll want to put into your Clickup Trello or write into your to do list. Number one, you do need a sales page or a sales document of some kind. What you don't need is a flashy, super sexy, beautifully designed sales page. And hey, if you have the capacity, budget or team or your own creativity to design a beautiful sales page on your website or a landing page builder, great. But if you don't have the capacity to get that done, then focus your efforts on a cheap and cheerful Google doc or PDF sales page. Once you create your Google doc, you can start using it and then eventually you can get it into something a little more designed. You could even find a long form landing or sales page template on Etsy that you can then load into your current web platform or even into Canva. But what [00:06:00] you need is something you can share with your potential clients and buyers.
[00:06:04] And that sales page should be organized in a way that delivers the information in a flow that helps your reader make a decision. Now, when the members of the Joy of Copy Club are looking for a simple course sales page template, I love recommending the Quest Framework. Quest is a framework created by a digital marketer named Michelle Fortin, and it's an acronym for the way you should structure your sales page. The Quest framework is qualify, understand, educate, stimulate and transition. I'll do a future episode about what those different elements are and how to use them. Or you can find the exact template and tutorial inside the Joy of Copy Club. You can also ask Google or ChatGPT to explain it to you. But the point is here to use a proven framework like the Quest Framework to help you organize your sales page or sales document in a thoughtful, [00:07:00] compelling and elegantly persuasive way. The next thing you need to market and sell your up promotion is an email sequence. Depending on how you're selling your offer and what your offer is, you may actually need three email sequences. So think carefully about how you want to launch your offer. If you're having a conversion event, like a webinar or masterclass or a challenge where you have then a pitch to your real offer, then you need three email sequences. You need an email sequence to sell your masterclass or your conversion event.
[00:07:38] Then you need a sequence to get people to show up to your webinar event. Then you need an email sequence to sell your actual offer. So for flash sales and pop up promotions, you likely won't have a conversion event at the front end. You'll just have one simple sales email sequence to sell the thing you're promoting during your flash sale. Now [00:08:00] there are five core emails you need in your sales email sequence. You need an announcement email. An email that empathizes with the struggles or challenges your customers are facing and positions your solution to solve those challenges. You need a case study or story based email. You need an objection busting email, and you need a future pacing email. An email that allows your reader and buyer to see and feel what the future could look like, feel like, and be like after they buy your product or service. There are a few more emails you can include in your sequence, like an additional client case study, an email about any bonuses you're including or other benefits of your offer. But those are the five core emails you need for a flash sale. And my friend, I am going to pull back the curtain on how to write those five core emails at an upcoming email bootcamp I'm hosting at the end of September. You can [00:09:00] join me and other business owners for a five day guided workshop where you'll get training, templates and coaching on how to write these five core sales emails.
[00:09:10] Now here's why I'm hosting this. I know you probably have a lot on your plate. I know, especially if you're like me, you might leave things to the last minute. No judgment, but I'm opening up my copy template vault and my zoom room to host a super practical hands on workshop where you'll get the templates and the time to write these five core emails. By the end of the week, you'll have your five sales emails written and ready to send for your year end promotion, and I'm going to be very transparent with you. This is a paid workshop event. I'm giving you my best templates and my time and expertise to help you clear this critical piece of sales copy off your plate to work with a copywriter privately to write an email sequence for you is going to cost in the range of 3 to [00:10:00] $500 per email. So for five expertly written sales emails, you're looking at between 1500 to $2500. But if you want to do it yourself in an intimate group with other business owners, with me walking you through step by step by step, how to write a strong non sleazy sales email, it will cost you just $80 for a five day, one hour a day done with you writing workshop. There's also a second level of support you can access that includes live copy coaching calls and templates for additional sales emails to include in your sequence.
[00:10:39] You also get to keep the replays. So any time you're writing a sales sequence for any future promo, you can pop back into the trainings to refresh yourself To join at the VIP level is $150. So if you want to join me for the non sleazy sales email sprint for slackers, procrastinators and perfectionists, [00:11:00] visit khimki.com/email sprint and want to be super clear with you this is a no pitch event. I'm not going to be giving you a hard sell to join anything or buy anything. There are no upsells or cross-sells. It's a stand alone workshop and in just five days you could have the five critical emails you need to sell your offer written away that speaks to your ideal buyer. Sounds like you and isn't sleazy or cheesy. So to grab one of the limited seats go to khimki.com/email sprint. Okay, so we've got our loose plans and goals. We've got our sales page, we've got our sales emails. What else do we need to have a successful year end promotion? Well, you probably want to leverage any of the social media platforms you're on, so you will want to have content, graphics or video to share during your promotion. What you don't need is to feel like you must be [00:12:00] on all the platforms all the time. If you have a team, if you're promoting something you've sold before and you can repurpose a lot of the content, then maybe you have the ability to be on all the platforms.
