Solid Training Is The Key!

Sales Training:

The on-going recession has changed the economic climate and it is now more important than ever that your company is equipped with expert salespeople. Whereas in some industries the only task salespeople used to have was taking orders, your sales team now need to be proficient in every aspect of the sales process. Selling that is recession proof means that the skills set of your salespeople need to be better than that of your competitors. Solid training is a key advantage for successful sales teams and research has shown that businesses that fail often did not put in the proper amount of time and effort into polishing the skills of their salespeople.

Try A Different Approach:

To decide what type of sales training program is suitable for your company you need to understand a few concepts. Firstly, there is a difference in approach to selling to businesses as opposed to selling to consumers. B2B (business to business) commerce are transactions between businesses where both the buyer and the seller is a business entity, for example a manufacturer and a wholesaler. In contrast B2C (business to consumer) describes commercial activities between a business and a private individual, for example a retail store and its customers. The sales approach is very different and your training provider should be aware of that. Regardless of whether you sell B2B or B2C, there are three modes of selling. Telesales is a familiar method where either a telesales representative calls a potential customer directly to sell a product or service (cold calling) or where a customer calls in to a call centre. The sales representative will go through the entire selling process over the phone. In contrast, field sales involve a sales representative visiting the customer – be it a business or a private individual – on their premises, going through the sales process face to face. Finally retail sales is the sale of goods from a fixed location owned or rented by the seller such as a department store, a kiosk or a boutique which an individual can visit to enquire about the company`s products.

Closing Can Make All The Difference:

When sales training is insufficient there are a number of negative outcomes. Sales people can lack confidence in their ability to sell the company`s service or product offering: a sales team can fall back to a comfort zone of old tried and true selling methods which may have worked in the past but have gotten less effective over time. Management`s expectations relating to products and services are not communicated through the ranks and neither is frontline feedback on the company`s products and service communicated back to management. Finally, closing sales is one of the most difficult steps in the sales process and this is where training can make a big difference: if salespeople are unable to close sales all their effort may be wasted but there are proven techniques to make asking for the sale easier.

Increase Your Revenue:

A good training program will help fix the above problems and cover a broad array of skills: basic communication ability, how to build an understanding of the prospect`s needs and wants, how to present the proposition and how to close a sale by dealing with objections and negotiating. The training provider will tailor the lessons to the way your company sells and to your target audience. New technology is giving salespeople additional tools to the sales process. In addition to well established technology salespeople can now make use of novel methods such as social networking and an excellent training course will teach salespeople how to use technology to reach out to customers. Even though training courses involve some expense the additional skills will give your salespeople a permanent advantage which means a large increase in revenue. Not only will revenue increase, you will also build better relationships with your customers and the turnover of salespeople will drop. Business Marketing Courses are also valuable as this will teach salespeople the basics of running a business, important knowledge for salespeople that do not have a commercial background.

Three Great Marketing Tips To Beat The Credit Crunch

Hi everyone my sincere apologies, I have neglected my blog recently due to an illness and hospital visit, But I’m OK now and back to work.

Today I have THREE great tips for you, please let me know your thoughts and leave some feedback.

Many Thanks

Dave

PRICE

when customers need to think about it, it’s usually about Getting over the price problem.

Now more than ever your customers are watching what they are spending.

Yes There still spending, but their wanting to get the best their money will buy.

Rather than jump on the band wagon and start discounting your products to close the deal, why not try something a little different.

Next time your potential customer tells you that your product is to expensive ask them this question,

If your nearest and dearest had a serious life threatening health problem, would you if you were able to afford it hire the best surgeon your money could find or would you use the good old national health doctors to carry out the operation.

Without a doubt this will focus the importance of your customers wanting to spend their money on the best rather than saving a few pounds on something that does not have the same quality.

Pressure Selling

CLOSE! CLOSE! CLOSE! Remember this? Maybe you still sell this way.

One thing is for sure nowadays, customers are more clued up about smart sales techniques than ever before and the old close, close, close is a thing of the past.

As an example: if you were stood in a Que and someone pushed you, they would be sure to get your attention, your attention would be really negative and slightly misplaced I’m sure WHY, because people don’t like being pushed.

Now imagine your sales staff were pushing your customers around in a similar way, push, push, pushing for a decision,

Do you think your customers would have the same negative attention towards your sales staff, as you had with the person that pushed you whilst you were in that Que?

