Yes, the economy is lagging and budgets are cut. Yes, we have competition. Yes, clients are postponing buying decisions.

So what?

If you focus on building relationships and implement the sales strategies I reveal here, you’ll be able to close more deals and get more sales now. People will buy from you even in a lagging economy — no matter what your price point.

3 Ways to Get In, Get Started, and Close More Deals

Sales Closing Tip 1: Recommend New Approaches

Good salespeople have always talked about creating value. Now we need to put ourselves in our clients’ shoes and be creative. We must get in and get started. Think smart, not big. It’s always smarter to have a smaller piece of something, than a big piece of nothing. Begin with a smaller project, a reduced order, or a regional, rather than global, implementation. Get in, and get to know the client. Let them get to know you. Get to know their business.

Sales Closing Tip 2: Create Metrics

Sit on the same side of the table as your client. Work together to determine the best way to get started. Always, always, create metrics with your client. How do you, together, define success? Get agreement that once this project is successful—according to the metrics you’ve agreed upon—that the client will work with you to identify other sales opportunities within their organization. A successful project breeds a successful relationship, which leads to successful referrals. This means more sales leads and more money for you!

Sales Closing Tip 3: Negotiate or Walk

Yes, the client will want to negotiate on price. That’s their job—to build business while watching the bottom line. How many times have you submitted a sales proposal to a client, and had them say, right off the bat, “Great! Where do I sign?” It doesn’t happen. We always want to get the best deal, so why wouldn’t our clients?

If you must adjust your price, then adjust the scale of your project or the deliverables as well. Always get something in return and write it into your agreement. Maybe the client agrees to write a testimonial or promises to refer you to another business unit in their organization, or to someone they know at a different company. Maybe you barter some of your services. Bartering is an age-old way of doing business, and it makes sense in many cases if you want what they have and they need what you have. Perhaps the client has software that your company needs, or a consulting methodology that could propel your business. You get the picture. Work it out.

If you can’t work things out, be willing to walk away. It’s a tough decision, but it may be your best strategic sales decision. You’ll be off to the next client who values what you offer and is willing to pay for it.

If you follow my advice in this article and in my book, No More Cold Calling™, you will build lifetime customer relationships with clients who want to buy from you over and over again even in a lagging economy. You will get more referrals. And, you will close more sales.

So, what are you waiting for? Get in and get started now!

About the Author:

America’s leading authority on referral selling and founder of No More Cold Calling®, Joanne Black helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners get more referrals and attract business fast without increasing the cost of sales. Discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time even in a lagging economy with her No More Cold Calling sales programs at http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com.

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Young Entrepreneur: Word-of-mouth is certainly the best form of marketing available. In a recent study by the authority site emarketer.com, it was shown that fully 53% of online traffic comes from word-of-mouth – recommendations and referrals made by others.

The growth of the Internet has certainly enhanced the potential for positive results from word-of-mouth referrals. News used to take a lot longer to spread when the telephone was the most effective means of communication. News can now travel at lightning speeds through the many forms of e-mail, instant messaging, SMS text messaging and the Web 2.0 children – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

Nowadays, in Internet marketing terms, it is relatively easy to prompt people for a recommendation. “Tell a friend” scripts are easy to promote and these messages stand a great chance of reaching their proposed recipients, due to the fact that they are coming from a trusted friend or acquaintance. Recognizable e-mail addresses normally sail past those pesky spam filters.

There are many ways to generate valuable online publicity through the use of press release services. You should have a clear strategy, defined and regular, and strive to incorporate different tactics. A series of written press releases should aim to show your product or service as relevant and “hot”. Create a buzz around your product. Inject some controversy and color and always aim to establish yourself as a credible expert in your niche.

One of the beauties of the Internet as we know it today is its ability to provide viral exposure. Whilst aiming to brand yourself as the credible expert, consider giving something of value away for free. Make sure that you research this well, however, so that your intended audience feels that you truly are giving away something of value and that this is not just your opinion!

Find out what value and what kind of information your target audience is looking for. Are they looking for inspiration, or simply a lighthearted message of some kind? Use the many Internet distribution channels to provide something of perceived value at little or no cost. Never employ the hard sell – but do make sure that you include subtle links so that interested people can find you.

Why word of mouth is still the best form of marketing [Young Entrepreneur]

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Marketing to Women Online: You want to reach moms? You want word-of-mouth advertising? You want moms to get on board with your brand or product and to tap into the influence they have with their friends and family?

Meet the mommy blogger.

Companies small and large are trying to climb on to the mommy blogger bandwagon. Advertising Age recently did a story about the phenomenon - Inside the Mommy Blogger Business.

Despite their lightweight moniker, mommy bloggers have become marketing business heavyweights. Now said to number in the millions, these online women have cobbled together content networks that rival some mainstream media companies. And they're clearly a force that retailers underestimate at their own peril. In this "About Digital" report, we talk to a retail giant, an analyst, major publisher and a PR agency to better understand how various segments of the industry are adjusting to this phenomenon.

There's a reason why mommy bloggers are gaining the attention and respect of advertisers.

eMarketer just published the results from the 2009 Social Media study from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners. The study found that:

Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs. Nearly 23 million of the social media users read blogs.

But many women went beyond merely reading: 12 million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.

In fact, women who used blogs were more than twice as likely to do so when they were seeking information, advice and recommendations than were women who participated in social networking.

When providing advice or contributing to a community, more women also turned to blogs than social networks.

“The scale of social media usage among US women continues to grow, and blogs remain the go-to resource for those who want to gather information, share ideas and get reliable advice,” said Elisa Camahort Page, COO of BlogHer.

There's another reason why advertisers are reaching out to mommy bloggers.

In her book Too Busy To Shop, Kelley Skoloda talks about the importance of the "messenger." Women listen to messages from trusted sources. An advertising message in a commercial is one thing. But that message delivered by a trusted credible source carries a lot more weight.

With the bombardment of consumer information, a more transient society, and significant time constraints, more women are turning to less conventional sources, such as blogs, social networking sites, and Web sites, to get trusted information and recommendations.

In fact, these interactive sites are becoming extended networks of friends and family. These virtual neighborhoods give women access to many other women who are in the same life stage as they are, making the topics and discussions very relevant to what they want to know and where they are in life.

The bottom line for advertisers and brands is this - women, especially moms are reading and interacting with blogs in record numbers. It's where they are at.

Mommy Bloggers - Why Advertisers Want Them [Marketing to Women Online]

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Almost everyone associates the telemarketing industry with outbound call centers. You know, the gigantic room full of people with headsets on, “cold calling” customers to make sales, generate leads, or collect information for surveys. There’s another kind of telemarketing, though- think customer service 1-800 numbers, customer help desks, or order processing over the phone. Inbound telemarketing is becoming a popular way to outsource processes that businesses might not have the staff capacity to handle. Here are a few ways you can use inbound telemarketing to benefit your business:

Order Processing
Inbound call centers can take customer orders over the phone and even process sales when customers pay with credit cards. Any business with time restrictions, such as those whose employees only work during business hours, can take advantage of this extended availability- the more you’re available to customers, the more sales you’ll make. You can also use inbound call centers for order processing for their language capabilities. While you might not have the resources to hire sales representatives that speak Spanish, Japanese, or Tagalog, an inbound call center does- this allows you to reach and communicate with more potential customers in a language they’re comfortable speaking.

24/7 Customer Service
If your employees can’t be available for customers at all hours of the day, inbound telemarketing offers a solution. Many businesses assign a 1-800 number to a telemarketing firm for in order to give customers around the clock access. Businesses like banks, hotels, and insurance companies that need to provide constant access use inbound telemarketing companies to fill the gaps when their own employees aren’t available to answer questions, fix billing errors, or file claim reports. If your company could benefit from offering 24/7 support to customers, telemarketing is an option you should consider.

Helpdesk and Customer Support
If you sell a technical product, such as software, it can be a good idea to use dedicated telephone service representatives- telemarketing company employees trained by your business that only answer calls on behalf of your company- rather than employing a full-time helpdesk employee as a member of your own staff. You can also reach more customers- telemarketing companies keep longer hours, employ representatives with different language capabilities, and are able to stay open to customers in different time zones more easily.

Lead Generation and Appointment Setting
Inbound telemarketing is often used for lead generation and appointment setting. You can direct sales leads to call the telemarketing company directly to set up a sales appointment, or gather sales lead information when customers place calls for more information about your products or services.

Inbound call centers can be used for several purposes in addition to those mentioned above. Inbound call centers can assist with promotional contests (such as radio call-ins) can help collect survey or donation information, or for any other service you can think of that might benefit your business. It’s always a good idea to speak with at least a few different companies before making a decision about which company to choose.

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Have you ever known someone who could immediately make friends with anyone? You know they type. They can build instant rapport and it doesn’t matter about race, age, or gender. They can walk into a room and befriend everyone from a priest, a mechanic, and the CEO. Afterward you are scratching your head wondering…how did they do it?

In most cases it is because they have mastered several key skills. Sometimes it is something they learn naturally. For most people they have just spent the time improving their skills.

There are four basic personality styles that vary based on the type and amount of information needed to make a decision. Pragmatics and analyticals base decisions on facts and data while amiables and extroverts make decisions based on emotion and feelings. Pragmatics and Extroverts need just enough information to make a decision (and no more!) while analyticals and amiables just can’t get enough.

You can learn more about personality styles in my article Mastering the four personality styles.

Brandt Smith is a sales, marketing, public speaking, and professional development expert. Learn about achieving wealth and life balance through entrepreneurship at Wealth and Wisdom, where he is cofounder and senior editor. Their advice on wealth building, personal development, and life balance can help take you to the next level. You can also read more of his thoughts on his blog.

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There are thousands of forums on the web ranging from any subject imaginable. Forums are a collection of people interested in specific subject collaboration with one another. Forums even have top experts in those fields answering questions and offering advice at no cost. Forums allow for user interaction through question and answer boards. These boards have moderators to prevent spammers from ruining the forums goals.

Forums are becoming more popular every day as people want to communicate with one another via the web. Forums are a great place to find an answer to technical questions or get some expert advice. Larger forums receive thousands of visitors a day, bringing together a community of experts in a specific field or industry. Besides helping you find answers, forums can be a valuable tool for site promotion (search engine optimization), increasing traffic (search engine marketing), and proving that you really are an expert in a specific field (building credibility).

The more exposure you and your business receives, the better off your company will be in the long run. As more and more web users see your company they will be inclined to view your website and learn what you have to offer. This can ultimately lead to increased sales for your business and higher search engine rankings. You must remember that every customer has the potential to negatively impact your business with a negative rating or feedback, so be sure to treat each customer with the upmost respect and courtesy so they will recommend you to others.

Search Engine Optimization Benefits

Forums are a great way to get a new site indexed by the major search engines. Since the search engines require a listing fee and have extremely long waiting periods to be indexed in their results, forums make a great alternative. Forums can get a new site indexed in the search engines at no cost and in as little as 3 days. All you need to do is find a high traffic forum that is indexed frequently and place a link of your new site in a post or signature. Signatures are a place at the bottom of every post you make that is reserved for customized note, saying, or link. If you want to utilize the signature for Search Engine Optimization purposes then you want to find forums that do not have the No Follow tag and place a link to your website in the signature. You will get a one-way link to your site, which is very good. To make the link even more valuable, make sure you are posting in a forum related to your website and you have keyword rich anchor text in your signature.

I have compiled a list of some of the top forums that currently do not use the No Follow Tag. Posting in these forums will get you a back link to your website, which is very helpful for search engine optimization.

techsupportforum.com/
v7n.com/forums
webproworld.com/
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
webhostingtalk.com
forum.mambo-foundation.org
simplemachines.org

Search Engine Marketing Benefits

Forums benefit Search Engine Marketing plans as you can easily market your company and build up positive feedback for yourself. There are hundreds of forums you can post in. You want to look for forums that are relevant to your industry. Do not sign up for comic book forums, when your company is selling medical equipment. Sign up for the comic book forum on your own time with another user name. You want to build up your company’s reputation through forums that are related to your line of business.

When you post frequently in forums you begin to build up a reputation for yourself. Building up a positive relationship with your fellow forums members can establish a positive feedback towards you and your business. As we all know in this Web 2.0 world where users can interact with one another it is imperative to have positive feedback. Even one bad complaint can have irreversible negative ramifications upon your business. To avoid this be respectful to each customer and treat them as you would expect to be treated.

Posting new threads and responding to questions posted by members can build up your reputation and make you an authoritative figure, assisting with your search engine marketing. Make sure your posts are relevant to the thread. Do not spam every thread trying to build up your reputation.

Forums display the number of posts a member made next to the user name and avatar. The more posts shown by you, the more respected you become. Members with certain amounts of posts receive badges given out by the forums. Basically, the more you post in the forum the higher badge, deemed as credibility, you will be awarded.

In essence, forums are a strong marketing place. Not only do forums benefit search engine optimization, but they also help with search engine marketing. Any webmaster should take place in some sort of forum posting, whether it be for building links or obtaining a positive reputation for your company, forums are imperative to a websites success.

About the Author:
Brandon Leibowitz is an expert search engine optimization and marketing consultant. For a complete list of do follow forums visit his website at http://www.SeoOptimizers.com. Read his SEO and SEM Blog at http://blog.seooptimizers.com

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Get BACK IN BLACK (BI-B) and back in business by gathering- and using knowledge of your lost business - lost trades. The 5 step program for sales managers and directors shows you exactly how. And you'll see what a difference it could make to your profits if you start to convert lost trades to future actual trades. For more information on Business Intelligence Systems handling lost business visit: http://www.lost-trade-systems.com or you might want to read a newly published book: The Lost-Trade System.

Step 1 - Decide on strategic use of using knowledge of lost trades to improve future performance. Making a smart strategic decision to change your workflow and your daily sales work starting by converting your lost trades to future won trades is now critical to the success of an organization; however the management of sales leads is often very haphazard. If you're spending a great deal of time and money acquiring sales leads only to fail to maximize on their potential. If you are losing countless deals and money you need to make a strategic decision and act now. And some of the most successful sales organizations in the financial sector have been doing exactly this for years.

Step 2 - Capture your lost trades (leads) effectively. Registering lost trades should be as natural as capturing an actual customer trade. Start capturing your lost trades in an Excel spreadsheet posted on the company intranet or by using a relational database and a web interface. About 75% of sales managers are using Excel spreadsheets - So Excel could be a core base for lost trades or enquiries that did not result in margin and revenue. Although using Excel spreadsheets should be a popular method for handling lost enquiries and storing this information, 68% of those who use it on a daily basis are unhappy with its performance. In order to move business forward, sales organizations should - on sight - find a solution to modernize and streamline their daily processes in a way. Believe me; the value of this lost trade database will only grow over time.

Step 3 - Start benchmarking your looses versus your actual trades. To drive business forward, retain customers and create sales, it is essential to understand what business you did not have - your lost trades - and compare it the business you did had, and visualizing long run loosing trends, using appropriate metrics. Using this ‘two ledger' approach will give sales reports detailed analysis of what needs to be done, this will allow you a detailed insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your teams performance, and to make informed business decisions. Ex: You will spot leaving customers before it happens

Step 4 - Create knowledge of lost business data to create new business. Use the information supplied by the graphs of long run losing trends to create knowledge about which of your customers are about to leave, which product are underperforming and which competitors are stealing your business to identify future areas to improve upon. Use this knowledge to take action to get back in black in step 5.

Step 5 - Take action daily based on your new knowledge to maximize your sales revenue and even reach for higher sales targets. It's easier to maximize existing opportunities if you have an accurate record of all enquiries from customers - Both your actual trades and your lost trades - You will in light the ‘dark side of the sales moon ‘and use these as sales leads that have reached a positive conclusion, retaining customers and cross-selling or up-selling. Manage these opportunities effectively using the right methodology and technology in your daily work in sales, and you'll see what a difference it could make to your profits.

About the Author:
Jesper Thorlund is an economist, BI advisor and systems developer. He has been working with business intelligence and data warehouse solutions for more than 12 years as a consultant in major financial and govermental institutions. He publishes and lectures on the strategic use of business intelligence and founded Lost Trade Systems - A BI Research Company, which specializes in bringing new insights and value to businesses by working methodically with lost trades. He co-authored the bestselling book Business Intelligence, From Strategy to Data Sources (2008), available as Business Analytics in English in the SAS Press Business Series, August 2009.

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Every time I turn on the news I feel like screaming. I am sick and tired of hearing about how bad the economy is. Unemployment is up and is only going to get worse. Banks are in trouble and going under. Real estate is a mess and there is no end in sight. Major corporations are going bankrupt - heck, even the big three automakers may go under.

I hear about how this is the next great depression. I hear about the collapse of the dollar, the collapse of the western world, and the end of society as we know it.

It Isn't As Bad As It Sounds
The sad part is that it isn't all that bad. Yes the economy stinks, but this is only when compared to the amazing boom we experienced in the last decade. Companies have been able to go after the low hanging fruit-heck, there was more lying on the ground than you could pick up!

Just because the ground isn't littered with business anymore doesn't mean that there isn't business out there. You just have to work for it. And the past decade of easy business means that most companies have not made the connections and built relationships. Now they pay the price.

And at the end of the day, now is the time where entrepreneurs can really shine.
No, I'm not crazy. Think about what a true entrepreneur does.