[00:12:11] But if you don't have that capacity, then decide what you do have the capacity for. Where do you think you'll get the biggest bang for your buck? Focus on that and ditch any feelings or thoughts that say I'm not doing enough or I'm not doing it perfectly. Focus instead on what you can do and do that to the best of your ability. With no comparison for what the gurus tell you. You must do all the time. Find your own voice and your own consistent path on social media. Now, beyond those 3 or 4 core elements, you honestly don't need much else. Could you do paid ads? Sure. Do them if you want to experiment with them. If you have a budget and see what kind of results you get, you could offer your existing clients or your biz besties a small referral fee or some other gift [00:13:00] in exchange for cross-promoting your flash sale. You absolutely can do that if you have the network and the energy to do it. The other things you need to have a boost of revenue in Q4 is faith and trust. Faith and trust in yourself and your offer. You need to believe that the right people will be motivated to purchase during your pop up promotion, and you need to trust that even if people don't buy this time around, your extra content, your energy, your enthusiasm will spark an interest that will pay off further down the road, maybe for the same offer or maybe for something totally different.
[00:13:39] Having a growth mindset is truly what is going to be the most important thing you need to get you through the next few months. And here's what you don't need self-doubt and second guessing. I can tell you I'm having to coach myself minute by minute on this in my business, especially for this upcoming email [00:14:00] sprint event I'm hosting. Of course, I'm having self-doubt. Of course I'm second guessing, but I'm trying not to engage too much in those thoughts and instead move forward with thoughts that serve me. Thoughts like What can I do? Or what's my best next step? Or What am I already doing that I can leverage to make this easier and more doable? The final thing you don't need to have a successful flash sale or you're in promotion is to be perfect. Now, I don't know about you, but in many facets of my life, I have a thought that if I'm not going to be perfect at this, why should I do it at all? If I can't get 10,000 steps in? Why would I even bother going for a walk if it's only going to get me 5000 if I can't clean the house all at once, why would I bother just cleaning the toilets? It's a silly but pervasive thought pattern.
[00:14:49] A lot of perfectionists struggle with, and it's the same in marketing. I see smart ass, talented women holding themselves back because they believe they need to have perfect [00:15:00] marketing, perfect messaging and follow everything to the T perfectly. The reality is you do not. You don't need to show up perfectly all the time. And the beauty of a pop up promotion or flash sale is it allows you to experiment and test your offer and market without a lot of the bells and whistles of a full blown high ticket launch. So, my friend, you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to believe you have an offer that's going to solve someone's problem and if you want help to get over your perfectionism with writing copy or not writing copy, I can help you. If you don't feel fully prepared for the year end promotions, if you have a tendency to procrastinate to the last minute and you want some accountability and guidance, I've got you. You want to get your perfect little booty into the non sleazy sales email sprint for slackers, procrastinators and perfectionists. This five day writing workshop goes down September 25th to the 29th, and at the end of those five days you'll have [00:16:00] a high converting, non sleazy template for all the five core sales emails you need to send during your next promo. You will have the time to write those five emails and get live feedback from me on how to improve the copy and you'll get specific actions you can take to boost your open rates and click rates on those emails in just an hour a day.
[00:16:20] Over those five days, you will have written the five core sales emails to sell your urine. Promotion seats are limited, so get your tickets over at Kim Kilcommons. Email Sprint. I can't wait to help you write those five core emails in five days so you can get out there, promote your offer, help your people and generate some income and impact in the next few months. I hope to see you inside the email sprint and if I don't, I'll see you back here next week with more tips and prompts to make you an ill communicator. Bye for now. Hey, [00:17:00] thanks for joining me for today's episode, but before you go, I want to make sure you've grabbed a new tool to help you assess the effectiveness of your sales copy. It's an easy to use tool that will help you identify what's working well and what could We improved among all of the copy assets you have in your business? Grab the sales copy scorecard right now to find quick and easy ways to improve your sales copy and boost sales. Get your free scorecard over at Kim Kilcommons Scorecard. I'll be back next week with another quick tip writing prompt or sales hack for you.
[00:17:37] See you then.
Resources Mentioned
Get inspired by out-of-the-box promotion ideas in Episode 58
Sign up for the Sales Email Sprint
Additional Resources
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