In today’s marketplace customers don’t like being pushed around, their getting used to it from all your competitors so they are less likely to stand for it by the time they get to you.

If your sales staff are still using the old style (bullying) selling techniques, its time for a change.

Remember your customers have been attracted to you by some means or another, don’t spoil that attraction by being pushy.

Get other people to promote your products

Quite often I hear about all sort of products, some new and some that have been around for a while and often I hear about these products from people rather than paid advertising or other media.

Take for example Google or Facebook, both of these companies have customers that can’t wait to tell everyone as soon as they bring out a new or improved product, that’s right their customers are motivated into telling everyone else how great they are.

Could you imagine how powerful it would be if your customers told all their friends how great you are?

My advice would be watch and learn from these businesses, try and find a way to use word of mouth advertising for yourself and feel the power of Viral marketing and what it can do for your business.

Generating Business Part Three:

Ten more questions you should ask yourself if you want to generate more sales enquiries and turn them enquiries into profit.

1. The best way to sell is to ask questions, are you and your sales staff aware of this fact?
   
2. You should always include a PS in your letters, are you aware of why this is important?
   
3. You should be using up to ten ways to market your business, are you doing this?
   
4. If you follow up a mail shot with a phone call you can increase response rates and increase your profits, do you do this after every mail shot?
   
5. Your existing customers are really important, you should take the best care of them are you and your staff aware of this?
   
6. Your clients all have Birthdays; do you know when these are? Do you send them a card?
   
7. You should be in contact of your existing customers all the time by these methods, Mail, Email and Telephone, this is how they will get to know about your offers, are you keeping in touch?
   
8. Most of your competitors probably don’t do what I have stated above, Can you imagine  how much  better than them you would be if you chose two of these marketing methods and put them to use?
   
9. Would you enjoy life more if your business was doing better?
   
10. Did you know for things to change in your business, you have to change what you do with your marketing?

If you have answered NO to any of the above, implement the changes today and begin to earn those missing profits that your company needs.

Dave Edwards

How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Try Before You Buy Offer

Using the social aspect of sales:

Sometimes the social aspect of a TRY before you BUY offer can be used to help people make the right decision, making the sales process faster and less stressful.

Quite often your potential customers have already decided to purchase your products/services and your try before you buy offer simply helps them to make a decision.

Don’t let your potential customers make the mistake of taking their business elsewhere, sometimes people want to buy your product/service but they need to remove the risk of buying from you.

Use a ‘Try before you Buy’ Offer,

Find a way to offer your potential customer an opportunity to try your products, let them test it or see if it works, don’t be fooled into thinking your product/service is to valuable to let potential customers try it for free.

Test it out!! it will pay dividends.

BMW or Mercedes will quite happily let you test drive one of their cars, WHY because they know that it works, many customers buy cars from one these two companies this is the same principle as a try before you buy offer.

Here’s what to do NOW:

Firstly: find a way to get potential New Customers to try your product and feel the value it will offer to them, make sure this trial is FREE.

Secondly: ask these potential New customers what they thought about your product or service after using it.

If they tell you they love it, ask them what is it, that they loved

The answer to this question should be the foundation of your sales pitch, remember questions hold the answers let your potential customers sell your product for you. Believe me when I say they will sell your product or service to themselves.

This would be a good time for you to say, I’m really glad you found our product or service useful, then you can use an assumptive close to sell your product/service.

If you ask this question in the right manner and say nothing your potential customer will be motivated into taking some action, this won’t work every time but it will massively increase the number of sales that you make, try it and see.

It makes little or no sense what so ever, that any business even small businesses would not have a try before you buy offer.

Another approach is to let your potential customers take all the risk, putting their faith in you and your product/service ask yourself what you would do in this buying situation?

If you wouldn’t buy your product neither will they.

Generating Business Part Two:

The Next 10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself:

Today I want to share with you the next 10 great ways to highlight some instant ways for you to generate more enquiries, boost your profit and grow your business.

The following 10 questions will help you to understand where your business is succeeding and where it isn’t so that you can take the necessary action to produce rapid results. Effort will be required on your part if you wish to take advantage of those extra profits you could be missing out on.

Did you know it takes 99% of effort to launch a rocket but only 10% to keep it flying?

