Health Upgraders

Most surveys show the average business loses about 19% of its client base each year. In fact, the authors of, “Customer Winback: How To Recapture Lost Customers – and Keep Them Loyal” estimates the average at 20 to 40% per year.

This means that if you have 500 customers and lose 19% or 95 customers you must get 95 new customers each year just to stay even.

Research shows it costs six times more to get a prospect to buy from you than it does to keep an existing customer, and it’s 16 times easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one.

So why would you spend any marketing dollars on new prospects before doing everything you can to get more business from your existing and past clients? Let me repeat that, “Why would you spend any marketing dollars on new prospects before doing everything you can to get more business from your existing and past clients?”

The truth is that the real money to be made by most businesses is from additional sales of products and services to their existing customers and those they refer. Getting repeat and referral business is something most small business owners are not proficient in.

If you want your business to be successful, you need to have a compelling reason, “Why should your customers and prospects do business with you, rather than your competition”? You need to become someone they will gladly and often refer new customer prospects to!

The one strategy that can do more for building your business than just about anything else you can do and the most overlooked marketing tool by almost every business is “Follow Up”!

You need to immediately put in place a strategy and an effective system to follow up with:

- Existing Customers
– Past Customers
– Potential Customers or Prospects

Since it costs six times more to get a new customer to buy from you, it just makes sense to spend much of your time, effort and money on strengthening your relationships with your existing customers and turning them into referral machines for you.

In developing a follow up system for your customers and prospects, you need to determine:

- The number of times you want to contact them and over what period of time

- The frequency of contact. For example, every two month plus on their birthday

- The method of contact. Will you send a greeting card, post card or letter? Research has shown that a greeting card will get opened 12 times more often that other types of mail.

- Determine the purpose of the contact. Will you be thanking them for buying from you, making them a special offer or asking for a referral?

A study done by the Association of sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happen on or after the fifth contact. If you’re only doing one or two follow up’s, imagine all the business you are losing. Not following up with your customers and prospects is like filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!

Here’s an example of an eight contact follow up system you could put in place in your business, modify it to meet your business needs:

1. When they buy from you – send a “Thank You” card
2. January – send a “New Years” card
3. March – send an Item-of-Value or Special Offer letter
4. May – send a “Referral Request” card
5. July – send a “Fourth of July” card
6. September – send an Item-of-Value or Special Offer letter
7. November – send a “Referral Request” card
8. Birthday – send a “Birthday” card

According to the Guinness book of World Records the Greatest Salesman of all time was Joe Girard. During his fifteen year selling career, he sold 13,001 cars … an amazing feat. What was his secret? Greeting Cards! Every month, every person who had ever bought a car from him got a greeting card. It didn’t matter if it was Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or the person’s birthday … Joe was a greeting card sending machine!

With today’s technology it’s not necessary to spend your time doing it manually like Joe and his assistants did! On the Internet there are online card sending services where you can send “REAL” physical full color glossy greeting cards, mailed with a real stamp, from your computer. The one I use has a ton of features, like being able to set up automatic mailing campaigns. And, it’s very inexpensive at $1.37 a greeting card, which includes postage.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 70% of homebuyers said they would use their real estate agent again. However, only 11% reported buying through the real estate agent they had used before. Why? Because clients haven’t heard from them and they assumed the agent didn’t want to do business with them.

Whatever your product or service, don’t let that happen to you!

Commit to putting in place a system to insure continual automatic follow up to your customers and prospects. Your business depends on it!

Joel Weiner is a Referral Marketing expert. He helps small businesses and professionals generate more sales through referrals. More information can be found at his website: http://www.Best2U.com

www.motivatedentrepreneur.com

Sales & Marketing

The Sales Trail……….

By Ryan M. Hoback, Motivated Entrepreneur Incubation & Consulting

Everybody’s going selling, selling U.S.A……..

The sales trail can be slow paced or high energy; the way to achieve the success we are looking for is to cover all the bases. Sales management can be very intricate, time consuming, and exhausting. However if all the right tools and elements are brought together the results can be fantastic. As in any other area of our business, we need to develop a plan of action. In today’s society we need to use great forethought and strategizing to meet sales challenges.