• He connects with his customer


• identifies his needs and problems


• then creates products and services to fill those needs or problems

In other words, he gets paid to solve problems

Now more than ever companies are in trouble. Your customer desperately needs you. No, he isn't spending indiscriminately. But if you solve his problem and help him survive (or thrive) in this downturn he will be your customer for life. And you solve your "slow business" problem at the same time. Only an entrepreneur can do this, and you finally have an advantage over larger companies.

Simple, but Hard to Do
This is a simple concept that is hard to do. I've written several articles that are aimed at this:

• Recessionproof your sales


• How to Thrive in a Recession


• How to Thrive in a Recession - Ignore the News


• How to Thrive in a Recession - It’s All About the Customer


• How to Thrive in a Recession - Working for Someone Else


Brandt Smith is a sales, marketing, public speaking, and professional development expert. Learn about achieving wealth and life balance through entrepreneurship at Wealth and Wisdom, where he is cofounder and senior editor. Their advice on wealth building, personal development, and life balance can help take you to the next level. You can also read more of his thoughts on his blog.

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Inventor Resource: Selling a new invention is a specialist activity. Nonetheless, there’s no reason why an inventor shouldn’t become involved in marketing. After all, the better an invention sells, the greater the business interest in future ideas.

Use this checklist to see whether your business or licensing company is using every means to sell your invention. Some sales techniques may be more suited to your invention than others, of course; but in marketing you have to look at every angle.

Please note that if you consider but reject some of the items on the checklist, ensure you have good reasons for the rejection.

Budget
There should be a marketing budget in place with accurate figures for each part of the marketing process. If you need help creating a marketing budget, consult an accountant.

Marketing budget in place.
Individual amounts within the budget approved.

Branding
Consider using a brand name for your invention. Brand names are useful marketing tools – look at the success of Virgin, for example. Brand names can create brand loyalty among customers and make the sale of future products easier.

Media Kit
It can be helpful to pass a media kit to any journalist who makes enquiries about your invention and company. The media kit can contain product details, your biography, company history, and even a product sample, if appropriate.

Market Research
Market research can tell you how successful your invention is likely to be, and if you need to make some changes.
Although market research essentially consists of asking questions and collating replies, it may be best to contract a specialist to do this. A good market research company knows who to target and exactly how to phrase questions.

Product Evaluation
Inventors and businesses sometimes neglect product evaluation. Evaluation tells you, however, how much your product will cost to produce, and how much you need to sell it for to cover additional costs and make a profit. In the marketing context, product evaluation can therefore help you decide how much money you can use for sales and promotion.

Public Relations
Public relations companies can launch and promote your invention to gain it maximum media and public exposure. It can be worth talking to PR companies to see what they can do for you.

Advertising Media
The nature of your invention may dictate the advertising media you employ. Consider advertising with the following.
TV, Radio, The Internet, Newspapers and magazines, Direct mail.

Product Placement
Product placement is particularly effective for general consumer goods, especially when linked to a brand name. Generally speaking, it involves placing your product in the public eye by sponsoring conferences, radio shows, TV programmes, and even films.
On TV dramas and films, your product may also appear in some camera shots.

Trade Fairs And Conferences
Running a stand at a trade fair or industry conference is a good way of promoting your invention, and networking with possible wholesalers, retailers, and consumers.

Abroad
Always consider the possibility of selling abroad. You need to address issues such as currency differences, export regulations, and local laws; nonetheless, the UK government can give expert advice. Contact the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

Focusing On The Benefits
Ensure that your advertising focuses on the benefits of your invention. The benefits are what potential buyers want to read about. They need to know what problems your invention solves, and what it can do to help them.

Advertising focuses on the benefits of the invention

Flexibility
Marketing, like other aspects of business, needs a flexible approach. If sales are poor, those responsible for marketing your invention must respond quickly and positively.

Everyone involved in marketing has a flexible approach

Offers
Consider using promotional offers for your invention. You don’t need to reduce the price – you can add something free of charge, for example. If you think a promotional offer is worth looking at, try testing it first with some market research.

Marketing Plan
A marketing plan focuses attention on how to sell your invention. It should also encompass every relevant point made on this checklist. Your local business advice centre may be able to give you assistance with creating a marketing plan if necessary.

Plan written
Plan regularly reviewed

Marketing Checklist: Will it Sell? [Inventor Resource]

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Article Contributed By Robbie Kellman Baxter

I'll admit it-I'm a Facebook junkie. I also have accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and my college and business school communities that I diligently keep current. But I love Facebook. I love playing WordTwist with my dad, my sister and my college friends. I love reading status updates and knowing who's organizing their sock drawer and who's inspired by Thomas Friedman's latest article. I love looking at photos of people's vacations and scanned images from camps and bar mitzvahs of the 80s.

I also believe that my time on Facebook is about more than just fun. It's actually a way of building deeper relationships with people in my professional community. People ask me all the time why I spend so much time on Facebook-and I tell them that it's good for business. Look at who's using it most-people just out of college and people on the cutting edge of technology-VCs, entrepreneurs, industry analysts. It's obvious that it is the way we will be communicating in the future. So you might as well figure it out now.

Below are the top reasons my professional colleagues are staying off Facebook-with my rebuttals.

1. It's a time-sink.

You can spend the whole day playing on Facebook. Some of my personal favorite time wasters include browsing the photo albums of acquaintances, clicking on the pages of friends-of-friends to learn about their interests, playing WordTwist, and watching funny videos. Robbie says: there are so many ways to waste time-you can waste time watching TV, or chatting on the phone-but that doesn't mean we give up TVs or phones. Treat Facebook the way you might treat any other type of connecting activities-phone, face-to-face etc. First, make sure you only participate in ways that are enjoyable for you. Second, be disciplined about how, and how much, time is spent on Facebook.

2. It infringes on my privacy.

This is a big concern with my colleagues. What if my boss saw that my status said that I was in a job interview, or was nursing a hangover? What if a prospective client saw the photos of a girls weekend-what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. Do I really want my grandma to know that I'm politically liberal? Certain status updates could lead to some uncomfortable conversations that never had to happen. Robbie says: Facebook has many ways to protect your privacy. You can limit your entire presence on Facebook, down to your name, to your network or just your personal friends. You can choose not to post comments or photos that might conflict with the image you choose to project. It should go without saying that posting "...hates her job" or "...is soooo wasted" should not be posted (or emailed for that matter) anywhere public.

3. It could be dangerous.

The privacy issue can go one step further into more dangerous territory. For example, there are probably dozens of scams that are based on information that is easily obtained on Facebook. We don't know exactly what those scams are, but it is easy to imagine unsavory activities that take advantage of having our contact information, photos of loved ones and all-too frequent status updates. With all the issues around identity theft-it just seems safer to avoid unnecessary publicity. Robbie says: it is interesting to note that the Facebook vanguard, both younger generations and the older VCs and business execs working in social media, seem comfortable keeping their entire profiles available to the public-maybe we are all a little overzealous about protecting our security on Facebook-given that we leave doors unlocked, hand our credit cards to teenaged shop clerks and our car keys to valets we don't know.

4. I prefer to stay in touch in other ways

A lot of great networkers have avoided participating in any of the social networks because, they say, they just don't need another channel to communicate. They prefer to get together in person, or on the phone, or stay current via email. They send long newsy holiday cards and host annual pool parties-so why do they need another way to keep in touch with the same crowd? Robbie says: everyone has their preferred way to communicate-if it is important to you to be connected, you need to respect the preferences of your friends and colleagues. In addition, Facebook is a really efficient way to reconnect with people from your past-it's quick and easy to search specific names, and you can find other friends by reviewing the friends of your friends. I've "found" some great old friends I haven't seen since junior high school on Facebook.

5. It doesn't help me professionally-it's just for fun, and I prefer to have fun in other ways.

I do not like to network, and do not see any value in Facebook. I can't see any professional results from Facebook. Robbie says: the value of networking goes well beyond work. If you accept that people help each other succeed professionally, and people are more likely to help those they know well, then Facebook is actually an efficient way to maintain and grow relationships with a broad group of friends and acquaintences across the globe. And knowing people's personal and professional lives gives you a level of intimacy that strengthens the bonds.

6. I don't want to know so much about other people, it's creepy.

I can go on Facebook and see my cousins chugging beers at college or in-hospital photos of my client hours after giving birth. A friend of mine was uncomfortable to stumble upon photos of her rabbi partying on a Saturday night. Even if people go to great lengths to keep their Facebook page private, they have little control over what other people post. For example, I know several psychologists who are invisible on Facebook to everyone but their close friends-and yet many of them are tagged in other people's photos. Robbie says: once you get on Facebook, you will find some people more interesting (or more creepy) than others. And you can decide whose profiles you want to follow more regularly and set preferences accordingly. Just as in real life there are people we can't get enough of and people we've already had enough of-on Facebook, it takes all kinds!

7. I like to keep my personal and professional lives separate.

I spend enough time and energy at work. I don't want to know about people's feuds, toddlers and household projects. If I cross the line with my boss or direct reports, the relationship might get too intimate in a weird way. Robbie says: Fair enough. If you don't want your colleagues to know you as a person, then you probably shouldn't be on Facebook. I can virtually guarantee that as soon as you set up your Facebook profile, your colleagues will try to friend you. There is really no polite way to ignore them-because ultimately, the only reason you can give is "I don't really consider you a friend...and FB is only for my friends". But why would you want to keep your colleagues from getting to know you? I know so many people who carefully avoided working with friends or crossing the "colleague" line with folks at work. Once it happens, people generally find that friends are great to work with. Friends have an extra incentive to cover your back, and help you succeed. The Great Places to Work Institute has found that the single most important factor in being a great place to work is having a "best friend" at the office. And, if you have friends at work, you'll never have to eat alone.

8. It's too hard!

I don't know how to post photos and don't have any idea how to come up with the clever status updates that everyone else seems to have time to do. Robbie says: My parents and in-laws are on Facebook, as are my teenage cousins. If you're smart enough to get online, you're smart enough to set up and use a Facebook profile. Trust me on this one.

9. My kids will think I'm spying on them.

Facebook is for the younger generation. It was started on a college campus and was designed for students. I will look ridiculous on Facebook, and embarrass my teenagers. Robbie says: It may be hard for the teen set to believe that adults are finding tremendous value in using Facebook, but it's true. As of February 2009, about 45% of all Facebook users were over 25, with the fastest growing demographic women over 55. And, by the way, seeing what your kids are doing on Facebook is an important part of parenting in today's world.

10. It might send the wrong message about me and my level of seriousness.

Facebook is an activity for people who share too much about themselves and aren't hard workers. Robbie says: some of the most intense people I know are on Facebook, including most Venture Capitalists and Tech Company executives. These people often are part of the vanguard of new technologies-the first people to use laptops, iPhones and other indispensible modern conveniences. Facebook isn't popular with all professional communities yet-but it soon will be-at least among the professional communities where relationships give you a competitive advantage.

Facebook has been a great way to build more relationships with clients and colleagues. By using Facebook, I'm also current on careers of old friends and colleagues-in some case leading to great professional conversations and partnerships. If you have relationships with people already, wouldn't it be nice to have an easy way to know what they're doing professionally and what's on their mind?

Take a chance. Establish a profile and connect with 10 friends who are already on Facebook. See if it is for you. If you don't try, you'll never know!

About the Author
Robbie Kellman Baxter (rbaxter at peninsulastrategies dot com) is president of Peninsula Strategies, a consulting firm that helps technology companies analyze market opportunities and risks. She has worked with industry leaders like Netflix, Yahoo! and Oracle, as well as dozens of venture-backed startups. A popular speaker on market strategy, social networking and entrepreneurship, Robbie has been quoted in the New York Times, eCommerce Times and SF Examiner. Learn more at http://www.peninsulastrategies.com

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If you’re starting a business right now, marketing can be one of the first efforts to take a hit. After all, why should you market products aggressively to customers who aren’t ready to spend?

Cutting back on marketing efforts right now is actually a pretty risky move- studies show that companies who increased or maintained marketing budgets during lean times are rewarded with more sales as the economy begins to pick back up. According to McGraw-Hill research, companies who increased or did not change marketing budgets during the ’81-’82 recession saw significantly higher sales growth within five years- over twice as much as those companies that chose to cut back.

So how do you design and implement an online interactive marketing strategy on a shoestring budget? What can you save on when contracting for services? Here’s a quick primer on choosing an online marketing company and forming the contract you want- at a price that’s within your budget.

Evaluate your requirements.
Do you already employ online marketing strategies such as email blasts, customer follow-up emails, or search optimization strategies? If you’re already working with an online marketing firm and are unhappy with the services you’re receiving, the price you’re paying, or both, figure out exactly what you need before you switch or begin to negotiate. Do you want to build relationships, increase brand visibility among certain customer groups, or stay in touch with existing clients? Evaluate your needs before choosing- or choosing to stay with- a company: List the services you want and how much you’re willing to pay.

Re-negotiate.
If your current online marketing firm is meeting your needs, you can still negotiate on price. Most of the time, this means contracting for additional services or a longer term- a better deal in the long run if you’re working with a reputable company. You may be able to get discounted services simply by asking, especially if your contract is about to expire. Trying to re-negotiate your existing contract- if you have one- is a step you should take before looking for a new provider.

Use smart bargaining tactics.
If you’ve narrowed down the field of providers to a few worthy contenders, try to negotiate with each to get the best deal for services. Most vendors are a bit more flexible and open to bargaining near the end of the month or the end of a sales quarter. You can ask for more services, an extended agreement, a payment plan, or any other compromise that reduces your out-of-pocket-cost. Up-front payments (retainers) are usually not negotiable- most vendors will require some monetary outlay before beginning work.

Get a written estimate or service quote.
These usually serve as previews for the final contract. It should be specific, but not too specific- it can be a good idea to split projects into phases if you’re using several different strategies. You should have access to all necessary information (graphics, advertising agreements, affiliate information) in the event that you ever decide to use a different company for later efforts. Make sure that you compare several different service quotes to get an idea of the “going rate” for services- this places you in a better position to negotiate.

Make sure you can track efforts.
Make sure you know how results are tracked. Will you be able to monitor key information (web traffic, conversions, etc.) yourself? Make sure you know how results of the marketing strategy will be measured.

Online marketing is one of the most effective methods of sales generation. Make sure you shop around for a company, compare price quotes, and ask for references. A good firm won’t ever “guarantee” a certain search engine result or output, but will be able to accurately track the results of their efforts. Spending on marketing is effectively investing in future sales- make sure you invest wisely.

Merrin Muxlow is a writer, yoga instructor, and law student based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, a company that provides resources for business owners, and is a frequent contributor to several sites and programs that offer tools for entrepreneurs, including Dell and BizEquity.

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Article Contributed by Guy Kingston

The Amazon website is a master class in the dark arts of selling.

However, be warned, like the other Amazon, it is a dangerous place to be: those who go there thinking they are in control, and that they are there to observe and possibly exploit it, end up being trapped by it.

What follows is the confession of an Amazon-addict – but one sufficiently skilled in the dark arts himself to know what is being done to him, and to admire it, even as it is being done.
To begin with, Amazon provides a neat illustration of the difference between Marketing and Selling.

Marketing is everything that Amazon does to get you to visit their website – advertising, banners on other websites, links, direct e-mailing, and so on.

Selling is everything that Amazon does to get you to part with your money once you are there.
Amazon owes much of its success to its ability to lead a customer, who came with only a specific product in mind, on to other purchases. This is, of course, the equivalent of a shop display that tempts someone who came out with a definite shopping list to consider buying items he never imagined.

Having no shop window beyond a home page, Amazon makes the most of it by using affinity marketing.

In the case of a returning customer, this means Amazon try to customise his home page by plastering it with products that have been bought by other customers who have also bought things he has bought in the past.

Where nothing about a customer is known, Amazon try the scatter shot approach and fill the home page with the most popular items in general.

However, on the pages relating to specific products, Amazon zero in on the individual customer again, by references to other items in the form of “those who looked at/bought this item also looked at/bought X, Y, and Z” – with an easy one-click link to each.

Of course, one imagines that in about 99% of cases those links are ignored – but the other 1% is where Amazon makes its money.

This manipulation could be scary, but Amazon counters that by encouraging the customer to feel he is in control. The customer is invited to treat Amazon as a personal space, like a “social networking” site.

He can post a profile, rate and review products on-line, make lists, and join discussion groups. He is even made to feel part of a “community”.

The whole point is to give him the impression of a safe environment – so that he keeps coming back.

However, while it is a necessary first step for the customer to keep coming back to the website, it is not enough: the whole point is not for him to keep looking but to actually buy.

Here is the real genius of the Amazon system: they make it very, very easy to buy.
If buying each item involved filling out a form on-line, Amazon would never have survived. Amazon owes its survival and its success to the unsung Einstein of Selling who invented “One-Click ordering”.

It is so easy that it becomes addictive. It makes no difference to the sale of an item a customer really came to buy in the first place – he would have bought that anyway – but its effect is devastating when combined with affinity marketing: the customer who came to buy X decides he might was well buy Y and Z while he is there – because it takes only two more clicks of a mouse.

If any further encouragement were needed to get the customer to make those extra clicks, Amazon is the master of “artificial scarcity”: stating that only a limited number of items are left in stock can panic a customer into an immediate one-click decision to buy, rather than risk postponing until none are left.

Finally, if all this sounds frighteningly cynical, it must be said in Amazon’s favour that its after-sales service is usually – emphasis on “usually” – very good. However, this too is good salesmanship: Amazon’s strategy is not to sell to a customer once but to sell to him again and again until he becomes an income-producing asset over the years. Amazon is one of the minority of businesses who understand the great truth that keeping a customer is as important as attracting him in the first place, and that the art of selling is not selling once but selling for life.