1 How much time each year do your sales team spend learning leading edge sales skills?

2 You should have an excellent lead generation in place, Do you have this in place ?

3 Do you have an ongoing communication with qualified leads consisting of letters and emails and phone calls?

4 Do your customers ever send you testimonials and do you use them?

5 Do you have an effective referrals system in your work place?

6 There are lots of ways of obtaining referrals, can you name three?

7 You should offer something of value to your website visitors in exchange for their contact details; do you make this offer to them?

8 You should know how to write a press release as this will grab the attention of the person reading it; do you know how to do this?

9 You should personalise all emails newsletters and letters, is this something you are doing?

10 You should send regular email communications to your customers and prospective customers do you do this?

If you have answered NO to any of the above, implement the changes today and begin to earn those missing profits that your company needs.

WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT TEN GREAT WAY TO BOOST YOUR PROFIT AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS.

Dave Edwards www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com
How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Key Ingredients to Marketing Success

Six Ways to Marketing Success:

It’s FREE and you can do this RIGHT NOW, take a step back and look at your business from outside the box, this way you will see how you can Market your Business in a totally different way, ‘‘in a way your competitors aren’t doing it”.

Most businesses market their products in the same way as their competitors, they are all searching for exactly the same customers. did you know that at any given time between 3% and 7% of people are looking for your products or services.

Let me explain:

If you open your local newspaper (the one you advertise in) yours and your competitors adverts will look the same, sure you all have your company details on your advert which differentiates you a little but on the whole your customers are going to choose you and three of your competitors for their quotation. What you are doing is Marketing in a Vacuum. Have you ever tried advertising for the 93% to 97% of people that have not even thought about your product yet.

Marketing outside the vacuum will remove the competition and make your customers take decisive action. Most businesses are lemmings when it comes to advertising its all follow the leader, like something in their heads saying they have to market in the same way that everyone else in their profession markets. So all the electricians advertise in the local paper, all the hairdressers advertise in the yellow pages and all the double glazing companies use telemarketing and so on.

95% of businesses only market their products in one or two ways, it might be the local newspaper, or perhaps its Direct Mail. Do you know how much potential business you might be missing only using a couple of ways to Market your Business? Imagine what might happen to your business if you used Five or Six ways to promote your product or services, I know your thinking what about the cost (it’s already costing me a fortune on advertising) but i’m talking about ”How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors”

What will happen, if you use more cost effective ways to market your business is that you will achieve what everyone continually tells me is ‘impossible, ”You’ll increase your profits by 50% or 100%”.

Lets have a look at some cost effective marketing methods you can use to dramatically boost your business:

Here’s my list, of the top six most cost effective marketing methods you can use to boost your business profits, Pick a couple of them and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in the next few weeks ahead:

Direct Mail
Internet Marketing
Email Marketing
Strategic Alliances
Referral Systems
PR

Step outside the box, use, test and measure your chosen methods.

Remember most other businesses are not willing to do this, it’s all too much effort and they’re more interested in moaning and blaming today’s economic climate because their businesses are suffering. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and get your success story on the road.

Dave Edwards www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com
How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Marketing Letters “GET THEM OPENED”

Get YOUR marketing letters opened:

Today I would like to share with you a few facts about how to get your Marketing Letters (mail shots) opened.

These simple facts will ensure that your Marketing Letters provide an increase in future response rates, which in turn will generate more enquiries and More Sales.

All companies that send out mail shots are looking to generate more business or at least more enquiries but in order for this to happen your Marketing Letters need to be read, you could have the best offer your customers have ever seen but if your letter doesn’t get opened your prospective client will never know just how good your offer really is. There are lots of marketing gurus out there that will give you good advice about what to write in your Marketing Letters, but surprisingly not all of them know how to get your letters opened.

Read Mail vs. Junk Mail:

Have you ever picked up your post in the morning and separated it into two piles, usually one pile consists of flyers, post card offers and anything that looks like junk which ends up in the BIN!! the other pile consists of bills (easily identified) and letters that look you want to read them. Today I was talking with my Brother in Law He’s a Postman and I said to him I wish I had a job like yours where I could finish at lunch time. His reply was I would be home a lot earlier if it wasn’t for all the junk mail I had to deliver.

