How To Convert More Prospects With The ‘Puppy Dog Close Technique’
By Anna Johnson on August 4th, 2010If your online business employs a ‘freemium’ business model – i.e. where you offer customers a free version of your product or service in the hopes that some will upgrade to a premium (paid) version – consider integrating the ‘Puppy Dog Close Technique’ into your sales funnel.
Now, credit where credit is due: we discovered the reference to the ‘Puppy Dog Close Technique’ from a Domainer Income member. Apparently, our plans to provide free Domainer Income members with a taste of our premium version, Domainer Income Pro, was a classic example of employing this technique.
So what is the Puppy Dog Close Technique?
As the name suggests, the Puppy Dog Close Technique is based on a sales method developed by pet store salespeople to sell puppies. Instead of requiring a customer to commit to the much more substantial commitment of buying a puppy, these salespeople attempt to get prospects to make the much smaller, risk-free commitment of taking the puppy home for free. If, after taking the puppy home, the customer doesn’t like the little dog, they can return him or her the next day.
Of course, the salesperson expects the customer (especially if they have kids) to fall in love with the puppy so they won’t dream of taking the dog back to the pet store. Sold!
Now that you know what the Puppy Dog Close Technique is, you can probably think of hundreds of examples of this in action. You may have also heard marketers and sales trainers call it by some other name. Still, the reference to ‘puppy’ conveys the true potential of this technique and the circumstances in which it’s likely to be most effective.
So, to help you work out whether it might be worth implementing in your business, here are three tips for maximizing the effectiveness of the Puppy Dog Close Technique:
Tip #1: Use the Puppy Dog Close Technique in relation to a subscription service, membership program, software program, or other product or service where ongoing use is necessary for customers to derive the most benefit.
You want your prospect to see, very clearly, that they have much, much more to gain by paying for the upgrade or continuing their membership or subscription… and much to lose by not doing so.
Tip #2: Whatever aspect of your product or service you offer for free, make sure the prospect gets a full appreciation of the potential benefit of becoming a paid customer.
For instance, a person who takes a little dog home overnight has enough time to fall in love with the puppy. Similarly, you want to give your prospect enough time or capacity to fully grasp the potential of your product or service.
Tip #3: Make your free offer as much of a ‘no brainer’ as possible. In other words, lower any risk or other barriers that might inhibit someone from signing up for your free offer.
In some circumstances you’ll want to qualify prospective customers by asking them to provide their credit card details (even if you don’t intend to charge them initially) or asking them to pay a minimal fee such as a dollar.
When it comes to the Puppy Dog Close Technique, however, you don’t want things like this to stand in a prospect’s way. Why? Because the whole tactic rests on getting as many people as possible – including those who may be lukewarm towards your product (i.e. those who would never provide their credit card details or pay even a buck upfront) – to fall in love with your product.
If you’ve done your job right in #1 and #2, you should, indeed, convert some lukewarm prospects into ardent customers.
