•15 Ways to Improve Your Closing Ratios and Sales Presentations
Over the years, clients and friends have talked to me about their desire to improve their sales presentations and closing ratios. Your sales presentation, closing techniques and tactics can make or break your marketing. Therefore, it is not enough to do launching effective marketing campaigns to obtain new customers and to continually market to your existing database for more referrals and repeat business. In addition, you must be able to ask for and close the sale. Otherwise, it is a...
•5 Questions to Consider for FREE or Low-Cost Publicity
1. Where do you go to get publicity? - Media, all local newspapers, magazines, trade magazines, business publications and local radio and television stations if you are doing something that involves a non-profit or charity as they normally only care about publicizing public service announcements. - Your chamber of commerce or other organizations you belong to. - Your clients and referral sources - Visitor's centers, Community centers, Senior centers, Neighborhood or Merchant Association
2....
•5 Tips on How to Manage Your Direct Mail Campaigns
Many business owners I know typically turn to a local office supply store such as Kinko's or Office Depot to help with their printing needs. Then, they generally assemble and prepare the materials themselves. Depending upon the number of mailers you need to send, this could be a time consuming and costly process. It is often much less expensive and time consuming to have a local printer, print broker or even online printer print the materials, and then to work with a local mailing house to...
•9 Strategies to Boost Your Sales Copy to Make More Money!
I know a lot of you HATE to act like salespeople or HATE to push your product or service, but if you don't do it and you don't have a sales team - WHO WILL DO IT??
That's why I recommend you learn the most effective ways to write a sales letter or email. This way at least you'll have effective copy working for you.
So, what is a sales letter? What do I mean? Its that long, scrolling page that you see on many websites these days that you sometimes don't even know what they're selling until...
•Avoid These 10 Design Disasters When Creating Your Business' Marketing Materials
Have you ever noticed how many articles there are relating to creating your own marketing materials? These articles concentrate on areas a business owner "should do," offering such clever advice as "know your audience," "say it with pictures" or "write clearly and distinctly." This is not bad advice. However, you should also know what not to do. This article focuses on just that. More specifically, it will address what most 'do-it-yourselfers' are tempted to, but should not do.
What Not to...
•Do You Feel Like You're Running on a Hampster Wheel and You Don't Know How or Can't Get Off?
? Why do we always insist on doing it all?
I can't tell you how many clients and other business owners I see every month who continue to believe that THEY have to DO IT ALL.
I learned this lesson a couple years ago. When I hired my first assistant I thought I had to hire "an employee" so I got the insurance, worker's comp, payroll service and put an ad out.
I didn't even know what I could pay or for how many hours mind you at this time, I just knew in order to get more successful and get...
•Do you have trouble focusing?
? Do you have trouble focusing?
Focusing ON your business, rather than just IN it?
Where do you do your best, most productive work? Where do you come up with the BIG IDEAS? Where do you find it's easist for you to IMPLEMENT those big ideas?
A couple years ago, I thought it was just me. Just me who procrastinated those things I didn't want to do or didn't know how to do. Just me who got distracted with the dog in my face, my own personal needs (working out, massage, getting my nails done,...
•Do You Need To Update Your Website?
? So, what do you think? Are you getting the most your website could bring?
Here are some questions to ask yourself (or your web designer or hosting company):
1. When is the last time you rewrote any of the copy or uploaded new content?
2. Have you maximized your pages for keywords for the search engines?
3. Do you have an opt in box on every page? Is it working?
4. Are you tracking your web stats to see how many people are coming to which pages, staying for how long, leaving on what page,...
•How Does Your Direct Mail Pull?
? Assuming you have a great graphic artist who designs your marketing materials, mailers and collateral (which is a big assumption, I know)...
Where do you go to get them printed and/or mailed? How do you know which messages will be better to use? How often should you send mail out to your list?
Many small business owners I know typically do mailings hap hazzardly, meaning they plan a promotion or sale quickly to get business in the door or plan a workshop to happen in 2 weeks and then they...
•How to Cold Call The Right Way to Build Your Small Business
In my many years of sales and marketing work with small businesses, many of them would ask me all kinds of questions about cold calling like the ones below. They would profess to be leery of doing it for fear of rejection or simply through fear of making the call. See if any of these resonate with you?
1. "Does cold calling really work?" 2. "I hate feeling like I'm being sold, so I want to learn how to come across less like a salesman." 3. "What's the MAIN purpose of cold calling anyway?"...
•How to Establish Yourself as an Expert
Have you established yourself as an Expert in your field? If not, this is a great way to get added exposure, publicity and credibility for you and your business which will ultimately bring you more sales and more money!!