Junk Mail is easy to SPOT:

This morning I had a letter that nearly ended up in the bin, but at a second glance I realised that it was a Marketing Letter that was selling something I was interested in buying, I won’t bore you with what the product was but I will share with you the reason why it nearly went straight out with the trash, you see when I looked at the letter my name and address was spelt wrong and it was printed on a white self stick label, most mail shot companies use this method because the computer will print labels out more quickly than you hand writing the name and address on an envelope, any letter that uses this type of label looks like junk and usually end up in the bin.

Companies sending out mail shots like this will suffer in the fact that thousands of their Marketing Letters never get opened infact their letters meet with huge amounts of unnecessary resistance from potential customers, Just because their letters look like junk mail.

Make sure that YOUR marketing letters are opened:

Follow these few simple steps and I guarantee your Marketing Letters will be opened.

Be sure to correctly address the letter you are sending.

Do some research and make sure you have a name on the envelope (Don’t write your letter to the Director or any other title) and make sure your envelope is spelt correctly and displayed clearly.

Don’t use ‘window envelopes’ with the name and address of the recipient printed onto the enclosed letter.

Refrain from having any offers or message on your envelope it could result in as much as 100% of your letters remaining unopened.

Don’t use CAPITAL LETTERS and always send your letters with a stamp not a franking system.

My best advice is do some research, for the next week scrutinise all the mail you have delivered to your address, Which would you open? and which of your mail goes straight to the bin? Learn from this and make sure that in future you give some thought to your Marketing Letters. Remember the bottom is that you need to make sure that your future customers are reading your mail shots, and when they do make sure there is a COMPELLING OFFER inside that makes them TAKE ACTION!!

If you find this information useful please forward it to anyone you think might also find it interesting, or tell them visit my website www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com and subscribe to my newsletter and I will also send them a FREE copy of my short e-book;
“10 ways to Success in business”

U.K. Advertising “Make It Pay”

Advertising seems to be every one’s favourite way of wasting money:

So let’s take a look at how you can get Better Results from your advertising budget.

In my experience there are better and more cost effective ways of marketing than advertising. This said, most businesses I know depend heavily on advertising and therefore give little thought to finding more cost effective ways to market their business. Advertising is the most expensive of all marketing options so business owners should look at getting their advertising right before spending their marketing budget. If  however you are advertising already, or plan to in the future, here are my thoughts on what works and what doesn’t.

Don’t Advertise if it Isn’t Working.

If this sounds silly or obvious you would be amazed at how many businesses advertise because that’s what they have always done or even worse because the competition does it, most don’t even know if their advertising works or if it doesn’t.

Measure the results of all your advertising its really important. Many businesses just allocate a certain amount of money to an advertising budget, they spend this budget every year…and only have a vague idea if the adverts are working or if there not, this is absolutely barmy. If your advertising works then use it on a larger scale if it doesn’t work STOP it immediately and use the money on one of dozens of other marketing strategies that can bring you a better return on your investment.

Use Direct Response Advertising, other forms of advertising are institutional (or brand) advertising and are designed to build brand awareness, If you’re a small or medium sized business, brand advertising is almost certainly a waste of your advertising budget.

For small or medium size businesses your advertising needs to produce a profitable response, so stick to Direct Response Advertising and watch your profits grow
RATE CARDS:
Now there’s a laugh! I often chuckle to myself when newspaper sales executives talk about rate cards, most rate cards are far too high always negotiate a better rate is my advice. 20 to 30% less for your advertising isn’t unreasonable and can make your advertising campaign profitable rather than unprofitable and I bet your sales executive is soon back looking for more business.

Just as with direct mail the HEADLINE should be given lots of thought it will if written properly increase response greatly, don’t be tempted to use your company name as the headline think of something that will grab your customers attention, remember also that the copy of your advert needs to communicate with the person reading it.

Here are some other advertising tips:
If possible place your advert on an early right hand page. This has been tested again and again. When you read a newspaper or magazine your eyes are drawn to the right hand page as you flick through, so statistically more people will see your ad if it’s on the right hand page, use Bold or Underline text in your advert especially on any offers

like I said in my experience many businesses are wasting money on ineffective advertising compared to other cost effective means like (Direct Mail, Telephone Marketing, Direct Sales, Email, Internet, Referrals, Strategic Alliances etc) But done properly advertising can be highly profitable and a good mix with other marketing forms.

Hope you found this interesting if you did pass it on or leave your comments:

Feel free to forward this information on to anyone who will find it useful. If they want to receive my emails, they need to go to harlequinsalesandmarketing.com/newsletter.