Our first step is to create a spider-web diagram or cluster of ideas that contains the categories we would like to focus on. Remember, it is all about getting your sales message across clearly. Here is a good way to start;

• What is our Brand’s Product/Service Message or selling point? • Develop our message so that we can craft our sales pitch to our target customer. • Do we utilize cold calling, advertising, word of mouth referrals, a mix of all three? • How will we deliver our message in the most effective manner through each one of these channels?

When we develop our message, try to find one that brings forth both an emotional and rational response. In order to have an effective sales strategy regardless of what industry we may fall in, we must make sure our sales associates are familiar with our company’s objectives, policies, and feelings on each product or service.

A good way to promote this is by issuing written statements, which clearly define and state the product/service concept, its intended use, and why it is beneficial to the customer. This company wide statement allows our organization to operate with a homogenous understanding of the company’s views on its product/service. This induces a heightened level of creativity throughout sales departments, and gives them the flexibility of concentrating on their selling techniques and correcting their mistakes while remaining completely confident in the sales material.

When approaching sales, building a solid foundation and a sturdy structure will help increase effectiveness. We need to implement mechanisms that will monitor the progress of our sales teams. Weekly reports and call log files are a great way to stay informed on a regular basis of what is happening within our sales departments. An additional aspect of creating structure revolves around developing internal communications amongst departments or people. The more our sales team is connected to the marketing and advertising departments, the better. In addition, finance is a key element to any sale, and we must be prepared by having done our research on the numbers involved with our product/service.

Once we have established a steady sales stream, it is time to start thinking about increasing our market share. A good place to start is to do some sales research, survey our current customers to learn how they view our company and our products/services. Take these opinions and revamp our sales approach, placing a greater focus on these areas. Increase our sales teams’ productivity by continually re-training our staff on new procedures and methods, while supplying easy access to sales tools and resources. We must constantly review and revise our sales process to stay on top of current trends and remain competitive.

© Copyright 2004-05 by www.motivatedentrepreneur.com

I’m writing with over 35 years selling experience. I’ve been in advertising all my life
and began with my own advertising agency. Later, I joined the Bell System Yellow
Pages and did private consulting. Today, I’m retired and run a home-based business
along with my wife called, ‘The Nurse’s Choice,’ a health information and doctor
referral website. I’m still technically a salesman, but I didn’t set out to be one. I
began as a designer and eventually, art director for a small East coast agency. When
I was hired by the Yellow Pages, I had almost no sales experience. But I had always
taken care of my clients and discovered it was virtually no different. Now I took care
of the customer.

That’s not to say that the customer is always right: far from it. But it was my job,
albeit, my responsibility, to tell them when they were mistaken and put them back
on the proper path. I was the advertising expert and they expected me to help them
make the right decisions that would benefit them or their business, Along the way, I
learned how to be the best salesman possible and made many friends in the
process. These ideas will work for any salesman whether you’re selling cars, homes,
or anything of value. Now I’ll pass on these tips in no particular order.

(1) Be honest. It sounds easy, but sales people sometimes have to sell products
that they don’t believe in or aren’t needed by certain clients. In those cases, I would
present the item and let the customer decide. Which leads me to number two.

(2) Don’t be high pressure. A good salesman doesn’t need to be. Just do the job
and allow the product to sell itself while expounding on the features and benefits.

(3) Smile and be friendly. You’re there to do them a favor and help them or their
business. Let them feel that through your words, actions, and attitude.

(4) Recommend what they need. There is no use bypassing what they asked for
simply to meet some quota. They’ll pick up on you ulterior motives soon enough.

(5) Along with the previous, ask what they need. Allow them to explain what they
are seeking and why. Learn about their situation.

(6) Answer all their questions. It’s your primary job. Pass on your knowledge so
they may feel secure with you and your understanding of the product or service.

(7) Give them options. There are probably several decisions and choices to make.
Explain the pros and cons of each and sit back, allowing them time to digest the
presentations.

(8) Shut up. Let them do the talking. Many new sales people will eventually talk
themselves right out of a sale. Know the value of silence.

(9) Ask for the sale. When the time is right, pull out the contract. Sense when it’s
time to have them make a commitment. Don’t be afraid to do so.

(10) Overcome their objections. That’s when the sale actually takes place.

(11) Thank them for their business or time, even if they don’t buy right away.
They may still come back and be your customer. Don’t burn any bridges.

(12) Follow up. Call them and reminder them you are available to answer any
addition questions. Thank them again.

It’s an easy road to follow but many sales people forget these basic rules. Be
smart and you’ll make plenty of money, good clients, and good friends along the
way.

