Get The Most out of Sales by Improving Your Selling Techniques!

When you sit down and talk with a successful professional salesperson, you will notice certain personality traits and techniques which are the primary reason for them excelling at their profession. I recently had a chance to sit down with a sales professional who makes around $1.4 million a year just selling her product to companies and individuals. How does she do this? She shared several important aspects with me that will help anyone improve their overall sales:

1. Know your product. She could not stress this enough. Her first step in training her employees is giving them a vigorous class on her products, including the history and exactly why there is a need for her products in society. This, after all, is the root of sales: Why do people need this product?

2. Never, never take a rejection personally. They are not disliking you, they just do not need your product. She shared a personal story with me about going an entire year without making a single sale. That would have been a good time to give up or take it personally, but she chose to stay in a positive mindset and tell herself that things would turn around eventually. And, like always, she experienced a boom soon after that.

3. Each no is a step closer to a yes. If a client says no, you have not done your job. You did not get to know the client well enough to be able to tell him why he should buy your product. You must take every experience, good or bad, as a learning experience. Reflect on what went well, what went poorly and what you could do differently next time. In that way, every experience is valuable.

You can take this thinking one step further and work out your current conversion rate. Once you have this information, you know the exact number of times someone has to say no before you get a sale.

4. Visualize the sale in two ways. The first way is to paint a picture in the clients mind. She said that some of her best employees had the gift of visualizing a world where everyone had the product, and because of that, their lives were better. They were then able to transmit this idea to clients and help them visualize the product in their lives. The best salespeople are able to tell a client exactly why they should buy their product, not use generic reasons. Giving this vision to clients is the first step to closing the sale.

The second way is take a moment out before you talk to a client. Imagine in your minds eye that the client is agreeing to what you are saying. Even create the vision of seeing the client signing on the dotted line. By doing this you can create calm in yourself and this subconscious confidence will shine through when talking to your client.

Truly, it was a pleasure to sit and talk to this sales professional about the techniques she has used to improve her status over the years. Hopefully you will be able to use her advice to improve your own sales experience.

Andrew Palmer has 10 years experience in finance and 6 years in sales. For further information please check out this website ClosingTechniques.blogspot.com/

If you have been reading my articles then its very possible that you have a very good understanding of Article Marketing and all of its benefits. The benefits of article marketing are hard earned because you have to take the time to manually submit articles to each and every single directory and if you really want exponential traffic then this will take some time; if you visit this Internet Marketing Industry blog I will share tips on how you can cut back on time but for now lets focus on the actual topic.

As Article Publishers we write for several reasons – if you own a website then perhaps the reason is search engine rank improvement or maybe you’re looking to increase your direct traffic. At the end of the day all web writers write for the same purpose and that is exposure. If you continue to submit valuable content to these directories then you will in turn gain more backlinks to your page resulting in an increase in your direct traffic. Since you gain new backlinks this will have an auto effect on your search engine ranking so you dont really need much emphasis on that particular aspect because it will occur naturally.

There are hundreds of reasons to submit articles, for list building, to increase sales or to settle yourself as a brand on your Niche; whichever your reason I recommend that you have patience and learn all of the basic – I talk about article marketing all the time on my blog (Frusketing.com) I recommend you visit and take it all in like a sponge so that you can attain the same level of success I’ve earned.

One of the powerful things about article marketing, especially if you are building a list, is that subscribers who come to you after reading one of your articles tend to buy more than subscribers who come to you from many other traffic sources. Generally, when someone subscribes to your list after reading one or several of your articles, they already are beginning to trust you, and might buy from you sooner than someone who needs to read several emails from you and perhaps communicate online before they will purchase. Article writing simply provides a unique opportunity for you too attract subscribers to your list who have a prequalified interest and trust in you.

Maintaining Patience as it All Comes Together. When you first get started with article marketing, things will probably move slowly for you. One of the things that happen with article marketing is an exponential effect.

When you have only 3 articles written, you are not going to have a flood of traffic. But if you write and submit a few articles a day for several weeks or months, you will begin to experience an incredible effect, and it will all become worthwhile.

Remember, you will continue to receive the effects of articles you have written for as long as they are online and published. So when you have 10 articles or 100 articles online, you will have 10 times or 100 times the traffic that you will receive after the first article. It is easy to become discouraged when you have written just a few articles, and your revenue is not consistent with the time you put into article writing and submission. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you are only going to write a few articles and then quit, you might as well not write or submit any articles.

Article marketing is extremely powerful, but it is most powerful when there is a cumulative effect, and that cumulative effect takes time and multiple articles and submissions.