About the Author:
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.

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One way to gain recognition for your community and build visibility for your business is by earning business awards. Many are self-nominated and fairly easy to apply for. Here’s a quick guide to a few of the best business awards for 2009:

Businesses that have helped jump start our economy by maintaining growth over the past three years are eligible for the Inc. Magazine 500/5000 award. Winners are invited to attend the nationally recognized Inc. 500/5000 conference, and are featured in future magazine and online stories. This award is a great chance to gain visibility for your company and to represent your community- past winners have included social mission companies, tech startups, and beauty product lines- companies in all industries with over $2m in sales for 2008 are encouraged to apply.

For those still working on breaking the $1m mark, the Make Mine a Million $ Business contest, sponsored by Count Me In, is a great way to gain the support you need to meet this benchmark. The contest operates as a “race” to the $1m sales mark, and most participants see sales increase at least 40% over the duration of the competition. The M3 race is open to women owned businesses in one of 15 categories.

Businesses already on the fast track to earn $1m- those with $500,000 or more in sales for 2008, are eligible to enter the Entrepreneur Magazine Small Business Contest. Similar to the 500/5000 conferenceInc. contest, businesses are featured in a future magazine issue or online story. Entrants are also featured on the contest website- a great way to increase visibility for your business even if you aren’t chosen as a winner.

The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award is given annually by international accounting and consulting firm Ernst and Young. Award recipients may attend special conferences and are invited into a network of past winners and prestigious entrepreneurs. The award is internationally recognized as a great achievement- check out the website and contest rules for more details.

If you don’t have the time for a lengthy application, or don’t have the sales revenue to qualify for one of the larger contests, consider Business.com’s “What Works for Business” contest. Applicants write a quick essay about a challenge they’ve overcome. Any small business owner that has overhauled their website design implemented a new online marketing strategy knows that the small things can sometimes be the toughest to take on- here’s your chance to let other entrepreneurs learn from your success. Prizes for the top essay are awarded monthly.

Finally, Ideablob.com allows you to test out business ideas for the chance to win a $10,000 award. Award money goes toward the costs of implementing the idea- if you need to purchase inventory, equipment (such as a credit card terminal) or business software to get your business off the ground, here’s a great place to get started. Awards are given monthly, and are determined by votes from members of the site’s online community.

Whether you’re a brand-new business or a seasoned business owner, there’s a contest out there for you. Most of the above have spring deadlines, so get going- apply for the award you deserve. Good luck!

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Article Contributed by Paul Rakovich

There are two paths that you can take when it comes to managing your pay-per-click advertising campaign online. You can learn it yourself and make Google's stock rise higher while you figure out the learning curve, then spend a lot of time keeping it running smoothly. Or, you can hire a professional pay-per-click firm to handle it for you.

I did both.

See, I know the position you're in right now. I've been there. I've hired and fired 2 pay-per-click management companies. I was forced to learn on my own and spend tens of thousands of dollars.

My Experiences with Outsourcing My Pay-Per-Click Needs

The first pay-per-click management company that I hired kept raising my budget and jacking up my costs-per-click. Yet, I wasn't getting any conversions!

So I decided to fire that PPC firm and manage my own pay-per-click campaigns. I studied under the top gurus like Perry Marshall. I bought all the ebooks and coaching programs. And, I spent more than $10,000.00 figuring everything out on my own until I grew a no name business into $50k per month in sales all from pay-per-click advertising.

But, I worked day and night on my pay-per-click campaigns. I spent a ton of time, money and effort on it. I couldn't handle it anymore so I hired another pay-per-click firm to take over the accounts again. They did a nice job and are still around today, but I saw some holes in their approach.

Now, I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. I want to help you choose a pay-per-click management company that's actually going to help you turn clicks into clients.

Here are 7 Questions You Need to Ask Before You Hire a Pay-Per-Click Management Company:

1. This is going to piss people off: How many accounts does an account manager handle? Just because you have a "dedicated" account manager doesn't mean he/she isn't dedicated to 50 other accounts. This is not uncommon in some of the larger pay-per-click firms out there. If they work 40 hours per week that's less than 1 hour/week they are spending on your account, provided they do nothing but work on accounts every minute of the day.

2. Can I peek in and have access to my Google & Yahoo accounts? There's a new breed of PPC management that keeps everything secret. They are basically buying a click for $1.00 then charging you an undisclosed markup on the click. That's why their setup & management fees are low. They're making money on marking up your clicks.

3. What constitutes an improvement? You need to put in your order with the pay-per-click firm just like you would order a steak medium rare with a side of truffle fries to a waiter. Don't be afraid to ask for help and don't be afraid to speak up. For example: I want to increase sales while keeping my cost-per-sale under $50.

4. Do you track phone calls? If you are doing any part of the business offline then your pay-per-click management company should offer a way to track where your calls are coming from. Tracking calls back to specific keywords helps eliminate waste and will reveal high response terms you'll want to dominate.

5. What are your prices? Now, don't be cheap. There is no such thing as a Mercedes Benz for Honda prices. I'll admit some people don't need the Mercedes, but if you are spending $2,000/month or more, chances are you at least need a certified, pre-owned BMW.

6. What is your experience? I'm all for giving the new guy a try. I was the new guy at one point. Nothing, I repeat nothing can replace experience. Experience comes from long hours of hard work. There are no magic formulas. Good solid basics and some creativity will always win in the end.

7. Will you involve me in the project? No one knows your business as well as you. Get specific on how often you'll meet to review the results and plan next steps. A good pay-per-click firm will welcome your input. It is invaluable.

Now, it's up to you. But, if you fail to ask the above questions, then you're risking hiring and firing new pay-per-click management companies when things go south or spending tens of thousands of dollars learning how to do it yourself like I did. Learn from my pay-per-click outsourcing experiences.

About the Author
Pay-Per-Click Expert Paul Rakovich grew a no-named business selling Tony Robbins CDs to doing $50,000.00 per month in sales with PPC advertising. Today, he manages PPC campaigns for plastic surgeons, dermatologists, clothing companies, dentists, lawyers, Internet marketers, a famous copywriter and more! Now get his FREE 5 PPC Fixes That Could Save You Thousands at http://www.clicksandclients.com & learn how to turn your clicks into paying clients.

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Article Contributed by Guy Kingston

Here is a truly horrifying thought: there is actually a specialist graduate degree of Master of Marketing Research, with the post-nominal letters MMR.

Nor is this a gimmick or a cash-cow for one of those otherwise unknown “universities” that offer to send you a degree in return for your “lifetime experience” and a large fee.

No, this is a proper degree offered by over a dozen serious universities, mainly in the USA.

You wonder what sort of eager young scholar, with all the mind-broadening opportunities of a university education spread before them, would choose to dedicate one or two of the most fertile years of their life to such a narrow subject.

Of course, if anyone developed a scientific system that enabled them to predict market responses with a high degree of accuracy, it would be worth the effort. It would open the doors to success not only in business but almost every other aspect of life. The world would belong to the market researchers. Not only a year or two but a decade or two would be well spent in its study.

Indeed, some of the finest minds in academia have been attracted, both by the cross-disciplinary intellectual challenges and by the potential rewards, to the study of customer behaviour.

It is a favourite subject at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who dole out the Nobel Prizes for Economics. Several Laureates, like Professor Daniel McFadden of UC Berkeley, who won the Prize for his theories on “choice modelling”, have specialised in aspects of econometrics which, whether or not they liked to put it this way, provided a theoretical basis for market research.

There is only one drawback to all this formidable academic output: it is useless.

The test of the validity of any scientific theory is not only how well it explains the past but how well it predicts the future.

If these academic theories of consumer choice were of any use, they should be able to provide models to predict future consumer choice.

We cannot help noticing the absence of such a model in the business world.

If such a model existed, Professor McFadden and his ilk would be very wealthy. While some do indeed make a tidy sum from consultancy, it is difficult to see how their clients are better off for their services.

For the bottom line on market research is that all the greatest failures in marketing history have been preceded by intensive market research using the most advanced specialist techniques available.

This is because big failures can only come from big product launches, and big product launches can only come from big corporations, because only they can afford big products and big launches. The big corporations usually spend lavishly on market research before the launch. This is not because they really believe the market research but so that the junior executives can cover themselves with the senior executives, the marketing managers with the general managers, the management with the directors, and the board with their shareholders.

Then, if something goes wrong, everyone can say, “Well, it is not my fault – I employed the most respected market researchers, who used the very latest methods, and they told me everything was going to be fine, so how was I to know?”

This means that every big product launch has been approved by advanced market research – and since a lot of big product launches end in failure, all these failures have been endorsed by market research.

Perhaps the great problem with market research is conceptual. It puts a great deal of thought and analysis into studying consumer decisions, but consumers put very little thought or analysis into their decisions.

This is why the focus group is a bad idea: it gets potential customers to spend an hour talking about decisions they would usually make in a second. This is artificial as a method and so any conclusions it reaches will be equally artificial.

As ever, wisdom is found not in academia but in The Simpsons. When Homer’s millionaire brother asks him to design the car that average Americans like him would want to buy, Homer puts in every fantasy element he can imagine and ends up designing a monstrosity that no one would want to buy.

In fact, Homer’s car is curiously reminiscent of one that was designed in response to a great deal of market research into what the public “really wanted”... the Ford Edsel.

About the Author
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.

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Article Contributed by by David Gruttadaurio

One of the most reasonable approaches to surviving an economic downturn is to slash all unnecessary business expenses.

In their panic to save money, wild-eyed and frothy-mouthed entrepreneurs begin looking suspiciously at their marketing plans. On the surface, advertising cutbacks would seem to be a logical choice.

Why Entrepreneurs Make the Mistake of Cutting Their Marketing Budgets

If you have taken a close look at the magazines that arrive in your mailbox every month, you may have noticed they've been down-sized... and it wasn't the publisher's idea.

Advertisers are running for hills in droves as they pull back and slash their marketing budgets - in many cases by half. The result is formerly burgeoning magazines that are now a shadow of their former selves.

It's a tempting… but very dangerous strategy. Especially when you consider that your company thrives on both client retention and new growth to survive.

To stay out of economic harms way, you need to keep your marketing momentum at full throttle even during a recession. And now is the BEST time since your competitors are hiding from potential customers. Your marketing will really stand out even more!

But, if you think that "hunkering down" through an economic storm is the way for your business to survive a recession...

Here Are the Top 10 Sure-Fire Ways to Kill Your Small Business

1. STOP MARKETING and pretend everybody knows who you are and what you have to sell.

2. STOP MARKETING and fantasize that you have more important worries than promoting your business.

3. STOP MARKETING and make believe your customers won't notice that you discontinued your monthly client newsletter.

4. STOP MARKETING and keep telling yourself that your customers would never abandon you.

5. STOP MARKETING and ignore the potential new clients that would buy your products or services if they were contacted by you.

6. STOP MARKETING and stop thinking about your competitors and the fact they want your customers.

7. STOP MARKETING and keep telling yourself it costs too much to market.

8. STOP MARKETING and disregard the fact that marketing is not a business expense but an investment.

9. STOP MARKETING and make-believe your established customers don't need to be reminded that you appreciate their business.

10. STOP MARKETING and forget that now is the best time to market since all of the idiots are cutting back on doing it.

Certainly the choice is yours. You can follow the above practices and drive your business into the ground. It's up to you. But do you really want to bury your business forever?

If the answer is 'no'…

Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Should Relentlessly Market Your Business Today:

* Prove to your clients that you really do value and appreciate them – market to them using a print newsletter.

* Show your customers that you are a successful entrepreneur willing to invest in your relationship with them – send a monthly print newsletter.

* Instill trust, credibility and confidence in you and your company as well as your service or product – publish a customer newsletter.

The Bottom Line

If asked to list their company's most valuable assets, many would include buildings, equipment, inventory and accounts receivables.

Very few would even think to include their customers.

Your clients are the most valuable asset you have. When you use attentive, relationship-building marketing strategies like distributing a print newsletter, you create a bond that will allow you to weather any type of economic environment.

About the Author

When Print Newsletter Marketing Expert David Gruttadaurio discovered the power of consistently writing and distributing print newsletters to attract and retain clients, he instantly tripled the sales of his cleaning business. Now, David is revealing his bullet-proof plan to survive this new, emerging economy with his Profit Exploding Newsletter Secrets Report at: http://www.NewslettersMadeForYou.com

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Article Contributed by Greg Gaskill

Social networking was once the domain of people looking for friendship on the internet, but savvy businesses have also begun to realize the value of linking up with others through the wide variety of networks that are springing up almost daily. They have learned to enjoy the ease with which they can keep in touch with clients, suppliers, and a host of others. In fact, there are now sites that cater specifically to businesses. Social networking benefits to business are many; here are just a few, and how they can help you.

Why Social Networking?

When you develop a page on a social networking site, you are setting yourself up to connect with everyone else who has signed up on that service. So if you sign up on a service with millions of members, you are instantly able to connect with that many new people. Although you would not generally be able to send out a global email--that would be spam--you could search for those who are interested in your product or service. In other words, you could do a targeted search for your perfect customer or supplier.

Which Networks are Best for Businesses?

Although the ever-popular services like Myspace and Facebook have quite a few businesses with well-developed pages, they are mostly for social contacts, artists, social causes, and bands. Those who want more professional connections often turn to LinkedIn, Tribe, and Ryze.

These services will work best for those who create the most complete and targeted online identity. For instance, if you are a professional freelance editor but have a page full of information about your accomplished children, you may miss a lot of opportunity. Of course you are proud of your children, but they probably will not get you gigs. So stick to business.

One of the ways to make the most of your social networking page is to hire an online marketing company to create and maintain it. That way it stays professional, up to date, and has enough of the right material on it to make an impact and improve your search engine rankings.

How Do Business Social Networking Sites Improve Search Engine Rankings?

One way is that you can choose your own URL. With some services you start out with one their system gives you, then you enter your own. If you enter your business name, you have increased your internet exposure--the search engine spiders will find you more easily. Important tip: Make sure you link up to your company home page; backlinks count in search engine rankings. If you have multiple pages, provide a link to your company's page in each one.

This brings up the idea of multiple pages. Some services allow you to have multiple hubs, but some do not. Social networking benefits to business are best when you find a way to use more than one page, so it might benefit you to use multiple email addresses so you can have more than one page with the same service. Then link them together. Having multiple pages will increase your exposure on the internet.

You can also use your blog space to provide informative articles to your contacts--make sure the article bears your business name and uses keywords related to your business. This is called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, and you will rise in the rankings when potential customers use your exact keyword phrases as a search term. Again, an online marketing company will know the best keywords to use and will have professional writers available to perform this optimization.

Social networking benefits to business are enormous, and a business that takes advantage of this tool will see better exposure often in the same day they create the page! These days, to ignore social networking is to do so at your own peril.

Article Contributed by Greg Gaskill

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Article Contributed by Mark Sneider

Whether an insurance agency, manufacturing firm, a law firm, or some other professional services organization, if you are like most other professional services organizations, your team may not be too well equipped to do what you need to do best to generate lifeblood leads.

Simply having your sales team drum up leads when they're trying to manage existing clients or in the throws of presenting to new ones, or - let's be honest here - relying on you, the president or principal to do it when you have to focus on managing the business - isn't going to be the most effective or most efficient way to manage the lead generation process. And, do you really want to it anyway?

But if you choose to do so internally, likely how you've always done it and most of your competitors do so, here's five best practices that make for successful lead generation programs - elements we've found at LeadArchitects: five critical steps central to building solid pipelines of new business opportunities for the organizations we represent.

1. Be Marketing Centric
Before you hand over the reigns to just anybody, establish a clear, concise, and well differentiated message for your "brand". Without it, what will the prospect say when asked "Why should I consider you?"

I've learned from years of interviewing heads of organizations that most don't know how to look at their business objectively when it comes to marketing and positioning. For example, consider this professional service: advertising agency principals (folks you think would "get it") will more often than not say the same things when asked what makes them different. I recently presented to a group of agency executives and 15 out of 16 gave virtually the exact same answer when asked for their elevator pitch.

Before any prospecting is done by LeadArchitects on behalf of our clients, we develop what we call a "Brand Story" or communications strategy that highlights the firm's reasons to believe (RTBs) that define what really makes a firm different. That differentiation could be expertise, process, insights, or some other dimension - or a combination of a number of these. The key is being objective, or bringing in a group that can take an objective look at your world.

Once you create this communications strategy, carry it throughout every touch point: letter copy, advertising, public relations, key talking points for your new business manager, and certainly the web copy. One must be able to see the big picture and navigate through the changes needed to ensure consistency in marketing communications.

2. Be Consistent
Asking sales people to sell, and manage accounts, and generate leads, and, and, and will not prove successful to the organization. We've also consistently found that having the principal or the president act as part time lead generator will only lead to less than part time success.

If you put a program together to generate leads, you need to make certain that there are no breaks in the action, because the lead generation "game" is as much an aperture marketing game as it is a positioning and process and skill set game. Maintaining consistency of reach-out is critical. Today your prospect may be fine with their existing service, however tomorrow they may have an issue or a problem that their current partner or law firm or accountant isn't doing a good job of fixing - you need to be there.