Jeffrey Hauser was a sales consultant for the Bell System Yellow Pages for
nearly 25 years. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Advertising
and has a Master’s Degree from Monmouth University. He had his own
advertising agency in Scottsdale, Arizona and ran a consulting and design
firm, ABC Advertising. He has authored 6 books and a novel, “Pursuit of the
Phoenix,” available at amazon.com. His latest book is, “Inside the Yellow
Pages.” Currently, he is the Marketing Director for thenurseschoice.com,
a Health Information and Doctor Referral site.

Consumers Are Individual Customers

The idea of mass marketing to consumers is outdated. Consumers are individuals and deserve to be called customers. The days are gone when marketers can think of consumers as a mass audience to “push” advertising out to. In fact, wise marketers will remove the word “consumers” from their vocabulary all together. You can’t have a relationship with a consumer, you can with a customer. Customers are individuals. The fact is that these days they’re more demanding than ever.

They expect more from you. They deserve your respect and expect to be treated like equals. The old fashioned general store knew how to look after their customers. The trick for the modern marketer is to take those old “values” and use the new technology to build a relationship that treats each customer as an individual.

Be First In The Mind Or The Marketplace?

It is better to be first in the prospects mind than to be first in the market place. Once somebody else gets into your prospects mind you can’t take away their position with money alone. We’re all quick to pass judgement and it’s difficult to change a mind once a mind is made up. You have to blast your way into the mind because people don’t like to change their minds.

Once they perceive you one way, that’s it. They put you into a category and file you away in their minds as a certain type of person or business. The only way to change that perception is to become a different kind of person or business in someone else’s mind so that the majority overwhelms the minority. You haven’t changed their mind, somebody else has.

Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions. It does not matter if you have the best product or service, it’s what people think that counts.

Think Of Your Product As A Service These days there’s no shortage of “me too” products and short lived technological advantages. It can be difficult to find a point of difference for your product to own in your customers mind.

So, here’s a thought. When thinking about competitive differentiation for your product don’t consider only the physical aspects of your product. Instead think of your product as a service. What is the service it provides? What are the “experiences” it offers to a customer? The answers to these questions will be more fruitful in developing your marketing strategy than just focusing on the physical aspects.

Do you know that some of the greatest salesmen do it on the phone?

Yet, I keep hearing how cold calling is a nightmare, how they hate it, and how even some sales gurus say “cold calling is dead.” Here are some of the reasons I’ve heard from my own sales trainees, at least in the beginning:

1) RejectionAll I got was No’s and the phone slammed in my ear.

2) All I got was voice mail jail and no one ever returns my calls.

And there are others, but most come back to the same thing: the obstacle you are facing isn’t out there in the cold cruel world. It resides right between your own two ears. Your own beliefs are the obstacle. It isn’t anywhere else.

For this article we’re going to deal with the “all” syndrome and rejection.

A client and I once developed a cold calling campaign plan. He was to make 200 cold calls in the next week. We developed the general idea of what he was going to say, who he was going to call, and how he was going to say it. Then we practiced it until he sounded natural.

When we got together the following week, I asked,
So, how’d it go?
“Horrible, all I got was phones slammed in my ear, P.O.’d people and No’s galore. It just didn’t work at all.”

How many calls did you make?

“30, and after all those No’s, I gave up.”

How many appointments did you get?”

“Only one.”

So, what was your success ratio? How many appointments for how many calls?

“Let’s see, I think that is….1 in 30, or 3%.”

And what was our original estimate. Wasn’t it 1 in 25? So, how can you say that it was a failure? You weren’t far off.

“…….but….but…all of those No’s, 29 out of 30. That was mostly failure!”

Let’s see, at 1-2 minutes per call for No’s, and maybe 5+ for the yes, how many minutes did you spend to get just one appointment? Isn’t that around 60 minutes to get an appointment? Not bad if you ask me.
What would have happened if you had made all 200 calls?

“Maybe 6-7 appointments….Wait a minute, didn’t we target 8 appointments for the 200 calls?!?!”

How many calls were necessary to achieve your goal of 8 appointments a week? (This is probably THE MOST important question since it tells you clearly what you have to do to get the needed RESULTS).

Another thing would have happened if he had made the 200 calls: He’d have gotten better and better, gotten over his fear, and probably would have seen his call success improving toward the 1 in 25 calls, or even better.