Many business professionals I know are so good at what they do but the problem is that everyone else doesn't know that about them. When you think about what kind of image you want to present to the public and business community - what is that? What do you look like (in...
•How to Know Which Form of Advertising Will Work for Your Business
Are you spending a large portion of your budget advertising in The Yellow Pages, or another medium? Have you ever wondered if these types of advertising truly worked?
Unfortunately, in some industries, such as businesses that tend to get called in an emergency (e.g. plumbers, electricians, and dentists) you need to advertise in places such as the Yellow Pages. I say unfortunately because this type of advertising is so expensive. However, the majority of us may not need to use such...
•How To: Take Your Small Business to the Next Level
You've built a successful business, you have an established customer base and you are well known in your geographical area or your industry or both; so now what do you do to stay ahead of the pack? How do you take your business to the next level?
Here are 9 ways to grow your business and take it to the next level:
1. Delegate Stop doing things in your business that don't directly make you money. Delegate them to an assistant or other professional to free up your time to work "ON" your...
•JumpStart Your Marketing Checklist
One thing I've found in my many years of entrepreneurship is that smart marketing is the key to success. I've worked with so many different types of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants from all kinds of industries and no matter what the business is; I've found that if the person doesn't know how to market it and they don't get help to do so, the business just doesn't survive. The following 8 items are what I consider a good small business start up checklist; if you...
•Market Research Strategies for Small Businesses
Have you ever done any market research? If not, you may be missing some valuable marketing ideas and information that you could capture by doing some research. Market research is a vital part of the process that most small businesses or start-ups neglect to do. However, it could be the single most important thing a new business does prior to formulating their business plan, location or marketing strategy.
Marketing research is the process of gathering data and opinions from consumers,...
•Speaking at Events to Boost your Biz
I started speaking at events like chamber of commerce small business luncheons, women's groups, sales meetings and leads group meetings about 3 years ago. I found that by doing so, it really catapulted me into more of an expert role in my industry. People looked to me as more of the go-to person for marketing in their area plus I got a lot more free publicity in the local papers and business journals.
Speaking can be a challenge for many in regards to the following:
- Who do you speak in...
•The 9 Things You Will Want to Include in Your Email Newsletters
What makes the ones you read interesting or valuable to you? What kind of information does the author provide? Do catchy headings and photos attract your attention? Does fancy HTML attract your attention in the newsletter or do you become frustrated because of the long download time or drain on the space on your email? How much of this is important to your target audience? Remember, do not base your decisions solely on what you like or do.
Before you begin creating a newsletter for your...
•Top 10 Tips to Make the Most of Your Marketing Dollar$
Top 10 Tips to Make the Most of Your Marketing Dollar$ Here are the Top 10 Tips I give small business owners and entrepreneurs on a daily basis when I see them out at networking functions. These 10 things will be the least expensive and probably the most effective forms of marketing that you could do to promote your business.
1. Display your cards at coffee shops, book stores, businesses of people you know, membership stores like Costco and Sam's Club; all of these are free.
2. Hold an...
•Volunteering or giving to charity to Boost Your Biz
So, do you?
Volunteering for non-profit events is one thing I really love to do. One reason is because I'm not yet in a position of extreme wealth in order to give a ton of cash donations which many organizations of course need. So, instead I volunteer my time because while that is still very precious to me, it's what I have to give and I fully believe in giving to others.
Because if you give - you will receive! So, I encourage my clients and friends to find places and organizations they can...
•What To Do During Slow Months
So, what do you do if your business is slower during some months?
Yes, you can make more cold calls, run more advertising or stand on the street corner waving a huge sale sign. Or, if it's going to be slow no matter what you do, then how about planning for next year? How about taking some career development courses/classes/seminars? How about boning up on your computer skills to find out how you can be more efficient in your business? What about doing things that take up a bunch of time...
•What you may not know about SPAM
I'm not going to talk about how to GET RID OF SPAM in your inbox; I'm not going to talk about SPAM, the food (if you can call it that?). I'm talking about accusing others of SPAMMING.
You know I advocate doing your own ezine almost 100% of the time. And for the most part, this is a great part of your marketing. Of course we are becoming bombarded with more and more ezines, newsletters and articles and such every day in our inboxes.
Some of you (or not you, but other people...) may be just...
•Your Database is Your Most Important Marketing Tool
Databases are a small businesses most our most important marketing tool. The following article discusses how to ensure the data within your database is valid and reliable, how to systematize or automate your database marketing, and how to obtain a useful prospect or mailing list.
Whether you keep your contacts in Outlook, ACT, Goldmine, QuickBooks, Excel or another contact management program, the thing that matters most is that the database needs to be updated - new contacts should be added...
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