3. Be Relevant
The last thing you want to do is simply pound on doors in the hopes of one opening up - doing so makes you look less than strategic. You don't look like a good potential partner, and you don't look like you understand your prospect's business. Being relevant takes time and focus - the kind of focus a well-organized, strategic group can bring to the effort.

For example, before any call is made into any prospect, the new business manager at LeadArchitects conducts news searches on the prospect, checks the website for press releases, and scours the category's e-publications for a nugget of an insight they can bring to the table. This way, you exhibit empathy and understanding when you connect and are better able to "bridge" the prospect's situation back to challenges you yourself have solved for your own clients. Prospects appreciate this - they like to be heard, not to be told.

4. Be Particular
The problem with many prospecting efforts is they are more about numbers and not about the quality of the engagement. As the manager of a lead generator, you need to establish clear and measurable qualifying criteria upfront.

There are different points at which qualification can occur: when the list is built; when the list is cleaned; and when the prospecting begins. The key is making sure your person or your firm has a clear handle on what the qualifiers are, and stands up to deliver them.

For illustration, we build lists for 90 percent of our client programs. When building lists, we can screen for prospect size (e.g. revenue, employees, etc.) type, location. When we clean the list before it's used, we can qualify for things like decision maker status, or insights relative to the nature of the business. And when the work really begins and we start prospecting, we can dial it down to a more granular level and glean information on virtually any dimension, so long as the prospect is willing to share it, of course.

One step we take that should be a step that any organization takes even if they manage the prospecting inside, is to conduct an open assessment after the first meetings to ensure that what's being delivered is on par with expectations. If it isn't, clearly define the deficiencies and put the plan in place to correct it so you maximize the productivity of the program.

5. Be a Value-Added Partner
The best long-term partner is one who goes beyond the task at hand and brings new thinking, new processes, and new ways of doing things to the table for your client. While hackneyed and overused it rings true when done properly: in the end, if you can be a real value-added partner, your clients will be more forgiving when things are going just right and more likely to keep you on board, longer.

The same holds true when you reach out to your prospects. Not only is it important to reach out with relevancy, it is critical to show that you understand your prospect's situation. Show that you want to help the prospect by sharing news, ideas, suggestions with them to help their business. At LeadArchitects, we continually reach out to prospects on behalf of our clients with interesting industry news, updates on trends, or insights about competitors - all with the goal of suggesting we're there to partner.

Bottom Line
There is a lot you need to consider if you're going to build an effective lead generation program internally. Software, people, lists, branding, follow up, and on and on. It's not as simple as picking up the phone and dialing for dollars. If you want to do it, at least do it properly - but you know you don't want to do it.

Remember, also, to look at lead generation from a big picture standpoint. If you're a law firm, you got into the business of helping manage your client's well being. If you're an accountant, you got into the business to manage client's taxes, or if you're in the manufacturing business, you got into to the business to build, create, and sell - not generate leads. In the end, you're probably best off keeping overhead low by not trying to build up a sophisticated infrastructure to manage a process that can feed quality leads, better position your firm in the marketplace, and keep you looking like the real value-added partner you are.

About the Author
Mark Sneider is the president of LeadArchitects, an outsourced lead generation and sales firm. Prior to LeadArchitects, Mark spent ten years working for two top tier packaged goods companies, and ten years on the marketing services side of the business. He started his career at DDB Needham in Chicago. Mark is a graduate of Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Business with a major in Marketing and Economics. He can be reached at msneider@leadarchitects.com.

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This is a very creative video conveying on a very strong theme of "Think Family". An effective video can convey the message you intended across to your customers in just 3 minutes. Therefore, an effective sales pitch can be done within this timeframe to capture your target customers!

And best of all, these videos can be uploaded onto many social sites such as Facebook, Youtube etc. At almost zero cost!

Viral marketing would come into play if such a video is picked up by many other "onliners" and would create a buzz through the word of mouths by the many.

Most importantly, a creative idea to market your business is can set you apart from your competitors!

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Making the decision to sell a business is an extremely important one but many business owners do not realize just how important it is until it is their business. It is absolutely imperative that you take the time to consider your options before making a decision, regardless of whether you built the business from nothing or bought into it and made it your own. There are plenty of factors to consider but if you decide to sell your business, you should do your research before marketing your business for sale.

There are several tips that could help you when selling your business, and ten of them are outlined below. This information is essential so make sure that you adhere to the following points:

1. Plan Your Exit Strategy – Experts agree that you should always plan ahead when you want to sell the business, and begin to prepare at least three years in advance where possible. This allows you to prepare for the handover, both personally and regarding the business for sale. It will allow you to maximize profit and get your paperwork in order.

2. Prepare The Business – If you want to get a higher price when selling your business, you need to make sure that it is well prepared. Any outstanding issues should be solved, new policies and strategies implemented, and fulfilling training will get you up to 10% more on your business than would otherwise be possible.

3. Disregard Your Own Valuation – You are emotionally involved in your business so any price expectations you place on it would be emotionally affected. As such, you are likely to over inflate the price and no buyer will want to know how much you believe your business is worth. The only valuation that matters is that of a valuation specialist or qualified appraiser.

4. Protect Yourself – Have your attorney draw up a confidentiality agreement with no possible loopholes before you make any disclosures pertaining to the business. This will protect your business no matter what and ensure that you are not stung if any sale falls through.

5. Inform Your Shareholders – Shareholders and other individuals with an interest in the business, such as board members, could actually stop any sale of your business going through. Advising them in advance and taking steps to ensure that their influence is ultimately muted is essential. Failing to do so may leave you with your business in your name along with a huge bill for costs incurred by brokers, accountants, and attorneys.

6. Prepare Your Conditions – Many business owners wait until a bid is made on their businesses before preparing their own terms and this can hold up a potential sale. It may even be the cause for a sale falling through. Preparing your written terms and conditions before you put your business on the market will inform buyers before they place a bid. You will then be able to negotiate.

7. Consider Your Retirement – Selling a business may only be the start of your retirement but it could lead to problems in your personal life. You need to consider what you will do following the sale of your business for your own peace of mind and general health. Do not neglect this point. Although it may not sound important now, it will be following the sale.

8. Do Not Give Priority To Price – You should never look at the sale of your business in immediate financial terms. The bids offered may be distinguished as the highest monetary bid and the lower ones, but accepting the former may mean you lose out. Lower bids may have clauses by which you earn a percentage of profits for so many years or even retain shares, As such, the cash amount should be placed behind the content of the bid terms when you consider them.

9. Full Disclosure – No matter what the weaknesses are for your business, you should always make a full disclosure, including warranties, about the state of your business. Be sure to include “to the best of your knowledge” in your contracts, and qualify all disclosure made so you and your buyer know exactly where you stand.

10. Choose The Deal – Approving a deal structure is of paramount importance when selling your business. You need to ensure that you are completely happy with every aspect of the deal. For example, you may want to retain a certain aspect of technology from your business for your future interests so this should be qualified in the terms. You may also wish to keep certain business interests out of the sale. Whatever your decision, you should always act in your own best interests so only offer the deal that you feel comfortable with.

About the Author:

GlobalBX provides a FREE business for sale exchange connecting business buyers, sellers and lenders. Search over 32,000 businesses for sale and franchise opportunities. Sell a business for free with no listing fees and zero commissions. We have all the top franchises as well as franchise resales. Find franchise reviews and get free franchise information. You can also contact over 300 lenders directly and get a business loan.

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Marketing to Women Online: There is a consistent mantra among marketers right now - do more with less.

Marketing budgets are being slashed, or are simply non-existent. Yet, even with anemic budgets, marketers are still expected to deliver results.

Email is one of the cheapest ways to drive sales. And, according to Marketing Sherpa, people are still reading their email.

I attended Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit this last week. Here are some of the top learnings I took away:

5 must-do's - Don't share subscriber's email address with others

- Offer special pricing for email subscribers

- Allow subscribers to customize frequency

- Allow subscribers to customize information they receive from you

- Give subscribers a first look at new products

Segment your list - "Batch and blast" emails are going the way of the dinosaur. Segment your list and customize messaging and offers for each segment. The more relevant you make those customized emails, the higher the response you'll get. (examples of segments: gender, frequency of purchase, amount of activity, area of interest, etc.)

Test and test some more - Test subject lines, content, calls to action, conversion rates. Your gut is often wrong. By testing to see what gets the highest response you can dramatically increase your results.

Scrub your list - get rid of invalid email addresses, inactive addresses and other dead-weight that's hurting your delivery, your response rates and your reputation.

Bottom line - it's all about being relevant to your audience.

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America's Best Companies by Charles Cooper: Your business lives or dies on your sales and often that rides on the success of the sales call. The more of those that end in a handshake and a signature, the better your bottom line becomes. There is, however, no sure-fire method of scoring a sale each and every time. You can, however, shift the odds in your favor (or at least more in your favor) by planning for the sales call.

Mary Donato, president of Applied Principles and associate director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, writing for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine has looked into the issue of pre-sales call planning and has come up with several steps to follow to give you and your sales staff the best chance to succeed.

1. Decide what you want the client to decide or agree to once the meeting is over. How will you get them to agree to move on to the next step? What will you recommend at the end of the meeting?

2. What does the client have to believe about you, your company, your solution to move on to the next step? During your first meeting, the client needs to do most of the talking and you need to be an active listener. But you will need to ensure they believe you can be an appropriate provider to them.

3. What are key things that you want to know about the client? Ensure that you get a list of the client's issues and know the most important items on that list. Research their company, don't ask questions that are already answered on their website, but do ask thought-provoking, educated questions based on what you learn.

4. What are the potential objections? How will you respond? You should have a list of the common objections along with the appropriate responses. This can help you determine if your solution is a fit to the client's problems or not.

5. Create an agenda for the meeting. Having an agenda provides meeting objectives to all involved. This is useful since decision-makers usually want someone who won't waste their time and respecting their time (and yours) is key to building a successful business relationship.

6. Prior to the meeting, email the client with the agenda and the purpose of the call. Ask them if they have other objectives they would like to accomplish during the conversation and give them a chance to bring other, critical people into the meeting, or suggest others who you would like to include.

Planning is not fool-proof, and you may find that your plan needs to change on the fly once the meeting is underway, so be flexible. However, it is still your best roadmap to take you from that initial handshake to where you want to be—a sale.

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Article Contributed by David Gruttadaurio

What would happen if you increased referrals by 20%, 40% or even 100% or more?

What would your business be like?

Could you expand your company?

Could you increase your rates?

Could you retire earlier and perhaps enjoy more of the good life?

Absolutely!

But, most businesses (both online of offline) will never experience any of these benefits of increasing their referrals.

Why Referrals Dry Up After a Month

Most businesses are simply out of sight and out of mind. They allow their customers to forget about them.

I know, it's so unfair, especially after doing such a great job for them. But it's a universal truth.

Life today moves at the speed of light. If you don't consistently work to remain in the awareness path of your clients, you can be certain they will never remember you or your company.

The GOOD NEWS is this problem can be easily fixed by a customer newsletter.

The REALLY GOOD NEWS is that a monthly customer newsletter will also create massive referral action by your clients.

4 Ways to Get More Referrals with Newsletters

1. Educate clients and prospects. Most people who engage in newsletter marketing make the mistake of trying to pitch on every page. That's fastest way to get your newsletter in the trash can. If you want more referrals, build a trusting relationship by offering real content with high informational value.

2. Write newsletters that get passed around. Boring content doesn't get read, much less passed on to anyone. That means your content must be interesting and engaging… that means it shouldn't be all about you. You may love your business, but don't expect your customers to feel the same way. Your newsletter should include articles that inspire, inform and are fun to read. This is the ONLY WAY your newsletters will get passed around bringing you more referrals.

3. Get your newsletter out to as many as possible. If you follow my newsletter marketing system, people will read your newsletters as a publication. They will not see it as a marketing piece even though it really is. This makes a quality newsletter a great way to tell your story in all kinds of situations. So, hand out copies at sales calls, trade shows and seminars. Drop them off at realtors and doctors offices. Put them in envelopes when you pay bills. And make sure people can download a copy on your website, after they give you their contact information.

4. Thank referrers in your newsletters. A standard feature in every newsletter should be a thank you to the clients that have referred you to others. Realizing how important referrals are to your business will motivate other customers to refer you too.

The Bottom Line

You will not get referrals if you do not manage your existing customers properly.

Your existing customers are your best sales people. They already know the quality of your products and services. They will continue to call you and REFER you if they are reminded to do so. A monthly client newsletter provides this friendly reminder in an interesting and non-intrusive way.

Follow this advice and you'll be light years ahead of the competition and enjoy a constant stream of referrals.

About the Author
David Gruttadaurio was tired of wasting money on marketing that didn't work. So he searched for a marketing tool that would give him more clients for his cleaning business until he found newsletter marketing! Through print newsletters he was able to get more referrals and triple his sales. Now, discover how he got and retained more clients with his FREE “Profit Exploding Newsletter Secrets Report” at http://www.NewslettersMadeForYou.com

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Article Contributed Joanne Black

We've been told that getting more sales is all about your "activity," but is it?

Our job as salespeople is to move as many qualified prospects through the sales funnel as quickly as possible—leading to more sales, better clients, and more income.

The traditional sales funnel to attract new business has maintained the same structure for years. There's a wide opening at the top and a skinny tube at the bottom. The traditional prospecting method crams as many prospects into the top of the funnel as possible, hoping that new clients will magically pop out of the other end. The only thing that mattered was sheer activity.

Today, I'm going to debunk the myth that sheer activity is the ONLY thing that matters along with two other myths that are holding you back from getting more clients now.

3 Sales Lead Generation Myths That Will Hold You Back From Closing More Sales

Myth #1 Sheer Activity is the Only Thing That Matters in Sales

Wrong! Of course, activity is still important, but what really matters is that you feed the right people into the funnel in the first place and nurture those prospects who have been referred to you. Then hasten their passage through the sales funnel. This will decrease the amount of time it takes to you close your sale.

Picture the funnel from the traditional "olden" days. If you just stuff as much as you can into the top of the funnel, it's more likely that weeds, rocks, sand, and other debris will clog the opening and prevent the steady entry and flow of good business. Try pouring water in a funnel that is filled with debris. The water backs up and nothing moves through. Not a pleasing picture, and not functional business model. It's certainly not one that fosters an environment for attracting new business.

Myth #2 Sales 2.0 Leads are Qualified

There's so much that's wrong about the traditional sales funnel, and it's gotten worse in the Sales 2.0 world. It's not a referral-marketing funnel. In the past, we were schooled to throw as many prospects in the funnel as we could find. For example, we were taught to get so-called leads from mailings, trade shows, advertising, networking, newsletters, and speaking. Now in the 2.0 world, we are taught to get so-called leads from blogging, videos, eBooks, free reports, press releases, eZines, affiliate traffic, RSS feeds, and email lists. We can now choose to waste our time by following up on these so-called leads.

I call the leads above "So-called leads" because these aren't really leads.

They're inquiries, possibly names—or people just interested in free stuff. Everyone likes free stuff. If we take the time to weed through all this trash, we might actually find a prospect. These people are just prospects. They're not business referrals. And, they're still not leads.

Myth #3 It's Important to Sort "Leads"

We have to change how we talk about leads. Inquiries are not leads. People wanting free stuff are not leads. Neither are those "coveted" lists or files of names. Calling these "leads" borders on insulting.

Leads are people who:

- Are truly interested in talking directly to you about your products and services to see how you can help them

- Match the profile of your ideal client

- Have a budget

- Have a need that you can fulfill

- Are open to pursuing how you can help them attract new business.

Now that's a qualified business referral.

The best leads are those you have received through a referral. When you receive a qualified referral, you are pre-sold. You have credibility and trust. Your sales time shortens. And, you ace out the competition. When you've been referred, you get a new client more than 50 percent of the time. Get more referrals and get these results.

So stop calling everyone and everything a lead. It's is a waste of your valuable sales time. I'm not just splitting hairs over terminology. It is downright misrepresentation when companies position themselves as lead-generation experts. It sounds so good (so easy), so we jump. And that's when we get our sales funnel clogged with trash instead of getting more referrals

In this lagging and volatile economy, it's easy to be lured by business which clogs our sales funnel. We can't afford to attract the wrong kind of clients to our business. It's like dumping trash in our sales funnel. A full funnel is only valuable if it's filled with the kind of clients that are right for you – clients that are qualified and referred.

Think about it: What's in your sales funnel?

About the Author:
America's leading authority on referral selling and founder of No More Cold Calling, Joanne Black helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners get more referrals and attract more business fast without increasing costs. Now, discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time even during a down economy at http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com

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Article Contributed by Guy Kingston

It might seem crazy to be talking about hiring – yes, hiring – more staff in a recession. Most companies are worrying about having to lay people off.

It might seem doubly insane, in one sense at least, to be talking of hiring in the sales department of all places. After all, when you have to make cuts, you must make them first of all in the variable costs rather than the fixed costs of a business – and a properly run sales department should be the ideal example of a variable cost. It should cost more when sales are high and less when they are low. Indeed, in theory, the perfect sales department would be based entirely on commission so that it would cost nothing if there were no sales, and expenditure would rise in direct proportion with income.

The reality is that sales demand some prior investment. Even the best salesmen are reluctant to rely entirely on commission. They know their value to a business and are usually confident enough to demand a basic salary up front. The only people prepared to work for commission only are the desperate. It is therefore one of several paradoxes in sales that those who are most likely to be able to live on commission alone are the very people who are most likely to demand more than just commission.