I tell most of my clients that they need to make about 500 calls to get good at it. The trouble is that most never reach 500 calls, or if you do it takes them 2 years to do it, and by that time either the boss has eliminated you, or if you are a business owner your overhead costs have eliminated you.

It all started with the “all” syndrome. In other words our belief that

• ALL we got was no’s,

• ALL we got were Voice Mails, and that NO ONE ever returned a call.

It’s the glass half full or half empty issue. That is a belief that in this case isn’t valid.

Use the Plan – Do – Improve/Optimize scenario.

• Plan what you are going to do,

• Do it (make sure to measure the results so you know what works and what doesn’t), make changes (new plans), and
• Go back through that loop over and over.

Let’s apply that to the scenario above.

• Develop what you are going to say, how you are going to say it and to who. Find the reasons why someone would even want to talk to you and develop it.

• Measure your success, measure how many successes you had out of how many calls. In most cases, it really isn’t as bad as everyone makes out.
• Now that you have the key measurementsfix them. That means, change what you say, how you say it, or who you say it to, and watch the numbers. Do they go up, or down? Capture what works, and learn from what doesn’t. You’ll see those numbers constantly moving up.
• Learn the best way from the experts…get every book you can, go to training classes, hire a sales coach.

You are always in control. Don’t be at the mercy of anything, someone else, the environment, the market place.

Sales Training — Get results not just Training

Some typical results

What is needed?

Skills or removing the barrier between the ears? We focus on measurable results.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC

Helping People and Companies Worldwide Reach Further Than They EVER Thought Possible…FASTER

Check out our website, and sign up for our weekly newsletter “Hints and Tips to Increase Your Business.”

http://www.leaders-perspective.com
mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective

Studies show that much of communication is nonverbal. That means it’s not only what you say, it’s how you say it: your intonation, gestures, facial expressions and posture. Here are some Body Language Do’s and Don’ts to help your face-to-face prospect and customer meetings.

Do:
Stand tall and have good posture, your prospect will interpret this as confidence. If you do not feel that you have good posture, you can change it! Start working out, going to a gym, take dance classes or do what the models-in-training used to do to help their posturewalk with a book on your head!

Don’t:
Slump or stoop in on yourself. Your prospect will see this as you having something to hide and will be inclined not to trust you.

Do:
Smile. It changes your whole attitude and prospects will enjoy doing business with you. People like to do business with people they like. You’ll have a better time too!

Don’t:
Scowl or look stressed and unhappy–even if you are. Your problems are your problems, not your prospects. You’ll feel worse if you blow an opportunity.

Do:
Speak out. Have clear and confident speech patterns. Make your intonation go down at the end of every sentence, even if you are asking a question. Be careful, though, not to swallow your words. This speech pattern will make you sound more confident and your prospects will be able to understand what you are saying.

Don’t:
Mumble. Your prospects will not understand you and could see you as having something to hide. If it is hard work to try and understand what you are saying, your prospect will probably give up. People don’t buy from people they don’t understand and they don’t buy from people they do not trust.

Do:
Look your prospect in the eye. Eye contact is a valuable tool for building trust.

Don’t:
Look down. If you cannot meet your prospects eye, they will see you as someone with something to hide.

Do:
Dress appropriately in a businesslike manner. Prospects will see you as a professional.

Don’t:
Wear clothes that are too casual or inappropriate or clothes that are wrinkled or not clean. Prospects will not take you seriously if you do not take yourself seriously.

Do:
Shake hands firmly. You will seem confident.

Don’t:
Squeeze too hard or conversely have a “dead fish” type of handshake. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!

© 2005 Wendy Weiss

Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling & Selling Success,” is a sales trainer, author, and sales coach. Her recently released program, “Cold Calling College”, and/or her book, “Cold Calling for Women”, can be ordered by visiting http://www.wendyweiss.com Contact her at wendy@wendyweiss.com. Get Wendy’s free e-zine at www.wendyweiss.com

Peter worked hard. Damned hard. All day he toiled to sell blueberry muffins. And they were special muffins with forty blubberies each. But he only sold so many. Everyday, he’d fight a losing battle just to sell them all. At the end of the day, they weren’t fresh anymore and people didn’t want stale muffins. Then one day Peter doubled his profit. Yeah, just like that. He changed what he said and he sold twice as much.