Ruben is an experienced Internet Marketer who has over 4 years of experience in the Internet Marketing Industry. He firmly believes in bum marketing techniques because everyone starts at the bottom and there has to be some free techniques available to grow your business. Tune into my blog and articles for great tips on free marketing. Check out his blog at Internet Marketing Industry Blog

As a marketing consultant, I was invited to be a faculty member of the Business Success Institute, a fledgling creation of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, through which business owners and managers are brought together for lectures and workshops on finance, human resources, sales and marketing.

Being active in Arizona marketing, I was gratified to see how The Institute gained a lot of momentum due to a format that brought people together to listen to speakers and discuss subjects of mutual vital interest. Presenters, as well as attendees, were energized by carefully planned agendas as well as impromptu discussions.

Marketing in Arizona has become sophisticated in direct proportion to the growth in business opportunities across a wide spectrum. At a recent session of the Institute headed by yours truly, there was much interest in a document compiled by Adam Urbanski that I shared with the group. As a longstanding practitioner of Phoenix Public relations, I found the group to be particularly interested in the PR aspects it introduces. It is reproduced below, with my best wishes to other people involved in Arizona advertising and related disciplines.

15 Irrefutable Marketing Proficiencies

1. PASSION

I’m passionate about why I’m in business. What I do impacts who and what I care about. Performing my regular work activities gives me joy, re-energizes me and is my way of contributing to the world.

2. VISION

I can see where my business will be in the future. I’m excited to undertake the tasks necessary to get there. When I talk about my business, people around me become enthusiastic and willingly lend their support.

3. STRATEGY

My business is strategically driven by a long-term plan. I don’t get distracted by “busy work”. All activities are results driven. I evaluate all opportunities based on my strategic plan.

4. CLARITY

I’m clear about whom my ideal clients are, what problems I solve for them and how I do it. This clarity allows me to save time, money and energy; I only contact and follow-up with people who want and appreciate my services.

5. UNIQUENESS

What I do and how I do it differentiates me from others and creates “top-of-mind” awareness in my chosen niche. My business is unique, so I don’t have competition. Others, who offer similar services, simply provide an opportunity for me to sharpen my skills, outsource overflow work and create strategic alliances.

6. MESSAGE

My introduction easily and powerfully communicates who I am and what I do. My message is clear and memorable even to people who don’t need my services. My introduction is benefit-based, jargon-free, describes my ideal clients, their biggest problem and the solution I provide.

7. IDENTITY

My business identity is an extension of who I am. All aspects of my business – from my business cards, to stationary, to web site, to my personal appearance – present a consistent, attractive image that’s appropriate for my industry.

8. MOMENTUM

My marketing strategies and activities are in line with my strengths and talents. It’s easy for me to promote my business because I love what I do, know the value I create and use only promotional activities I enjoy. I promote my business consistently and continuously and never allow the work I do for clients to break my marketing momentum.

9. METRICS

I don’t guess how well my business is doing. I have identified and regularly track specific, easy to measure performance indicators. At any point I can assess my progress against my written 90-day, six-month and one-year benchmarks.

10. SYSTEMS

All routine functions of my business are systematic; they are always done the same way and create predictable results every time. Lead generation, follow-up, keeping up clients’ files, tracking important dates, submitting proposals, sales process – I have a system for each one of those activities that allows me to complete them effectively and efficiently.

11. VALUE

I recognize that my clients buy not what I do but the value my work creates. I regularly attend training events and schedule activities that support me in learning fresh, valuable information (in- and outside of my area of expertise) so I become more indispensable to my clients. I’m clear about the value I deliver so I never hesitate to state my fees, recommend my business and ask for the job.

12. TOOLS

My promotional resources are limited so I make them count; they illustrate my expertise and pre-sell my services. All my marketing materials describe my ideal clients, list the problems I solve and communicate the benefits of working with me. I use tools like articles, public presentations, teleclasses, workshops, regularly updated content on my web site, and regularly-published newsletter to attract new business and maintain connection with clients and strategic partners.

13. RELATIONSHIPS

I love my clients. I respect who they are and cherish the opportunity to be on their team. I recognize that they are people first and clients next. I strive to learn about their personal lives. I take note of and acknowledge their important dates – like birthdays and anniversaries. I’m there when they need support and celebrate their victories.

14. TEAM

I recognize my weaknesses and that I’m not an expert at everything. To bridge my shortcomings, I surround myself with other experts on whom I can readily call for support or refer clients to. They become my partners and board of advisors and help me grow my business.

15. MINDSET

I recognize that how I think about marketing and selling my services may limit my ability to grow my business. I make a conscious effort to continuously expand my marketing mindset. I look for and learn strategies that allow me to better leverage my unique talents and expertise as my best promotional tools.