Since you do not want your business to be represented by losers – even losers who cost nothing up front – you need to reconcile yourself to paying a basic salary to your sales staff before they sell anything.

So, in practice, the sales department is not the variable cost that it should be in theory.

Yet it is still a cost, and in a recession, one should cut costs – right?

Not necessarily. A business should always be looking for opportunities to cut surplus expenditure in order to maximise its cost effectiveness, and its competitiveness in terms of price. This should be a constant discipline and it is obviously particularly important in time of recession.

However, it should be equally obvious that it is false economy to cut expenditure that is necessary for the proper operation of the business. After all, the only business with zero expenditure is a business that is not doing business.

So simply reducing costs is not the correct response to a recession. It may be necessary in the short term, but in the longer term it can only lead to oblivion.

The alternative to decreasing costs is increasing income. In fact, a good recession strategy will contain elements of both.

Increasing income means investing more in sales. This may sound risky but it is actually more risky to do nothing. In a recession competition becomes tighter. You must fight harder for every customer. As business becomes ever more ruthless, you must fight to keep your customers and to pick up any new customers who might still have money to spend. To invest less in sales at such a time means losing customers to those who invest more.

Remember that there are new customers to be found even in a recession. When a company goes bust, its customers do not die suddenly of neglect. Most are still alive, still solvent, and still spending. They will probably be looking for a new supplier of whatever the fallen company provided. That is an opportunity for its competitors.

On the supply side, recession is also an excellent time to pick up experienced sales staff from bankrupt competitors. Such people usually bring with them address books full of former customers and other useful contacts.

Of course, spending more money on sales staff in a recession is a risk. Yet all investment in business is a risk. Recessions do not alter the rules of the game. They simply makes the odds tighter. Competitors become more competitive, and the chances of failure increase – but so do the rewards of success for those who keep their nerve.

About the Author
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.

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Article contributed by Joanne Black

It's hard enough to get more prospects and new clients during a booming economy when people have money to spend. When the global economy takes a nosedive and freefalls fast, it's 100 times harder to get prospect to talk to us.

So, how can you get more referrals and more NEW clients in a lagging economy?

It's straightforward: The answer to getting more referrals and more new clients during any economic situation is to ask.

How many of your clients have you asked for referrals? When I ask this question to salespeople, the usual answer is "not many" or "hardly any."

For example, I was working with the president of a consulting firm. I asked him how many clients he had—counting all the people he worked with, not just the number of companies. He told me 295. Then I asked him: with how many of the 295 did he have excellent relationships.

His answer: 60.

I then asked him how many of the 60 he had asked for referrals.

Silence.

Sixty of his best, most valued clients were just sitting there. These clients were an underleveraged source of referrals that could be bringing in more clients.

If you're not inviting your current clients to be part of your sales team, you're leaving money on the table – every single day. If you ask them, they'll be happy to refer you. But, you have to ask.

If you're a good salesperson, you probably have at least 100 people on your prime contact list. These are people you could phone, and they would return your call. If only 20 percent referred you, you'd have 20 new prospects to satisfy. Once you satisfy them and once you actively cultivated relationships with them, they can become part of your "sales team."

Can you see where this could lead, and how much business that could generate?

Real Proof Why You Should Ask Your Clients for More Referrals

In a survey of its best clients, a major brokerage firm asked: Would you be willing to refer your stockbroker?

The survey results: A whopping 84 percent of its best clients would be willing to refer their stockbroker. Eighty-four percent.

The firm asked brokers: What percent of the time are you asking your clients for referrals?

The answer: Only 15 percent.

Their clients were absolutely willing to refer them, but the brokers were not asking.

You can easily see how a fabulous opportunity was overlooked. Think about how much money the brokers were leaving on the table. Those referrals could easily have generated millions of dollars in revenue for the firm, if they'd been maximized.

The Hard Fact: Your Clients Will Help You Get More Prospects and New Clients – But You Need to Ask

The hard fact is most clients think of us only when they need us. It's up to you to get them thinking about you between orders. Your clients are not going to automatically refer you. You must constantly remind them that you exist, so when a referral opportunity arises, you're the one who gets it.

The clients you serve well - the ones who know you, like you, and trust you -truly want you to be successful. After all, they know what you do and they've received measurable business results from your solutions. Referring you will make them look good to their customers and business partners.

So are you now ready to get more referrals, prospects and clients right now?

Top 5 Tips to Help You Get More Referrals During a Global Economic Slowdown

1. Review your database and gather information about your current clients. Find out:

- What percent of your current clients were referred?
- How profitable are your current clients?
- Have they bought additional products from you?
- How often have you contacted them?
- How many have referred you to other clients?

2. Put a plan in place to check in with your clients and find out what they need.

3. Make a note about why they like working with you.

4. Ask for ways to improve.

5. Invite them to help you build your business through referrals and ask them to refer you.

Your current clients are going to be your best source of referrals. They're just waiting for you to ask.

It's time to ask. What are you waiting for?

About the Author:
America's leading authority on referral selling and founder of No More Cold Calling, Joanne Black, helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners get more referrals and attract more business fast without increasing costs. Discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time, even during a down economy, with her Recession-Proof Your Business Emergency Kit at: http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com/products.html

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Young Go Getter by Eric Brantner: Are you still waiting to see if social media marketing is worth your time? It’s understandable to be hesitant of this new style of marketing, but entrepreneurs in particular have a lot to gain from getting involved with social media. It’s a free way to get in touch with your target audience and other leading figures in your industry. Even if your contacts don’t go on to become paying customers, you still get direct insight into your target audience’s mindset.

Still not convinced? Here are 7 companies making big strides through social media marketing.

Note: Thousands of companies use social media. Don’t think of this as a “Top 7” list, but rather as a sampling of companies from all industries and of all sizes making social media work for their unique needs.

1. Whiteflash- Whiteflash.com is an online diamond jewelry retailer. The owners of this company believe that buying a diamond is an interactive experience. That’s why they focused on social marketing techniques to engage potential customers. With live chatting on their website and numerous relationships with top bloggers, the company has increased their revenue by 15 percent, and most recently, they were featured in Entrepreneur magazine for their social marketing success.

2. Eastern Isles- Eastern Isles Teas and Tonics is a company headed up by two twenty-something young adults with a strong sense of Internet marketing. A key part of their marketing strategy is social media marketing. Through sites like Facebook and MySpace, the company generates about 30,000 unique visitors to their site each month.

3. Dell- Long gone are the days of the stoner gracing our television screens with “Dude, you’re getting a Dell.” Today, Dell is taking full advantage of social media marketing. In addition to over 20 Twitter accounts, they also have several company blogs that attract millions of visitors each month. However, most impressive to me is their Ideastorm website. This interactive community allows users to submit and vote on ideas. Well over 10,000 ideas have been created here. A truly great idea in and of itself.

4. Doritos- Dell isn’t the only company getting its users involved in the process. Remember the Super Bowl promotion that Doritos ran earlier this year (and last year, too)? Fans were allowed to create and vote on ads to appear during the Super Bowl. Thousands of submissions and millions of video views were generated by this overwhelmingly successful promotion.

5. Zappos- This online shoe retailer is always one of the first companies mentioned when it comes to social media. While they have a host of blogs and video blogs, what has really captured consumer interest is their Twitter presence. 198 Zappos employees maintain active Twitter profiles, and a page on their website is devoted just to this. By enticing the public to “See what Zappos employees are doing right now” the company generates tons of interest in their Twitter campaign.

6. Crafty Chica- “Crafty” is the perfect word to describe site owner Kathy Cano-Murillo’s marketing strategy. When her book Art de la Soul was coming out, she used MySpace to connect directly with her target audience. By staying committed and being social, she was able to get nearly 2 million visitors to her website each month.

7. MTV- Hate them all you want for not showing music videos anymore (it’s not like the ones they played were good anyway), but you have to give MTV credit for knowing its target demographic. In addition to their widgets and blogs, MTV also promotes The Hills (gag) in Second Life. Furthermore, you can connect with their “reality” stars through the MTV website. 14 year old girls throughout the world are rejoicing!

7 Companies Getting the Most out of Social Media [Young Go Getter]

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Article Contributed by Mark S.

Business owners are pressed for time, pressed for funds and most importantly pressed for survival in this competitive world. It becomes very crucial to deploy the limited resources available in the best possible manner to ensure continued and successful survival and growth of business. Marketing is a very wide arena helping businessmen to achieve this, and online marketing has become the key to reach wider audience at much cheaper rates.

For those who have decided to take the plunge and go for online marketing, you will be faced with this very important question: Which strategy is better SEO or PPC?

Let’s just briefly skim over what these 2 very important terms under online marketing mean:

"Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization (SEO) consists of optimizing web pages to enhance their position in the naturally occurring search results. Organic SEO consists of On-page and Off-page optimization tactics which is generally undertaken by a professional SEO firm or experienced SEO consultant.

When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine, it is called "pay-per-click" (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). One of the highest recognized PPCSE is Google Adwords. Pay-per-click search engine advertising allows to quickly leverage search engine traffic by "bidding" (paying) for high-value keywords related to particular product or service.

As you can see organic SEO is a free service in monetary terms although investments is required in terms of time and resources whereas PPC is a paid service. At the first glance, one would definitely get attracted to the free services of organic SEO and benefits garnered from it. But the latest statistics show a different picture as shown below:

SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets.

Surprised?

One of the major reasons for quick adoption of PPC strategy is that it is very similar to traditional paid advertisement strategy and business owners can manage such campaign on their own. Whereas SEO requires a pre-requisite set of skills to ensure your website reaches the top rankings on search engine search through various on-site optimizations and off-site organic search engine optimization strategies. Another reason why businesses, prefer PPC is that they have better control over the entire program and they know exactly how and where their dollar is spent and results for each dollar spent, can be seen through subsequent Ad words report. They also do not have to change their tactics each time the search engines change their algorithms, which can prove a real headache, especially for those who are only interested in quick, short term results. Organic SEO might seem like too much of work, with absolutely no guaranteed results for short term goal seekers.

While a PPC campaign can deliver leads with relative ease, it can be a big money drain and has no real longevity -- once you stop shelling out the cash, the website traffic goes away. SEO and link building require a lot more creative effort, but can have more sustainable results. It also allows a business to target a larger base of users, as most studies reveal that 75 - 80% of searchers click on organic listings as opposed to paid listings. As time goes on, web surfers are less prone to clicking PPC links on the right side of Google’s results or in the top sponsored links section. Why? In the past web surfers didn’t understand the difference between sponsored and non-sponsored links. Now web surfers are much more net savvy. The result is that a growing number of web surfers will click on non-sponsored links on the first page of results because they think: if that site made it into the top ten without paying for it, they must really be the best sites.

Just like planting seeds Organic SEO as an internet marketing strategy requires patience, but the rewards when reaped are plentiful. Although organic optimization is not the first choice for many (depending on the brand and business model) organic search does have inherent benefits that are unparalleled by sponsored or paid advertising tactics. The benefits and results last for longer period.

Generally you can go for Organic SEO if you;

ü Have a product that you can dedicate 300-750 words to describe its value.

ü Can exhibit supporting materials images, references and materials that emphasize the products benefits.

ü If you can shroud it in essentially keywords consumers might use to find it in enough frequency, that it can leverage a high-ranking organic search result.

ü This is a good strategy to adopt for lasting results, if you have the patience to hold out for 2-4 months or more depending on your industry & competition, for the benefits to start pouring to your website.

Besides, if you have a product that has a high price point, where there is some room for how much you are willing to spend to keep the cost per sale within bounds, then by all means pay per click advertising is a viable solution.

During tight credit crunch it is advisable to increase reliance on free organic SEO strategies rather than PPC. A hybrid plan (combination of SEO +PPC) is another alternative for those who seek quick results and suffer from very poor rankings, as SEO will ensure with time regular traffic builds for your site, while PPC will bring serious buyers to your site through banner ads, to get the ball rolling for your business. Once SEO tactics picks up, the budget spent on PPC can be minimized and then totally withdrawn, if required.

At the end of the day, decision on any kind of marketing strategy depends on the end results you expect from your online marketing strategy and the budget restrictions you face. Be sure you spell out exactly what you expect from your online marketing strategy before undertaking any plans. Flexibility & Control on your marketing budget is what you will gain from your online marketing strategies, which is very unlikely from traditional marketing techniques.

About the Author:
Mark S. is a qualified SEO Expert working with Analtyix Solutions which is a fast growing back-office service company for Finance and Accounting, IT, Marketing and Operational services. Analytix has been doing SEO for websites from various industry verticals like business brokerage firms, outsourcing firms, IT firms, dentists to e-commerce industry. To receive a free SEO analysis of your site contact Mark at mark@analytixsolutions.net

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When I first started my career as a solo entrepreneur, I hired a web designer to create my website for me. He was awesome, and I loved his work. When I received my first bill, it included a contact email address for his "support department" and "billing department". I was a little curious about who those other people were! Later I found out it was just him...he was ALL of those departments -- design, support, billing, the works! A true case of putting lipstick on the pig. Even though he attempted to "paint" his business with these additional departments, underneath it all, he was still simply a solo entrepreneur.

You Can't Contrive Credibility

It was amusing to me at the time...but now I see it for what it was: someone trying to be or look like something they aren't in a misguided attempt to add credibility. This web designer was worried that clients wouldn't take him seriously as a professional if they knew it was just him. So he created the illusion of these additional departments, presumably staffed by other employees. It wasn't what I would call dishonest, more of a stretching of the truth. He delivered on his promises and had the needed expertise; none of his clients received anything less than was promised (and he was actually quite good at over-delivering.)

The Risk of Dressing Up as Something You're Not

I knew this designer well enough and trusted him so it didn't really bother me much, although it was somewhat of a revelation when I discovered he was a solo entrepreneur just like me! His other clients, however, expecting a bigger enterprise, might not have been as forgiving of the pretense. They may have felt deceived, suddenly unsure if they made the right choice. Future work and referrals were put in jeopardy simply because the vendor set an expectation that wasn't exactly true.

The Upside of Putting Away the Makeup

The irony is that particularly as a solo entrepreneur, I actually was happier that he was a solo entrepreneur too! I'd left the corporate world and was embracing my own version of doing-it-all-myself. A short while later I interviewed an accountant for my growing business. She operated in an office with a couple of staff members. And she totally did NOT understand that no, I didn't need to be budgeting money to rent an office for my soon-to-be-hired staff -- I worked alone, from home, and I liked it that way! I sought out an accountant who was a solo entrepreneur like me, precisely because I knew she would understand my business -- and understand me, because she was LIKE me.

Like Attracts Like -- So Be Yourself!

The absolute best thing you can do for yourself and your business, is BE YOURSELF. The greatest truth in business is that you are going to want to work for and with people who share your goals, values, and to a certain extent, your personality. The best way to find those people is to be completely authentic about who you are! If you are a bit quirky or have a flamboyant style, let your website reflect that. If you like to tell it like it is, then do just that when you are on discussion forums, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Not everyone will like it...but those that do will be the ones that do business with you and rave about you to their colleagues.

Throw Away the Lipstick

So stop listening to those who offer well-meaning advice that doesn't feel like you. Don't change your website colors just because some study shows purple isn't seen as a power color. Don't censor yourself in online discussions or let someone talk you into a business card that just doesn't feel like you. Put away the lipstick...and let your real self shine!

Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly from over 100 countries on six continents (and was recently named a finalist for “Website of the Year” in the 4th Annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business). Terri is also the co-author of 136 Ways To Market Your Small or Solo Business.

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When you have got a business that you can continue and sustain, what's the fastest way to make it profitable?

There are a few pointers you can take note of to make your business profitable.

Focus on the marketing.

In any business, number 1 is leads. Every single day, you have to track and measure your leads. How many leads did we generate this month? How many leads did we generate this week?

Most businessmen when you ask them, what will they say? I am not sure, I have to check. It has to be at your fingertips. You have to track your leads and constantly experiment using new strategies and new techniques to increase leads.

Advertising as an investment.

The best way to increase leads is through advertising right. Now, is advertising an expense or is it an investment? I always ask people that question.

If you throw in an ad and you don't measure the leads, it's an expense. If you throw in an ad and you don't make money to cover it, it's an expense. But if you throw in an ad and you track your response, and if for every dollar you spend, you get a dollar and twenty cents back, it becomes an investment.

So if you put in a dollar and you get back a dollar twenty. What's your return? 20%. Your ad is an asset; it just could give you 20%. So how many dollars would you put in if you get a dollar twenty back? You put in as many as you can. You just keep putting it again and again. But all of us know that there's this thing called the Law of Diminishing Returns.

As you keep putting ads, your returns will drop from a dollar twenty and drop to a dollar ten. So what happens. Do you give up your ads? No. you create new ads. And the moment you create new ads with a bit of different skew in that headline, what happens. Your return will again jump up. So that's the first thing.

Focusing on the conversation rate.

Experimenting with new ways to increase conversion is very important. One way to do this is through creating a community. It's easier to resell to a current client than it is to sell to a new client. So by making sure the moment you get a client, the same person comes back again and again and he brings all his friends. This will end up in better conversions as we all know that referrals through friends have a high rate of conversion.

Focus on margins

The last pointer is to constantly focus on your margins How can you do something more cost effectively, yet not compromising on quality. A lot of people ask this question. How do I know when I should hire someone? Or should I just do it myself?