“How much are those muffins, mate?” his customers would ask. “$3 for two,” he’d say. And they’d buy two instead of one.

Simple, huh?

It’s called bundling. We used to sell the Brain Audit for $xxx and PsychoBranding for $xxx. When someone bought the Brain Audit, we’d try to sell them PsychoBranding. Some customers bought and some didn’t. Then one day we used Peter’s combo technique. We sold both the products, the Brain Audit and PsychoBranding as PsychoCombo.

Boom! Our sales went through the roof. We were taking home twice as much money, and at the same time giving the client more value — more information. More ways to increase their profits.

McDonald’s does it all the time. We experience it all the time. Yet we never do it all the time.

Why ever not?

If you own a pressure washing service, which specializes in flat work and concrete cleaning contracts then it is important to concentrate your sales efforts on property management companies and facilities and maintenance directors for large corporate outlets and corporations.

When selling concrete washing service is it is important that you listen to the customer and find out what their real needs are and it is even better if you can walk the property with them and then make your bid. So often I find that concrete cleaning competing companies will try to bid jobs over the phone without walking the property with the property management Company or without getting a list of properties so they can walk the properties themselves.

When selling concrete cleaning contracts it is important that the customer understands that you will show up when the businesses are not operating and you will do so in a professional manner and make sure that no one slips or falls on the property.

Additionally you’ll need business insurance to cover this with up to $1 million liability and be able to additionally insure the property management Company and the owners of each property.

A concrete washing company salesperson needs to make sure that this is understood right up front otherwise the chances of getting a sales interview or even getting to meet the property management Company are slim to none. I hope you will consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Retailers face an intense competitive environment. With the growing availability of retail space there are more stores joining the marketplace. At the same time there is also a great deal of money to be made at the retail level.

Consumers have more disposable income to spend, and have become accustomed to experience shopping as a form of recreation.

Here are some strong selling strategies that can be used by retailers to produce more sales.

Retail Selling Strategy #1

Display the original retail price, or manufacturers suggested retail price, next to your price. Make the two prices very clear so that shoppers will realize what a great bargain they are receiving.

Retail Selling Strategy #2

Offer free promotional items. If you want to increase your retail sales you should strongly consider using promotional items. Promotional items should have a high perceived value, such as a free DVD or CD. Give them away with every purchase over a certain amount. You can offer a higher priced value giveaway for larger purchases.

A clever retail idea is to figure out what your average retail sale is, then offer a give away for sales higher than that average. This strategy should increase your average sale since people will want the giveaway.

Retail Selling Strategy #3

Offer a loss leader. A loss leader is a product which you sell to bring attention to your store. If customers are used to paying $1 for a pair of socks, but you sell them for .05 each, you will have customers lining up to buy them from you.

You will be losing money on the socks, but think of how many other items your customers will buy once they are in your store.

Donny Lowy runs http://www.closeoutexplosion.com an online wholesale and closeout business that supplies eBay sellers, retailers, and flea market vendors.

Here’s a chilling thought. If you were to die tomorrow, would you have the same two regrets that many business people share?

According to a study, just before people die, if they express any regrets at all, those regrets tend to fall into two categories. The bigger, by far, is regret they didn’t do better by other people. Such as, they didn’t spend enough quality time with their children. Or they didn’t end the feud with their sister. Or they let pass too many opportunities to say “I love you.”

The second area is, people regret they didn’t try to do something. They regret they chickened out and didn’t try to open a restaurant, for example. Or they didn’t try to write a book. Or they didn’t try being an actor in addition to being an accountant. They looked into the future, got scared, and didn’t push ahead to make their dreams come true.

Starting today you can keep it from happening to you. Call someone you have been avoiding. Make a date with your kids — no matter how old they are — to do something special with them. If you’ve been dreaming about changing your career or starting a new business, then today, on your way home, drop into a bookstore and buy two books on your dream subject. It’s time for action.

Because of the miracles of modern medicine, the fastest growing demographic is people over 80. The odds are you’ll live a long life. Make it a rich and fulfilling life. Starting today, do better by other people and be willing to try more new things. Otherwise, you might live to regret what you didn’t do.

Doug Smart is the co-author of the book, “Reach for the Stars.” He is a management development consultant, professional speaker, and host of the daily motivational radio show, “Smarter by the Minute.” For more information, email Doug@DougSmart.com. Copyright 2005 by Doug Smart

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