Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” I’d like to share a few anecdotes from the past week.
I get an email each time one of the new sales sites our clients have set up generates a prospect. (This would be a person who searches Google, finds their new site, visits it, fills in the form asking to be contacted, and details what they are looking for.) Most of the sites are less than 10 days old, and I am keeping an eye open for problems.
With more than 100 prospects filling in forms each day on more than 30 completed sites in the past 10 days, it’s very inspiring.
Three sites stood out because they had higher numbers.
The first was about designing houses. All 9 emails were empty! That doesn’t happen often. I did a quick search. Google showed the site on the front page. I clicked to follow the link. The site was up. But it had no words. Just a coloured layout.
Our client had created the site, not filled in the detail to tell the rest of us what he was selling, and then created a full Google advert campaign. I was getting the empty emails because the form was triggered each time Google sent him a visitor.
I called him on his mobile. The moment he heard it was me he started telling me that he was having second thoughts. “Selling design services online,” he said “is not like selling products. People don’t search for them.” This went on for a few minutes while he convinced himself that he was not going to get any leads. (A lot of folks do this.)
When he stopped for breath I told him that I was calling to tell him that his empty, almost non-existent site, was already getting visitors from Google. Maybe completing it would make it easier for them to give him their details?
I thought about Henry Ford’s quotation. ‘If you think you can’t…’
A minute later I called Karen. Her effort was on the front page of Google as well. When she came on board 10 days ago to sell reconditioned engines, her firm’s website was already the first site Google displayed. She chose a single brand from the few brands the firm covered, and after getting massively frustrated a few times the site launched this past weekend. Yesterday 7 prospects filled in her enquiry form wanting various engines urgently.
I called to say “Well done!” She was ecstatic. They’d never had so many enquiries in one day. In the next couple of days, she will set up sites for the other brands of engine they refurbish. (The profit from each sale covers their investment with us for the full year.)
I thought about Henry Ford’s quotation ‘If you think you can…’
And finally, early last week we had a Garden Route accommodation site go live, getting 6 very specific enquiries each day. At the webinar on Thursday I congratulated my client. “Don’t blame me,” he said, “I was too busy so I asked my son to mess with it.” Accommodation is one of the most crowded spaces online. I don’t think the boy knew that.
I thought about another Henry Ford quotation ‘I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done. ‘
“Actually,” continued my client, “we’re having a bit of a problem now. My son has put up another 3 sites, and has started SMSing me from school to find out ‘his numbers’.”
We are not limited by what’s possible, just by what we think is possible.