The answer is this, when you hire someone, are you hiring an asset? If you're paying the person $3,000, is the person making back for you another $3,000? If by hiring this person you can make $6,000, invest in that person. If by getting that person at $3,000, you lose that $1,000, then it's not a good investment. So look at things from an investment perspective, from an asset perspective.

Here you have it, the key pointers that you can apply to your existing business and making it more profitable.

Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, a best-selling author and a peak performance trainer. A self-made millionaire by the age of 26, he owns and runs several businesses in education, training, event management and advertising, all with a combined annual turnover of $20 million. His best-selling "Patterns of Excellence" is a complete step-by-step system that will literally program you for success in life.

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Article Contributed by Mark S.

Economic recession has forced most of the small to mid-sized businesses to cut their costs and re-work in a lean and mean way to survive. This involves slashing down those balloon sized marketing budgets and switch over to cost-effective and accountable marketing - SEO is definitely one of them.

Although traditional marketing has its benefits but Internet marketing is gaining an edge due to its attractive measurable deliverables at much lower costs.

One of the toughest things that business owner’s face with web marketing is lack of awareness and knowledge, since it’s just a decade old in terms of popularity. There are conflicts in their expectations on what search engine optimization (SEO) constitutes and what it can do for their business. This confusion is further aggravated when pushy SEO experts spew overblown sales pitch just to lure clients and close deals. Be sure to study and understand what SEO can deliver in form of results to your overall marketing plan.

Broadly speaking one can make SEO accountable by checking up on the following 4 deliverables.

1. Search Engine Rankings:

This is the basic requirement which every SEO campaign should deliver. But the intensity varies as per specific individual circumstances and requirements. As one shirt size cannot fit all, similarly importance of rankings cannot be same for every business.

Search engine ranking optimization focuses on bringing your keyword search on top rankings in various search engine sites like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, AOL etc. These results cannot be guaranteed or controlled.

Points to remember while demanding a high search ranking from your SEO expert:

· Check the competition for your chosen keywords. If it is highly competitive then it gets very difficult to climb over the top. It can be done, but requires consistent labor, time and resources spent on regular basis and following various SEO rules and guidelines to get on top rankings with search engines.

· Your demand should coincide with the current state of your site. Is your site brand new? If yes, it will take more time and efforts to bring you top rankings as one of the important factors influencing the search rankings is the domain age. Always remember rankings take time and constant efforts to build up. It is not a one day, one week or one month job.

· Do NOT expect your rankings to be on top all the time. Rankings fluctuate on a real time basis and your site rankings might suddenly drop to no-man’s island. Trust your SEO expert to find the reason for unexpected poor performance and take immediate damage control actions.

· Last but not the least, if you are obsessed with rankings, remember, rankings can only do so much. If visitors come to your site and immediately leave, it’s waste having high rankings. What is the use of having top rankings but no measurable increase in your sales or marketing results?

2. Traffic:

Another area to focus during an SEO campaign for your site is site traffic. This means the number of unique visitors to your site everyday and the amount of time they spent there. When your SEO campaign kick starts you should expect to see a gradual increase in the number of visitors to your site.

Important points to know about traffic before you focus on this area:

· Try and focus on quality instead of quantity. Even if you have 1000 visitors every day, if none of them convert into leads, your SEO campaign is not working. Be sure to take time and explain to your SEO expert what type of visitors you want them to target.

· Role of traffic is downplayed if you are in niche industry segment. This is because very few people will be actually searching for your product and services. Focus instead on conversion rates.

· Traffic loses its significance if you already have large number of visitors to your site. In such a situation ask your SEO expert to analyze the type of traffic and what action you want the traffic to take on your site. The emphasis should be on finding what’s working and not working to increase sales.

3. Conversions:

Conversion is the heart of any SEO campaign. You can check yourself the conversion rate by the following equation:

Conversion Rate = [(Total Web Sales / Unique Web Traffic) / Average Sales Price] x 100

To put simply you need to calculate how many visitors are actually converting into your customers. How do you do this?

· You need to tell your SEO expert what you consider as conversion for you. You need to define whether a visitor filling up an inquiry form is conversion or when they click on your ‘buy now tab’ on your e-commerce site or is it filling your contact us form or filling your subscription form/newsletter etc.

· You cannot hold your SEO expert responsible for low conversion rate if you have not clearly defined what you would consider as conversion.

· Remember the final sale depends totally on you and not the SEO expert. They can only bring the visitor to your site and guide them to take the action you want online; rest is totally dependent on you. Try and be reasonable in your expectations and see that you demand for an achievable goal from your online SEO campaign.

4. ROI:

The ultimate goal in every business strategy is to increase your bottom line. You need to ensure that the amount invested in any activity gives profitable return to make business sense. The same scenario is expected when you invest in search engine optimization.

The crux here is to remember it’s an investment. Every investment takes time to fructify. Give your SEO expert the minimum time required for the program to start delivering result. Generally it takes 90 days to start seeing some positive activity through SEO. This can vary as per the keywords, competition and industry. Sometimes it might take 6 months, sometimes 1 year. It is an on-going process and the sooner you begin, the soon you can see some good benefits out of it.

Conclusion

When hiring an SEO expert it's important to have expectations since you are not indulging in charity. You need to be clear on what those expectations are and make sure to define it clearly in a formal written contract. This ensures a detailed road map or guideline is prepared which can be referred to check progress continuously. Any breach thereby can be clearly found out and dealt accordingly.

One of the major reasons why SEO campaigns fail is, when changes are requested for rankings, conversions, ROI or any help is required off site, it is not followed or provided by clients. They feel once they have dumped the job to the SEO expert, they will perform miracles. You need to help them to help you. Be co-operative, supportive and provide them all the information and help they need to carry out their job in the best possible manner. If still they cannot deliver as per your expectations and contractual agreement you have every right to penalize them and search for a better option.

About Author:
Mark S. is a qualified SEO expert working with Analtyix Solutions (www.analytixsolutions.com) which is a fast growing back-office service company for Finance and Accounting, IT, Marketing and Operational services. Analytix has been doing SEO for various industry websites from business brokerage, outsourcing, IT, dentists to e-commerce industry. To receive a free SEO analysis of your site contact Mark at mark@analytixsolutions.net

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According to the National Center for Policy Analysis there are nearly 17 million home-based businesses in the U.S. today. As the number of business rise, it becomes increasingly more difficult to effectively market a small business. And when the small business is run by mom with a minuscule advertising the budget, the challenge becomes even tougher. As moms trying to make our way in this billion dollar industry, how do we best focus our marketing efforts?

Do Your Homework
The best way to get good results from your marketing efforts is to research the sites you're considering. Look for websites that are aimed at your target market, that have premium ad placements and that are willing to share their traffic statistics, number of subscribers, etc.

Be Bold
Statistics show that the bigger the ad, the higher the response. Double Click, a digital marketing firm, did a study in 2006 that showed a "strong correlation between the size of ads and their clickthrough performance." So, whenever possible, choose a banner size larger than the standard 468 x 60. It may be pricier, but the results should be worth the extra expense.

Think fresh
Try to find innovative ways to reach your market. Consider trying a rich media campaign that includes a video advertisement, banners formatted in Flash, and other interactive ads. By finding new ways to present your business or product, you'll catch the eye of viewers who might not normally have noticed your advertisement.

Be personal
The potential customers who view your ads want you to connect with them. They want to know how your product or service will make a difference in their lives. Write your ad copy in such a way that it brings the viewers need for your product to their attention.

Another way to make your advertising more personal is to use images - especially real-life photographs. You can find royalty free photos

Be Unique
Make your ad stand out by creating something different and unique - something that represents your company well. Diana Ennen, a publicist and president of VirtualWordPublishing.com states, "With so much competition out there today, it's important to make your ad stand out and speak directly to your target audience. No one knows your business and clients better than you, so create the ad that tells everyone why they should buy from you."

Repeat
The number of times a potential customer views your advertisement has a direct link to their perception of your product/brand. Look for websites with a high volume of traffic and don't be afraid to ask for any traffic statistics or click-thru statistics that they can provide.

Finding effective ways to market your business can seem overwhelming. By following these simple tips, you can get the best possible results for your advertising efforts. Remember that your customers form opinions about your products based on the information you provide, so make sure that your ads are the best they can be.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. She graduated from Grace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. Jill has worked from since 2000 and started her own home-based business to assist other Christians who desire to work from home while maintaining a godly life.

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Article Contributed by Satish Patel

Entrepreneurs are largely driven by the idea of being one’s own boss and are passionate to create wealth rather than money. To start out on one’s own is challenging and most of them would love it, but it can turn out to be a bumpy ride and face an abrupt end. The current downturn has left many such examples where the best of ideas backed by highly skilled entrepreneurs and a concrete business plan too face questions on survival.

As an entrepreneur, you may have kicked-off with a small to mid-sized set-up and that might have not turned out to something that you have wished for. Funds would have become a constraint to grow further, capital market crisis would have lead to little financial access and there seems lesser possibility of help from friends or families. How would you tackle this?

One might agree that continuing with the dream venture till you are forcefully pushed is not a good idea. You might be forced to sell at throwaway prices. In the need of hour, you should instead plan for an exit strategy that can help you realize a deserving value for your business before you’re backed against the wall.

Once the decision to sell has been made, the business owner should be aware of the variety of possible business buyers. Just as small business itself has become more sophisticated, the people interested in buying them are becoming more divergent and complex. With a little bit of preparation, the value of any business can be multiplied several times and, in some cases, many times.

The following are some of today's most active categories of business buyers.

Business Competitors

This is a category often overlooked as a source of prospective purchasers. The obvious concern is that competitors will take advantage of the knowledge that the business is for sale by attempting to lure away customers or clients.

However, if the business is compatible, a competitor may be willing to "pay the price" to acquire a ready-made means to expand. A business brokerage professional can be of tremendous assistance in dealing with the competitor. They will use confidentiality agreements and will reveal the name of the business only after contacting the seller and qualifying the competitor.

The Foreign Buyer

Many foreigners arrive in the United States with ample funds and a great desire to share in the American Dream. Many also have difficulty obtaining jobs in their previous professions, because of language barriers, licensing, and specific experience. As owners of their own businesses, at least some of these problems can be short-circuited.

These buyers work hard and long and usually are very successful small business owners. However, their business acumen does not necessarily coincide with that of the seller (as would be the case with any inexperienced owner). Again, a business broker professional knows best how to approach these potential problems.

Important to note is that many small business owners think that foreign companies and independent buyers are willing to pay top dollar for the business. In fact, foreign companies are usually interested only in businesses or companies with sales in the millions.

Synergistic Buyers

These are buyers who feel that a particular business would compliment theirs and that combining the two would result in lower costs, new customers, and other advantages. Synergistic buyers are more likely to pay more than other types of buyers, because they can see thhttp://getentrepreneurial.com/mt-static/images/formatting-icons/bold.gife results of the purchase.

Again, as with the foreign buyer, synergistic buyers seldom look at the small business, but they may find many mid-sized companies that meet their requirements.

This category of buyer comes with perhaps the longest list of criteria--and demands. These buyers want maximum leverage, but they also are the right category for the seller who wants to continue to manage his company after it is sold. Most financial buyers offer a lower purchase price than other types, but they do often make provision for what is important to the seller other than the money--such as selection of key employees, location, and other issues.

For a business to be of interest to a financial buyer, the profits must be sufficient not only to support existing management, but also to provide a return to the owner.

Individual Buyer

When it comes time to sell, most owners of the small to mid-sized business gravitate toward this buyer. Many of these buyers are mature (aged 40 to 60) and have been well-seasoned in the corporate marketplace.

Owning a business is a dream, and one many of them can well afford. The key to approaching this kind of buyer is to find out what it is they are really looking for.

The buyer who needs to replace a job can be an excellent prospect. Although owning a business is more than a job, and the risks involved can frighten this kind of buyer, they do have the "hunger"--and the need. A further advantage is that this category of buyer comes with fewer "strings" and complications than many of the other types.

A Final Note

Sorting out the "right" buyer is best left to the professionals who have the experience necessary to decide who the best prospects are. Ask for help of experienced business brokers who can devise a sound strategy that gets your business the right buyer and a deserving price.

About Author:
Satish Patel is the founder CEO and President of Sunbelt Business Sales and Acquisitions, New England (www.sunbeltne.com). SunbeltNE is amongst the top franchise of Sunbelt Network, which is the world’s largest network of business brokers with presence in over 30 countries through 300 offices. Patel owns the franchise rights for the states of MA, NH, RI, VT and ME. SunbeltNE has expertise in steering buy and sell deals for Main Street, Franchises and Middle Market companies. Besides business brokerage, SunbeltNE offers services for strategic Mergers and Acquisitions, Cross Border Business selling and buying, Business Financing, Business Valuations and Transition Consulting.

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Article Contributed by Ron Abbott

Every business has the ability to reap huge benefits by making small improvements in their marketing. By leveraging a few key areas you can create plentiful and consistent sales opportunities. One area that can produce significant improvement is the techniques you use to communicate your marketing message to your audience.

The most powerful force in marketing is the skill of persuasion. Your ability to communicate to your target market the benefits and solutions your product or service provides is the key to your business success.

One proven technique that will improve your persuasion skills is to throw them a PASS with your marketing message.

PASS stands for Problem – Agitation – Story – Solution. This communication technique utilizes a powerful psychological trigger: People are highly motivated to action on problems that cause them pain, stress and discomfort.

Your most qualified prospects are looking to solve a specific problem, dissatisfaction or challenge they are facing in their lives. Your job as a marketer is to focus their attention on this problem and show them that you have the best available solution. You must motivate them to take action by stimulating their emotional need to solve the problem and relieve the stress that is attached to it.

Here’s how to use the powerful PASS technique in your marketing materials.

1. Problem – Define the problem they are experiencing and address it clearly so it triggers an emotional response. Get them to take time to think about the pain or discomfort they are feeling.

2. Agitation – Make them feel the problem by pointing out the possible scenarios that could occur if they don’t take action. Feeling a sense of loss or missed opportunity often compels people to act immediately.

3. Story – Tell a relevant story of someone who shared the same problem and their method of solving it. Focus on the positive results they experienced and how they benefited by solving the problem with your product or service.

4. Solution – Offer them a solution to the problem with your product or service. Provide detailed benefits, examples and testimonials of satisfied clients and customers you’ve helped before.

Your goal is to whip them into a frenzy by using emotional triggers which point out the cause of the problem. Once sufficiently agitated, offer your solution and educate them on the benefits you provide to fix it. Paint them a picture of what their life will look like as a result of purchasing your product or service.

When you use the PASS technique, the prospect will sell themselves on the fact they need to make a purchase to remove the pain and problem. For excellent case studies of this formula in action, watch any of the hundreds of TV infomercials that are broadcast over every day. There’s a reason they utilize the PASS technique…it works!

About the Author
Find more marketing techniques from marketing coach Ron Abbott and to request your free marketing report, "Ten Critical, Must-Have Techniques To Improve Your Marketing Results" at htpp://www.td-marketing-system.com.

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As a solo service professional you are probably already clear on who your niche is, i.e. you know who those people are who want and need your services, but are you providing the solution to their problems in the way that they want?

If your products, programs, and/or services are not selling as well as you thought they would it could be there’s a mismatch between what your market wants and what you’re providing them with. In other words, are you providing the solutions based on what YOU think the problems are rather than what your target market wants? And how do you find out?

The answer is simple… market research!

When you think 'market research' it conjures up all sorts of images of telephone surveys, sending out questionnaires, and standing in the street accosting people to ask them questions (yes – I used to do this type of market research many years ago when I worked for a management consultancy practice J ), and as a solo business owner it is crucial that you do your own 'market research' to find out what makes your target market tick, what keeps them awake at night, and what they’re really struggling with.

This process needs to be done on a continual basis – never stop asking your target market what they want - so that you can constantly provide the solutions to their problems.

Today, I’d like to share with you three simple strategies for conducting your own market research (that doesn’t involve standing around in the street!), and how you can put these strategies onto autopilot so that you’re constantly gathering information from your market. All of these have worked very well for me over the past few years!

1. Ask via your sign-up page. When someone signs up to your list, don’t just get their name and email address, ask them what their biggest challenge is too. This is something I’ve done for many years, and in fact you would have seen this yourself when you signed up for this newsletter. I have a specific question that asks: What is YOUR biggest office headache? Feel free to adapt this question for your own needs, i.e. what is your biggest [fill in the blank] when it comes to [fill in the blank].

2. Follow-up with an autoresponder. Once someone has signed up to your list, create an autoresponder that goes out a few days later and asks the same question again. Very often people may not have answered the question when they signed up to your list, and sending them an email a few days later will elicit a reply from them.

3. Create an annual or semi annual survey. At least once a year it’s a good idea to survey your readers and ask them several more in-depth questions. You’ll want to find out what their biggest problems are, what it is they want to learn more about, plus how they want to learn, or how they want their problem solved. For example, you might find your readers prefer home study courses to teleclasses, or would like more interactive programs from you. Putting together a survey is really simple, especially if you use a service such as Survey Monkey. They do the analysis for you, so you get really valuable data.

However, for the data you get through steps 1 and 2 above, analysis isn’t as automatic. Simply gather together all of your data and go through it periodically (at least twice a year) to see what your reader’s problems are. You don’t even need to be a statistician to figure it all out. Just print off all the responses and read through them, noting any common themes as you go along.

By combining all of this data, and implementing your market research strategy so that it runs on autopilot, you can then use this information to put your products and services together so that you’re providing solutions to your target market’s problems in the way that they want and need.