Allan Starr founded Marketing Partners in 1976. The Phoenix-based firm provides local, regional, national and international strategic marketing, advertising, public relations and sales promotion services for a diverse client list. He also has been a nationally known photographer, award winning copywriter and editor/publisher of national trade magazines. http://www.markpart.com

Given the current downturn, any organisation should be looking at their marketing spend with a high level of scrutiny. However, it must be noted that hanging up on marketing altogether may put your company out of business as opposed to keeping it in the game. The big three US automobile manufacturers, GM, Chrysler and Ford, for example, have blamed their recent, heavy losses and disastrous sales situation on their marketing strategies and not the quality of their vehicles. This proves, yet again, that when under stress, marketing can really make or break your business.

Compared to other forms of marketing, outbound B2B Telemarketing is a measurable, flexible medium which is thriving despite our current downturn. Precision Marketing Magazine’s October 2008 issue highlighted the fact that specialist outbound agencies are seeing growth, stating that: “outbound telemarketing looks like one of the major bargains in the direct marketing industry. At less than the cost of a daily newspaper, clients can recruit a customer, warm up a prospect or capture vital data”.

For what appears to be a costly marketing channel, this might seem to be a paradox, but the growth of the high quality end of the Telemarketing industry is a clear sign that returns are high despite the torrential economic downpour. Sending out yet another piece of direct mail is cheap, but embarking on a quality Telemarketing campaign delivers real value.

When put in layman’s terms it is really quite simple: even in a recession, all businesses can sell more and there are few more cost effective ways to do this than commission a team of highly articulate, trained professions to research leads; set up appointments; and even sell your product or service for you too. Of course, given the headcount freezes and layoffs in many organisations, employing more staff might be impossible – but outsourcing could be your answer.

One of the most important pieces of guidance given to companies in a downturn is to outsource their non-core activities. Outbound B2B telemarketing fits exactly into the category of the type of activity which is best outsourced to experts, who have the scale, experience and technology to deliver good results. Outsourcing also gives true flexibility – if a campaign isn’t working, you can stop quickly without worrying about redundancies. On the other hand, if you need to scale up then an agency can respond quickly too, making the most of opportunities. The agency route works well with tactical campaigns as well, like product launches. In easier times this kind of work might have been delivered by an in-house call centre, but as internal resources come under increasing pressure an agency should offer a low risk alternative. It is an obvious solution to an ever increasing problem: companies need more sales and less staff.

One other major benefit of outbound Telemarketing is that it provides insight and intelligence through the massive numbers of dialogues with prospects that it delivers. An experienced team should uncover and feed back important market and competitor information, which can be particularly important when markets are changing so quickly.

As we approach the New Year, one resolution every business should have in mind is to look again at how you are going to increase sales – if you’re not using telemarketing, you will be missing a trick.

Matt Crick is wrtiting for The Telemarketing Company, based on the Brighton sea front and is the UK

Are you planning to invest some bucks to purchase reliable and good performer web hosting account to host your official website or personal blog then you are on right place as in this article we are going to discover some of the facts of web hosting along with advantages of an managed hosting account compare to unmanaged web hosting as you can save a lot of your valuable time in spending of frustrations regarding a lot of technical queries and responsibilities as a webmaster for any website by using a well performer managed hosting account.

The reasons why to opt a managed web hosting account compare to unmanaged cheaper web hosting service are as follows:

No Downtime: Your online website works as official brand of your company presence over the internet thus it’s a must for you to make your site alive 24*7 hrs for the world wide web visitors so that they can access your website without any such issues like downtime. Major online web hosting providers gives you 99.9% uptime guarantee while the fact is this that its too insufficient to the practical need for better presence in front of your customers thus you need a web hosting company which can ensure you 100% optimal uptime as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer 100% uptime in real due to their multi-home bandwidth network lines.

When you are a newbie webmaster even it’s a must for you to ensure that your web hosting provider gives you 100% uptime guarantee in this manner you can cut off a lot of hassles and frustration sort of unwanted things in your daily business role with your website.

Better Equipments: There are a lot of managed web hosting providers over the internet world which gives you 30 minutes or even 15 minutes hardware replacement guarantee sort of unmatchable performance for your website as when your hardware by chance goes failed this is a must as nobody knows what’s going on when as everybody just know either the past of the presence nothing can be predicated for future reference point of view when you are dealing practically over any such technical things as web servers.

Better Support: When you go to search any web hosting company you shall check their Support SLA things to let you know that how good they are to the support needs as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer you maximum 30 minutes guaranteed response over your any trouble with your website so it’s always better to keep your eyes on their detailed SLA agreement too so you can secure yourself that you are working with the best supporting team for your web hosting needs.

Remote backups: Proper planning for backups shall be always carried when you host your website anywhere on internet and if you have a properly planned remote backup that makes you 200% more secure to what you are doing on internet.

So next time you think about web hosting then I recommend you prefer managed web hosting solution to ensure that you are having the best with you over the internet planet.

Anand is a web developer for Reseller Hosting & Reseller Web Hosting visit: http://www.resellerhost.in/