Make Money With Direct Mail

Direct Mail

Let’s remove any doubts; direct mail is a profitable source of income for any business when done properly, but not done properly it will waste your time and money.

For those that say Direct Mail doesn’t work then let me tell you you’re not doing it right.
Clever businesses will take the time to write direct mail properly, after all you would give this time if you were sat with a customer wouldn’t you? I have said many times Direct Mail is like having your best salesman in print if done properly. To remove the confusion.

Direct mail is anything you send to existing or potential customers.

Let’s dispel some of the myths about Direct Mail. The favourite is

‘Direct Mail doesn’t work.’

This is usually derived by the fact that when you get direct mail at home it ends up in the bin, (which means it must be a waste of money right?) the truth is that about 80% to 90% of people do throw direct mailing in the bin, however have you considered what would happen to your business if you could get customers to read your Direct Mail?

The reason that Domino Pizzas, Viking Direct and many other big companies continually fill up your post box with direct mail is because it works. How much do you think these companies spend testing and fine tuning their direct mailings, probably thousands and thousands why because it works, better still they know what works and what doesn’t. All this said I wouldn’t want to mislead you not all direct mail works and this is why, Small to Medium size businesses don’t spend enough time thinking about the message they are trying to get into their customers minds neither do they give enough thought about what they are trying to achieve, if they gave the time and consideration to think about this then direct mail would make their profits soar.

Another myth is that the response rate of Direct Mail is a very low percentage, compared to number of mailings you send and that you need to send a thousand letters to get a single response, this is nonsense and a dangerous way to budget for your direct mail, there are all sorts of factors that will make a difference to your response rate, your product, the price and so on what really matters is not the response you get but the profit you make, which is why testing what you send is paramount. Don’t use a Direct Mail campaign without testing it on a small scale first. Why?

The beauty of Direct Mail is that it is statistically very predictable.

Your Direct Mail will fall into two categories, existing customers and potential new customers.
If you have a date base of existing customers you are sitting on a fortune, start by mailing these, think of something you can offer these customers, send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them again next month and measure the results and if it works keep doing it, when you perfect this try it out on new potential customers and again measure the response each time.

REMEMBER

Test your Direct Mail campaigns for new customers on a small scale before rolling them out.

Always send a letter with any literature you send as it will increase the response rate you get

Your mail should focus on the benefits of your product or service; your customers want to read what your product will do for them not you.

Spend your time wisely

Make sure you spend the time you need getting the headline right its 90% of what people read and has to make them interested to read the rest of your letter, you repeat a successful mailing a few weeks later and expect a response rate around 50% of the original mailing you sent, and following up your letter with a phone call will also increase the response you get.
Don’t make costly mistakes on your future Direct Mail, remember write for the reader not for the writer, and take the time to think what your writing in your letter.

Taking care of what we’ve already worked for.

The success of any business is the source of wealth it gets from Existing or new customers.

Don’t neglect your source of wealth. Don’t neglect your customers.

One of the best profit areas for any business is its existing customer base, how often do you communicate with your existing customers and do you realise how important they are?

Nearly every business owner I know, concentrate their efforts on looking for new customers and forget how much it cost them in the first place to acquire their biggest asset (their existing customer data base) once you have sold to them they should not become a number, remember they are still a customer.

Most businesses are sitting on a fortune,

it’s not hidden, just forgotten.

You can get access to this fortune by answering these questions.

Do you have something to offer your existing customers that would make them want to contact you?

Is there something that you are not offering existing customers that you could be offering them?

When was the last time you sent your customers a letter, an email or contacted them by telephone?

This might be interesting, what would happen if you made twice as much contact with your existing customers this year as you made last year, just be sure if you do communicate with them with whatever you decide to offer, make sure that you monitor the response you get.

I have helped many businesses to generate thousands without spending on anything more than a first class stamp, a little bit of time and an A4 piece of paper this is not unusual, sometimes all you need is to step outside the box and look back in to see where your next customer will come from.

Here are some useful things to consider when you’re looking for your next best customer.

What results could you get by using direct mail?

Do you spend time every day thinking of an offer you could make to your existing customers?

Do you always thank your customers for their business?

Do you always measure the response you get?

There are tons of marketing ideas on how to get new customers, but remember you are sitting on a fortune if you already have an existing customer data base.