Remember, you are providing your market with what they want and need, not what you think they want and need.

Online Business Manager & Virtual Assistant, Tracey Lawton, supports professional speakers, coaches, and authors to operate an efficient, organized, and profitable business. Learn how to create an efficient and organized office in 7 EASY steps, and receive free how-to articles at http://www.OfficeOrganizationSuccess.com.

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Small Business Branding by Ed Roach: Positioning your brand is probably one of the most important aspects of branding. It is the unique strategy that will introduce your target audience to exactly what it is that differentiates your product or service from your competitors. I am working with a number of companies right now developing exactly this.

It is absolutely fascinating what gems come out of discussions on positioning. At the outset, many companies are hard pressed to recognize a difference. All they see is the obvious. My strength is that I want to understand how the product or service is delivered, how is it made, what is the experience that surrounds the product or service? Several times the difference is not in the actual product but the delivery of the product or the follow-up. You have to look at the entire product cycle from conception to happy customer and beyond. There is an opportunity in there. You can count on it.

Compliances offer up positioning opportunities. Training offers up positioning opportunities. Frankly there is much to learn from every angle and nuance. For example, I worked with a consumer food product customer. They felt that their fruit product was much like all their competitors across the world. All were grown exactly the same way, with the same ingredients, under similar conditions using the same technologies and marketing and shipping conditions. I refused to believe that there was no opportunity and so I dug deeper into the industry standards. I wanted to know how one product is rated over another. What was intriguing was that the very standards for grading our produce was the opportunity for a very BIG aha moment. Here is the skinny on fruit standards. They are judged on 3 criteria - size, appearance and firmness.

Consider these criteria again: size - appearance - firmness. Is anything missing? I suggested there was and it was huge.

Taste.

You see, taste isn’t a criteria. That is left up to the individual. I suggested that there must be at least a minimum standard that a good sample must taste like. With watermelon, it’s the sweetness - a lemon, its tarty characteristic. Everyone agreed that we were on to something.

Once this particular fruit standard for taste was established, we then contracted the two leading agricultural universities in Canada and the United States to independently develop processes that tested for taste based on the bar we set. While other competing fruit have may won taste competitions judged by consumers, we now have established a definitive test for taste not unlike the the test for size, appearance and firmness. The processes were legally protected and are now proprietary to us.

We were now the ONLY fruit tested for taste!

Our fruit’s taste was now a guaranteed standard of quality NOT based on differing opinions, but on quantitative data. The bar had been raised.

A very compelling difference. This my friends is positioning. In this case the customer had to change how it did business and in doing so, introduced a new standard to their industry. This is not the work of a follower, but a leader.

Positioning can be very powerful if you are savvy enough to recognize the opportunity and bold enough to implement it. The real gems are far beyond the obvious. Look all around the edges of your product or service.

How To Power Position Your Brand! [Small Business Branding]

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Small Business Branding: There are aspects of our business life that are challenges. When I blog or when I design or consult, I often come across challenges that only research can address. I am currently investigating podcasts. I want the production to be more than me in front of a microphone discussing branding tips. What about production values? Background music? The intro? All of these concerns are what is known as pain points. In the course of accomplishing something, these are the little irritants along the journey.

When you develop your marketing materials, recognizing your target audience’s pain points and exploiting them, will resonate with that audience. Don’t bore them with simply a list of what you do and how well you do it, but answer the age old question from the mouth of your consumer: “What’s in it for me?” or “How can I profit from dealing with you?”

Let’s say that you’re a bright young management consultant. Your target audience’s pain points might be:

• Industry compliances
• Retaining quality employees
• Training sale staff
• Keeping a tight reign on payroll
• Cross-border issues
…just to name a few.

If you want to get their attention, address what you know to be the biggest pain point of them all. Use the pain point that feels as though you’re hitting their sore tooth with a small metal hammer. Their pain is your gain.

To go back to my pain, (podcasting) - whenever I came across information that addressed one of my pain points, it resonated with me and I investigated that service further. I ignored all others who tried to sell their services with brag notes or fancy slogans, I don’t have the time to figure them out. You might even use your own target’s pain points as the basis of your brand differentiator.

Look at pain point solutions that exist all around you: If you perspire, you use Ban roll-on - if your feet hurt, you use a Dr. Scholl gel insole - if your mortgage is to complicated, ING has the unmortgage. The wonderful thing is, your customer wants you to address their pain points. We all want relief.

In many ways if you don’t use pain points to sell, many customers probably wonder why you exist. Understand their pain and sell them the relief.

They’ll love you for it.

How To Sell The Pain [Small Business Branding]

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Article contributed by Michelle Ulrich

1.Social networks – how to work it
a.http://www.craigslist.com
b.http://www.fastpitchnetworking.com
c.http://www.ryze.com
d.Ning.com is a create-your-own social network site

2.Free Classified Ads
a.Backpage
b.Craigslist
c.MySpace – need to be a member with a profile, I believe

3.Teleclasses/Podcasts
a.These can be pre-recorded if you don’t want to interact with others
b.Teleclasses are great for getting the word out about your products/services; guest speakers can promote you to their list and increase your list on a monthly basis
c.Use www.fullcalendar.com to promote teleclasses and events

4.Joint Ventures – co-creation of…
a.New products
b.New teleclasses
c.New workshops
d.New podcasts
e.New ebooks
f.Limitless ideas…

5.Strategic Alliances
a.Promote one another via banner ad exchanges
b.Promote one another via ezine or newsletter mentions

6.Article submissions
a.Write an article – submit online
b.Repurpose into an ezine article or ezine series if article is long
c.Repurpose into a podcast
d.Repurpose into an ebook with additional resources
e.Repurpose into a speech/presentation for live events

7.Ezine submissions
a.Write an ezine – submit online to ezine banks
b.Repurpose into an article
c.Repurpose into a podcast
d.Repurpose into an ebook with additional resources
e.Repurpose into a speech/presentation for live events

8.Ezine with tips, resources, trends
a.Submit to ezine banks for additional subscribers

9.Blog
a.Blog or have someone else blog for you no less than 3x/wk
b.Pick a theme for each month to make it easy
c.Base the theme on your teleclasses and ezine, etc. to make all items/tasks easier to complete

10.Affiliate accounts
a.Amazon – book store, software store, web store, etc.
b.Commission Junction
c.Create your own affiliate account – essentially provides a means for others interested in your product a way for them to make a small percentage while you gain a virtual sales force

11.Blogtalk Radio – 15 mins – longer monologues or full blown radio show; record to podcast
a.Repurpose into an article
b.Repurpose into an ezine piece
c.Repurpose into a podcast
d.Repurpose into an ebook with additional resources
e.Repurpose into a speech/presentation for live events

12.Get involved; share your passion
a.Share your passion with others
i.Online
1.Social networks
2.Forums
3.Message boards
ii.In person
1.Networking
2.Volunteer opportunities in community
3.Church
4.Youth groups
5.Etc.
iii.Don’t forget to share your projects and/or websites with others

About the Author
Michelle Ulrich is the Chief Villager and founder of The Virtual Nation™, an educational destination for Virtual Professionals around the globe. Michelle is an avid believer in giving back to her industry and she does this by offering coaching, teleclasses, resources, and tools, in addition to providing a community of learning, a nation of culture, and a virtual village for her members.

She maintains her private practice where she specializes in working with authors, coaches and speakers who struggle to keep up with e-commerce and new technologies. Clients can check out her services at www.virtualbusinessmarketing.com, while Virtual Assistants can find her over at www.thevirtualnation.com. She can be reached by telephone at (916) 536-9799 in the Pacific time zone.

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Buiness Know-How by Tessa Stowe: Selling is all about the whys. There are some very important whys that you want answered and there are some very important whys your prospect wants answered. If you focus on these whys, selling will become a lot easier for you plus it will be easier for your prospects to buy from you.

So what are these whys and why are they so important?

When you are talking to a prospect the whys that you want answered are:

1. The real 'reason why' they want this problem solved or they want to obtain this outcome.

You want to find the 'reason why' because you need to discover the ultimate outcome they want. If you know the ultimate outcome they want, you will not only increase your chances of gaining a client but you will also probably make an even larger sale. Also, if you think about it, you need to know the ultimate outcome your prospect is looking for before you can propose the solution that is going to give them this ultimate outcome.

2. Why they want this ultimate outcome NOW.

You want to find out why they want this ultimate outcome now as you need to know if there is a compelling reason to take action now. If there is no compelling reason to take action now, chances are high that they will not make a decision now. If there is no compelling reason you will probably be wasting your time, money and resources in pursuing a sale that is not going to happen now.

So just as you have whys you want answered so too does your prospect. The whys your prospect wants answered are:

1. Why should I buy this product or service?

Your prospect wants to know what's in it for me (WIIFM) if I buy your product or service? What problem does your product or service solve and what outcome is it going to deliver? What difference is your product or services going to make for me? Is there a justification for buying your product or service? Why is it important for me to buy your product or service now instead of later?

2. Why should I buy this product or service from you?

Once your prospect has made the decision that they want to buy a product or service like yours to solve a problem or achieve an outcome, they will probably also think they can buy this product or service from other companies as well. It is at this point they start asking themselves all sorts of questions about you. Are you capable of solving this problem and delivering the outcome? Will you do what you say you will do? Can I trust you? What risk am I exposing myself to if I buy from you? Will I get the outcome I want if I buy from you? Why should I buy from you instead of your competitors?

If you look at your sales conversations and all your steps in the sales process, they really are about finding out and answering these whys. In essence you want to find out why they want a problem solved now so you can know if they are really a prospect. In essence your prospect wants to know why they should even be interested in your products and services and if they are, why they should buy from you. Selling really is all about the whys.

Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and recovering salespeople simple steps to turn conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Her free monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up at http://www.salesconversation.com

Selling Is All About The Whys [Buiness Know-How]

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Blogtrepreneur: Social Media Optimization is one of the most common methods for getting significant exposure for bloggers. Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious are constantly sending large volumes of traffic to submissions that are the most popular with users.

An effective Social Media Marketing plan can help to take a blog from nowhere to being well-known in a short amount of time. However, social media isn’t a good fit for every blog, and not all bloggers choose to participate. For those who would rather draw traffic in other ways, there are some traffic sources that are capable of giving you the same type of exposure as a front page appearance on a major social media site.

In this post we’ll look at five ways that bloggers can quickly gain tremendous exposure without social media, and without paying for any advertising. Just like social media, these methods won’t be for everyone either, but you may find something that fits very well for your niche and for your audience.

1 - Get Mentioned by Google News
2 - Submit a Press Release
3 - Get a Link from a Major Website
4 - Write a Guest Post for a Major Blog
5 - Get Listed in Web Design Galleries

5 Alternatives to Social Media Marketing [Blogtrepreneur]

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While research shows that most people believe they can’t be sold, the fact is those same people can indeed be persuaded if they don’t recognize that a sales technique is being used.

The trick lies in the different persuasive strategies used then and now. Lets use a car salesman this time since they top the list as the people you absolutely cannot trust in a poll.

Then: They go on downloading information in you, telling you EVERYTHING you need to know AND don’t need to know. Basically, its like taking a shotgun with pellets in it, hoping that one of them will hit the target. This doesn’t work anymore!

The following are strategies for you to adopt as you attempt to persuade your audience, be it one or many.

1. Aiming at the Target

Have you been in a situation where a salesman or saleswoman was trying to sell you something by giving you the 4-1-1 of what he or she is selling while you absolutely couldn’t wait to get away from the guy? That he or she was boring you nuts with all the information?

You felt like running away as soon as he turns his head because he never found out what was IMPORTANT to YOU.

Ask a simple question : “What’s most important to you when you buy a car? ”

“What’s most important to you when you enroll your kids to a programme? ”

“What most important to you when you look for a life partner…( ok you get it by now don’t you? ) ”

This simple question is what gets you the most answers. So for example, if I’m going to go buy a car, what’s important to me is the price.

So if you’re going to sell me a car, you should immediately address my pricing concerns and not go rambling on how energy-efficient and how many awards the car has won. This saves your breath and of course, time spent.

2. Never start your questions with ” WHY? “

Not only is it annoying but you get only excuses.

Lets use an example: If your kid comes back from school with his report card dominated with D’s and E’s and (God Forbid, F’s ), You’ll probably be in a rage and ask ..”WHY did you get D’s and E’s ?? ”

And the answer (or rather, excuse) that you’re going to get is:

“My teacher ate my test paper.”
“My teacher doesn’t really like me.”
“The kids bully me if I get A’s.”

So how can you ask the same question but get solutions instead?

Start your questions with “What” or “How”. These 2 words empowers action in people. You’re still asking the same question, but you shift its mode and then you start to get changes!

3. Use STORIES to convey your message.

Its important to highlight before I continue with how we can use stories that people tend to be too obvious when they use their stories. As a result, they shift back into a sales mode.

Most people cannot come up with a story on the fly. Even Paul suggested practice and fine-tuning our stories to ensure an impactful message and one that really sinks into the human psyche. Remember? Stories, like humour is a process. Your stories are not going to come out fantastic the first time you tell them. Hence, you must be willing to let your stories develop over time.

Eric Feng is the go-to guy if you want to learn how to impress your investors and customers through public speaking. For more tips and tactics that you can use immediately in your next presentation, visit The Public Speaking Blog.

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I always tell people that the number one life skill you must have if you want to be rich and successful is that you must learn to sell.

The trouble with a lot of people is, especially those who are highly educated, with a degree or honours degree say, "I don't sell."

Being a degree holder myself, I think that it is the most stupid thing in the world. If I were to ask you, "Do you know who the world's greatest salesperson is?"

I'll tell you who it is. I would say it's the President of United States or any president or prime minister. You know why? He's got to go out there and he's got to sell himself, in order for you to vote for him.

Do you think it's easy? Look at George Bush for an example, he won his election just narrowly by 51 % of the votes. This means 49% of people, said no to him, they hated him probably.

But do you think he cares? He doesn't care

So if the president of the United States, who is the most powerful man on Earth can sell and take rejection, why can't you?

I believe that the main reason why a lot of people are afraid of selling, is because of ego.

This is especially so for those who have an MBA or Degree. And that's what holds most people back. And that's why, I hate to say this. Most people with a Degree or PHD won't succeed as much in business as to someone who doesn't.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I told myself that although I have a degree I will not let my ego get in the way. You just got to learn how to sell. And if you think about the irony of it, a lot of times we are already selling , we are just not aware of it.

For example, most of us would have probably been on a date, before. If you are on a date, what were you selling? You're selling yourself.

This also applies even if you are a doctor. A lot of doctors in the medical profession, especially those in the GP arena, a lot of them are suffering.

Why? That's because they are good at the technical aspects, but they can't sell themselves, they can't smile at you when you come into their office, they don't know how to market.

So it's the person who knows how to sell that makes the best doctor, the best lawyer, in whatever profession that may be. But again the substance must be there. That presupposed substance must be there and selling is like that huge cherry on top that makes people want to eat your cake.

Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, a best-selling author and a peak performance trainer. A self-made millionaire by the age of 26, he owns and runs several businesses in education, training, event management and advertising, all with a combined annual turnover of $20 million. His best-selling "Patterns of Excellence" is a complete step-by-step system that will literally program you for success in life.

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BusinessKnowHow: Most, if not all, small businesses are built on a budget. Available funds must be used to buy technology, additional phone lines and marketing materials such as business cards. In this article you will find ten low cost or no cost tips that will help you get your first customer and build your business.

1) Obtain free or low cost business cards at a company such as www.VistaPrint.com.

2) Have a new or rebuilt shopping center opening in your town? Attend the grand opening and chat with the business owners and staff and hand out your free or low cost business cards.

3) Create flyers with your phone number on tear off tabs and place them at the library, grocery store, coffee shops, etc.

4) Hold a contest. People love freebies.

5) Write an article that would appeal to your target audience such as small business owners, add a four to five line biography with your e-mail address and web site address.

6) Create an informative presentation around your topic area and contact your local Chamber of Commerce and offer to speak at a monthly meeting.

7) Create coupons offering a free or discounted product or a free hour of service for every two or three hours of paid service.

8) Use the time you spend sitting in traffic to gain new clients. For less than thirty dollars you can purchase a sign for your car from www.iprint.com or www.webdecal.com.

9) Create a press release announcing the opening of your business or some other milestone event. Send the press release to editors at your local newspaper and to other free area publications.

10) Ask for referrals. Give your business card to your family members, neighbors, hair salon, etc. and ask that they pass them on.

Top Ten Frugal Ways to Market Your Small Business [BusinessKnowHow]

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A tale of two companies

The contrast couldn't be sharper.

Company T had lost it's direction and was sinking fast. Where sales were once $18M, they ultimately plunged to less than $6M. Where they once set the standard in their industry for customer service, now they were the joke of the town.

Company C was a different breed. It had always been the small respected underdog. At $6M is was a third of company T's size. Where everyone else in the industry had lost over half their business, they were holding fast and had doubled their customer base. They were poised to exit the recession as a dominant player.

Why was company C thriving in the recession while company T (and the rest of the industry) foundered? They had a strong sales focus. They seized the chance to grow market share. They saw the opportunity to eliminate several bottom feeders that constantly drug down prices.

7 Keys to selling during a recession

1. Go back to basics

   When things start spinning out of control it is time to reevaluate. What does a good coach work on when his team is slumping? He goes back to basics.
   
