2016-08 AUGUST
Avoid These 7 Blunders And Increase Your Sales
Here are the seven most common sales mistakes. Review them monthly and you’ll find yourself closing more sales.
- Letting Prospects Lead the Sales Process. Solution: Ask questions. By asking questions we can find out what’s important to them – if we listen!
- Not Doing Pre-Meeting Research. Learn about your prospects before you call them. You’ll be better able to ask meaningful questions.
- Talking Too Much. Many sales people talk too much and fail to use the one successful approach that works almost every time. What is the one approach that works like magic and sets you apart from the competition? Read the full article to find out.
- Providing Information That Has No Relevance. Speak in terms of what’s in it for them. Connect the benefits of your product or service to their specific needs.
- Not Being Prepared. Have all the relevant information at your fingertips including pricing, testimonials, samples, and your list of questions.
- Neglecting to Ask for The Sale. As a professional, you must ask customers for the order, particularly if you have properly assessed their needs and know that your product or service will solve a problem.
- Failing to Prospect. When business is good, people stop prospecting; they either simply forget or think that business will continue as usual.
The Law of Four – There are only 4 Main Issues In Any Negotiation
The Law of Four says: There are four main issues to be decided upon in any negotiation; everything else is dependent on these.
The first corollary of the Law of Four says: “Eighty percent or more of the content of the negotiation will revolve around these four issues.” No matter how long or complex the negotiation, at the end, most of the discussion, and the most important points of the negotiation, will revolve around four basic items.
The second corollary of the Law of Four says: “Of the four main issues in any negotiation, one will be the main issue and three will be secondary issues.” For example, you may decide to buy a new car. The four main issues to be decided might be price, trade-in value of your existing car, color and accessories. Typically, price will the main issue with the others varying in degree of importance.
The Law of Four can be extremely powerful if the other party’s order of importance of the four issues is different from yours. One party may be more concerned about price and the other party may be more concerned about terms. This can lead to an excellent win-win solution that satisfies each party.
Develop Your "Tomorrow's Leaders" Today
The future leaders of your company could be right under your nose, but identifying employees who are leadership material can be tricky. The following are key steps that will help you prepare today’s employees to be the company leaders of tomorrow:
- Identify high potential employees systematically via:
- Performance reviews,
- Employee self-evaluations, and
- Participation in volunteer activities.
- Develop employees’ skills for the future. Provide “potential leaders” with additional mentoring and training
- Identify which aspects of your business would be best served by a training plan.
- Check customer comments and solicit input if necessary.
- Identify the weakest areas in your company.
- Determine how you can boost performance in your weakest area.
- Note all critical, specialized positions
- Check out the competition
- Find what you do better and worse than your competitors.
- Most importantly, market and implement those differences that your business does better than the competition.
- Find out what training your employees would like that would move them and your business forward.
Start to implement these and invest in training your team. Immediately begin measuring your results. You’ll see a big leap in revenue, profits, customer satisfaction, and productivity.
5 Top Tips That Will Make You a Ninja Master at Creating Facebook Ads
Whether you want to build brand awareness in your local community or grow your social media following, you can't beat the ROI of Facebook advertising. To maximize your marketing spend, here are five crucial Facebook tips you need to know:
- To reach new customers, analyze consumer behavior and use those insights to your benefit. While existing fans might react to requests for likes or social shares, a new customer is more likely to respond to ads targeting their behavior.
- Unlike keyword-based Google ads, Facebook ads are targeted at demographics, interests, behavior, and location. Understanding this can make a huge difference in your success.
- Just because you have an online business, that doesn't mean you can overlook your local customers. Consider creating geo-targeted ads within your local city. Not only will your shipping costs likely be lower, you might grow a loyal local following.
- Be clear on your objective. Without having a clear focus in advance, you can't possibly measure the success or failure of your Facebook ad campaigns.
- For maximum success with Facebook ads, understand the different types of advertisements available and the correct size specifications for each.
14 Tips to Help Increase Email Marketing Conversion Rates
Here are 14 tips to help you increase the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts:
1. See email marketing as a relationship-building effort.
2. Avoid using technical terms, jargon, and "fancy" phrasing.
3. Do as much as you can to inspire trust in your company.
4. Don't rely on images to convey your message.
5. Use A/B testing: alternative headlines, calls to action, offers, colors, wording, etc.
6. Optimize content for readability on smartphones and mobile devices
7. Avoid a premature sales pitch. First you have to make them aware of what is being offered, and make them interested in what you are offering.
8. Develop a list of possible objections that your audience may have to entering your sales funnel.
9. Use a variety of analytic tools to determine what works and what can work better.
10. Reward consumer loyalty with incentives to make another purchase.
11. Increase awareness of your company, brand, product, or service with message consistency.
12. Leverage consumer reviews where applicable.
13. For online marketplaces, follow through on cart abandonment.
14. Coordinate your email marketing campaigns with social media marketing.
Feeling Overwhelmed? 4 Things You Can Do To Help Yourself
It seems like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. But, there are things you can do to reduce this feeling. Here are four tips for helping you feel less overwhelmed.
1. Disconnect. Disconnecting from your online social life, text messages, and email for periods of time may be the best way to stop feeling overwhelmed.
2. Make lists. To-do lists can be extremely helpful. Staying organized can help you feel more in control. Before you sleep each night, make a list of things you want to do the next day. The next morning, you’ll quickly get on task.
3. Stop taking everything on as your responsibility. If you find yourself being the person who takes on work others should be doing or helping with, it’s time to set different expectations. Don't simply ask for help – expect it.
4. Make time to relax. Taking the time to re-energize can actually help you when you're feeling overwhelmed, because you give yourself time to think, relax, and prioritize. Avoid all distractions. Taking a bath, running, walking, or even just sitting in a quiet room alone is a great way to relax.