More backend

Backend sales are different than “point of sale complimentary add-on sales.” I just wanted to clarify that. Offering your customer something else that truly goes with the item she just bought is not rude. It is thoughtful and helpful. Especially if it was your INTENT to be thoughtful and helpful. Complimentary add-on sales is very different than going after the customer relentlessly by sending her more stuffed animal offers every three days just because she once bought a stuffed teddy bear from you.

Here’s the real test: does your action feel like you are trying desperately to squeeze one last drop of blood out of the sale? Or does it feel like a genuinely helpful act?

I do understand that many of these things probably seem puzzling to some of you hot-shot bird-of-prey internet marketers who happen to be reading this little blog, because that is not how you were taught to sell. I get it. And that’s ok. In the long run it just leaves more money for me and my “be helpful” advocates.

We are not in the business of “overcoming objections.” We are in the business of trying to be of service to our buyers.

Here’s a life-hint: whenever you tell a salesman “no” and he continues selling as if you hadn’t said anything--the way he has been taught to do--he is in the act of trying to manipulate you.

Finally, “backend” or “back end” is also a term often used to describe the things that go on to keep your site up and running. This includes the setup and restocking of your store, the maintaining of inventory, the bookkeeping, and the uploading of changes. The back end of a website is the same as the back end of a bricks and morter store, as opposed to the “front end” of the store where the customers are. Back end in this sense simply refers to the ongoing administration of your website, and has nothing to do with what we were talking about above with regard to the “hard sell.”