   It isn't exciting, but think back to your early days when you were learning sales.Take a deep breath, step back, and look at sales 101.
   



2. Focus on the customer

   Business starts and ends with your customer. Identify his needs. This becomes the basis for your products/services. No, that doesn't mean you give away the store. It just means that every aspect of your business needs to support your customer. Anything else is a waste of time and money.

   Most businesses focus on their systems and expense control. Their criteria for all decisions is making their own jobs easier. Guess what...the customer doesn't care!
   



3. Focus on your niche

   This is not the time to try new techniques, find new markets, or launch new products. That is a desperate act that just wastes your time and money. If anything you should actually focus your resources on your top products, services, and markets. Remember, jack of all trades, master of none.

   Take a minute and define your focus. What is your niche market? What are their needs? What are you doing now to service them? What could you do better? How can you dominate your niche and grow your market share?
   



4. Increase your sales budget

   Contrary to what your operations manager says you can't cut your way to a profit. Business starts and ends with the customer. Yes you need to tighten your belt. Expense control is important. Just be smart where you spend your money. Ask the question "will it grow my business?"

   Increase your sales expense budget. Spend more on strategic lunches. Give your top salesman a bonus. Reward your sales support team. Thank your top customers for their loyalty and send them a gift.

   Compare this to what your competition is doing. Right now they are reigning in their salesman. In fact, they probably just fired a few! You stand out and can take market share if you are smart.
   



5. Dump the deadbeats

   Fire the bottom 20% of your customers. I can hear the screaming now. "We can't afford to lose any more business." This is bunk. These customers take 80% of your time for 20% of the income. Cut them loose and spend your resources on customers you can satisfy!
   



6. Guard your customer base

   Right now everyone is hungry. They are eying your customers like a starving wolf eyes a young lamb. Take care of your customer. Give them such value and service that they wouldn't dream of going elsewhere. Build deep relationships with the key decision makers-remember that the buying decision is emotional. Logic is used to justify the decision.

   Make a list you your customers and rank them. Focus your time and energy on your stars.
   



7. Branch out to new accounts

   The flip side of guarding your customers is to go on the attack. Remember that your competition is cutting back on spending. They have let a few salesmen go. The remaining salesmen are overloaded and overworked.

   Make a customer wish list. Look at the competition and identify their top customers to target.

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This article is by our guest writer Diana Ennen, who is also the Author of Virtual Assistant: The Series, Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA, & The Corel Word Perfect Office Ready Virtual Assistant Solution Pack. She also owns a website: http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com

Marketing your business is essential to its success. You can have the greatest service or the best product, but if you don't market it and let others know about it, then it's doubtful that you'll be very successful. When considering your marketing, you first want to take into account who your clients are, and what your clients might be looking to you to do. To do this, you need to do the following:

1.Know Your Client's Business: The first step is to know your clients. Do some research so you can have a clear understanding of what your clients' business is and what they do. What does this business hope to achieve? What are its needs and how can you meet those needs?

What can you do that will allow that client to perform better in business? By knowing your client and finding answers to these questions, you can become an immediate asset to their firm.

2.Offering Clients a Convenience: One of the main conveniences you can offer is that of time. Clients realize that their time is valuable. Anything that will allow your potential clients more freedom with their time is an immediate plus. But you need to be able to show them this in your marketing. Take for example a virtual assisting business, when you market to potential clients letting them know that you will do their correspondence typing, answer their e-mail, handle all their publicity needs and even keep their office running while they travel, they realize they will have the time they need to do the work that often so desperately needs done. They will have the time to draft that pleading or finalize the proposal. For the realtor, when you do their marketing they can see how they would be allowed the freedom to be out there selling.

3.Solving clients' problems: If you can find a way to solve a client's problems, then you are able to make your business a valuable asset to them. For example, let's say they are having problems with their website and getting visitors to it. You can send them a letter addressing specifically how you can bring more visitors and also mention what other advantages you can offer. You become a very valuable asset when you do this. They have a problem they need fixed. You have a solution you can solve that problem. They are eager to talk to you immediately to get their site up and running and not miss out on any more missed revenue from their site being down.

4.Proving Clients with Something Better Than What They Have: In your marketing efforts, make sure to mention anything that might be of interest to your clients to run their business better. For example, you might have Voxwire capabilities. This allows you to do web conferencing. You can offer your clients the convenience of having meetings, classes online, etc. Or perhaps you are an expert at Outlook and e-mail management. You can emphasize how much time you can save them daily when you handle this for them. Also, how much more they can connect to their clients when you organize their contacts with Outlook so they can keep in better touch with them.

These are essential key points to remember in marketing to obtain clients or even to keep those existing ones. Now, it's also important once you get those clients to keep those clients. To do this, you just provide the best possible service always.

For additional marketing tips, you can look to our articles at http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com for articles on all topics of marketing, as well as other business needs.

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Our friend at YoungEntrepreneur.com, Evan Carmichael, alerted us to a really insightful post written by Andy Marken for his weekly Entrepreneur University feature. It's about whether or not businesses should start a blog and if you decide to, what are the things to look out for that will help turn your blog into a success. The key learnings points we took away from the article:

1. Blogs are ideal for CEOs because the focus is on a topic you are passionate about. The blog allows the executive to address business issues and concerns, explain them and expand on key industry/company points.

2. Use shorter, more frequent blog entries rather than long white papers or position statements. As you study blogs around the web you will see that the best and most popular sites are a short paragraph or two and sometimes only a sentence. The goal is to show you are knowledgeable about the subject and to make one specific point. Some of the best executive blogs only have a sentence or two with a link directing readers to a relevant article in a respected business, trade or consumer publication.

3. The best business blogs reflect the viewpoint and voice of the executive, not lawyer talk or PR bullet dodging. This can be a tightrope because you want to be as honest and forthright as possible but you also have to write with the understanding that you are creating a very public presence of your information.

Learn more about whether you should start a blog right now at YoungEntrepreneur.com's article: Should You Start A Blog? - Entrepreneur University.

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Before you can have clients, you need to have prospects -- that's what marketing is all about. If your marketing isn't attracting the kind of people you'd like to be working with, it's like pushing a rope -- you are trying to sell them something they don't need, and they are looking for something you don't offer. A little fine-tuning of your marketing plan can make the difference between a solo business that lurches and stalls, and a business that runs smoothly and is fun to operate.

Your Four-Point Marketing Tune-Up Checklist:

Understand the difference between your Target Market and your Niche. A target market has distinguishing demographic characteristics; for example, recently widowed working women under 50. A niche gets more specific in characteristics that might not be as easily identifiable as demographics; using the previous example, you could further narrow your target market by including only women who want to remarry and don’t know how to meet suitable men.

Make sure your Niche is focused enough. Think of all the people who might fit in your niche. Imagine them all in a room at a business or social event. Would you find them all interesting and enjoy talking to them? If you cringe at the thought of meeting some of the people in that imaginary room, note what it is about them that you’d like to avoid – and re-define your niche to exclude them.

Perhaps you want to coach women who will be patient in their search for a spouse -- not desperate! If your marketing message implies easy, immediate results, you'll be attracting the wrong prospects. Fine-tune your language so it is clear that your solutions may take time to be successful. You won’t be eliminating potential customers – you’ll be saving yourself time wasted on less-than-ideal prospects. And you’ll find yourself more effortlessly attracting clients in the heart of your niche market.

Choose marketing techniques that fit your strengths. Just because every other relationship coach has written a book, doesn’t mean you have to! If the whole publishing and book promotion exercise sounds like torture, don’t waste your time. Maybe writing a Dear Abby type of newspaper column is more your style. If you find dealing with your website to be confusing, but are good at speaking to small groups, ignore the advice to do a lot of online marketing and instead look for opportunities to speak at senior centers.

Be authentic – be yourself. Building an image that isn’t who you are is a setup for disaster, especially for the self employed. You’ll be exhausted keeping up the façade…and potential clients will sense the lack of integrity. If you yourself are recently widowed and learning how to meet the right kind of men, don't try to imply that you are an expert. Your personal dating stories can be a great way to establish a relationship with a potential client, who can see themselves in you. Clients want someone they can trust -- it is more important than all the credentials in the world.

Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly from over 100 countries on six continents (and was recently named a finalist for “Website of the Year” in the 4th Annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business). Terri is also the co-author of 136 Ways To Market Your Small or Solo Business.

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Small Business Branding: How important a core difference is essential to marketing success.

Marketing behaviorQuite often a small business owner will ask me to reveal the most powerful marketing strategy I have seen. The answer may surprise you.

The most powerful marketing strategy I know has little to do with direct mail, adverting, special promotions, websites or referrals. No, before any of those ‘tactics’ will have any major impact on your business you must first find, commit and communicate a compelling difference between you and everyone else that says they do the same thing as you.

Let’s do a quick mental exercise.

Pretend that you are in a room full of your competitors and I asked this question. “If you think you offer a fair price, please raise your hands”. “Now, lower your hands if you don’t offer great customer service.” “Lower your hands if you don’t feel you are an expert and can deliver valuable advice” How many hands do you think would be up? Almost all right? So, if you don’t do an effective job at “educating” you customers on how specifically you are different, guess what the deciding factor is? PRICE!!!! Who wants to compete on price?

Look, we all know that every business is special and unique in its own way. But the bigger question is does your potential clients know? You have to answer the following question “why should I choose you?” from the customer perspective. There are several ways you can establish a unique selling proposition. Here are a few:

* Unique service
* Market niche
* Special offer
* Solve a specific problem

Once you have spent some time and discovered your uniqueness, you must commit to it. These core differences will become the foundation for all of your marketing material and advertising messages. You will use these unique differences to create your marketing materials that educate.

Differentiate or Die: Standing Out In A Crowd [Small Business Branding]

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Small Business Trends: Maybe sales and marketing are not your strongest skills. But if you want to improve your marketing by 100%, try this simple technique that anybody can do: learn to tell a good story.

In my latest column over at the OPEN Forum site, I discuss the power of telling stories to spice up your marketing:

T.J. Walker, a public speaking consultant to the rich and famous, wrote about the power of telling stories. Quoting the book “Made to Stick” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, he notes that 63% of people will remember a story from a talk or presentation, versus only 5% who remembered statistics.

He also said this: “Stories are not a luxury; they are the single most effective way to get your audience to remember your messages.”

OK, he was talking about public speaking. But, that same principle applies to marketing your business, too — because marketing is partially about getting your message across.

If you want your business to be memorable, and for your message to reach as many people as possible and persuade them to buy, learn to tell stories around your business.

Naturally, in my column I tell a story to get my point across — a story about fuzzy bunny slippers. Read: How Fuzzy Bunny Slippers Can Grow Your Business.

Tell Stories and Improve Your Marketing [Small Business Trends]

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YoungEntrepreneur: Ten Commandments of Sales:

1) Never take no for an answer

2) Give value first

3) Treat all customers like family

4) Always tell the trth

5) Prospect everyday

6) Keep a positive attitude

7) Return every phone call & email

8) Underpromise & Overdeliver

9) Never make an excuse for your price

10) Keep the faith

What do you think of the list? What would make your top ten list of commandments for sales?

The Ten Commandments of Sales [YoungEntrepreneur]

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Business Pundit: 23-cent Pizzas… Are you kidding me? You can’t even get a White Castle hamburger for that. However, yesterday in Ohio 86 Papa John’s Pizza stores decided to sell 23-cent pizzas as a truce after they agreed to offer a franchise in Washington D.C. t-shirts calling LeBron James a “CRYBABY.” This was in response to the Cleveland Cavaliers star complaining about hard fouls during a NBA playoff series that was with the Washington Wizards.

The idea of the 23-cent pizza was a way to make up with the Cleveland area fans and honor James by selling pizza for the same price as LaBron’s jersey number, 23. Papa John’s planned on selling more the 75,000 pizzas.

The promotion had crowds standing for hours in extremely long lines waiting for the 23-cent pepperoni pizza. While everything went off without a lot of pandemonium, there were scores of complaints about the wait and line cutting.

The good that came out of this promotion is that all the money went to the LaBron James Family Foundation.

What are your thoughts?

Do you think this was a good idea?
Do you think Papa John’s saved face or were people just taking advantage of a deal?
In your opinion, will this charade have any long effect for Papa John’s?
Was this just another marketing gimmick based on controversy?

23-Cent Pizza: Good Idea or Bad Promotion? [Business Pundit]

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There are many ways to market a home-based business. But one of the simplest ways is to use an every day business tool - email. By using these five easy tips you'll see how easily your business can grow without much effort on your part.

1. Use a Professional Signature - This is an important tip to use on every email that you send. Even your friends may not always remember your website address or business phone number and will quickly look to an old e-mail to look it up.

When preparing an email signature it's important to include Your Name, Company Name, and your Physical Address or Website Address. You may also include your phone number. Below is a sample Email signature:

Jill Hart 888-241-0990 Christian Work at Home Moms http://www.cwahm.com

The signature is simple, easy to read and includes a link directly to my website. It is very important to include the http:// before the website address because many email programs will not link the text to your website without this (it will appear as text - not a link).

Also, make sure that you double check that you have your website correct. Often times I've found that people have their website wrong by inverting a letter or two and aren't aware of it. It cannot only lead to a loss of a sale, but it shows less professionalism on your part.

You can also use a virtual business card as your signature. You can design and purchase your own virtual business card at http://www.vistaprint.com. There is a very small cost - less than $2.00 for this professional looking virtual signature file.

2. Find a "Signature Buddy" - This is an easy and cost-free way to spread the word about your business. Ask a colleague or friend if they will "swap" a line in their signature with you. You will add a line at the bottom of your signature with a link to their business and they will do the same.

Jill Hart 888-241-0990 Christian Work at Home Moms http://www.cwahm.com

Publishing and book marketing - http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com/

The signature "swap" can be as simple as a line (as above) or as much as a 2 - 3 line testimony of why you're recommending this link. You can find a permanent signature "buddy" or change it weekly or monthly.

3. Send Email Coupons - This is a great way to network using email. Send a special coupon by email that is available only for those that receive your emails. You can also extend this to a newsletter if you have one. Offer a special coupon for anyone who signs up for your newsletter!

You can send other specials by email as well - special offers, free gifts, ebooks, etc. There are many ways that you can utilize your email to bless your customers and colleagues.

4. Create a Custom Background for your Email - This is easier to do than it sounds. If you are using Microsoft Outlook or a similar program, you can find directions on creating your own custom signature online at places like http://www.mailmsg.com/outlookstationary.htm.

Custom email stationary can take a plain email and make it look professional. I include my logo and my website name in my custom background. Be sure to make the picture "light," so that it does not compete with the text of the emails you'll be sending.

5. Send Thank You Emails - In this day and age it is very acceptable to send a Thank You card via email. This is an easy way to thank customers, advertisers, and even newsletter subscribers.

You can create you own Thank You or use a program like Yahoo! Greetings. Many of these programs have free e-cards that you can send as well as a paid version with additional designs. Another great place is Hallmark.com where you can get customized greeting e-cards for any occasion, free. It's a great way to remember your client's birthdays or perhaps a special day in their business.

You can even set up an auto-responder to send the Thank You automatically. There are many auto-responder programs for you to choose from and many website hosting companies will provide you with one, you'll just need to go in and set it up.

One great thing about an auto-responder is that you can set up when the email will be sent, what will "trigger" the auto-responder and what the email will say. This way, any time you receive an order, the customer receives an email immediately, even if you're not available.

One downfall to auto-responders is that they can seem impersonal. However, you can overcome this by taking the time to write a personal note to your customers and use this as the auto-responder email.

Can you see how beneficial e-mails can be for your business? When you use a professional looking signature, find a "buddy" to swap lines in your signature, personalize your email background, use auto-responders and any other items that you are able to customize, you'll never look at email the same way again. Marketing can be inexpensive and effective when you know the right ways to do it.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. She graduated from Grace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. Jill has worked from since 2000 and started her own home-based business to assist other Christians who desire to work from home while maintaining a godly life.

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For most small businesses, all marketing is local marketing — as it should be. But even if your company is regional or national in scope, it's a good idea to "go local" to select, targeted communities.

The keys to effective community marketing can be summed up with three guidelines:

1. Get local: target your marketing efforts down to the neighborhood level

2. Get involved: participate in the community to generate visibility and good will

3. Get personal: as much as possible, market on a one-to-one, face-to-face basis

Here are some tips and techniques to get you started:

Use local city-specific Web sites and local portals

City and town Web sites, as well as local versions of major portals, are growing in number and popularity. Maintain a presence on local sites by providing content — or by advertising. In addition to local versions of AOL's Cityguide, community-oriented Web sites like Yelp.com and Judysbook.com (which has the added advantage of covering suburbs and small towns in addition to major cities) are becoming more common.

Use local search engines and directories

Make sure you're listed with local search engines and city-specific directories. Local.com and CitySearch are two such search engines. A newer, but more "hyper-local" site is Backfence.com.

Set your Google ad to appear locally

If you operate a local business and advertise on Google, you can target local customers only.
Google lets you set ads to appear only to people in a particular city, state or region. In the AdWords section, click on "For local businesses" under "How it works."

Get involved in your community

Volunteer, serve on local boards, participate in your local Chamber of Commerce and work for local charities as a way to grow your grassroots marketing efforts. You may find that your neighbors become your customers. For volunteer opportunities, visit idealist.org, The United Way, or Rotary International.

Support community events

Take your community involvement one step further by supporting community events. Sponsor a Little League team, participate in parades, town days or other local events. Small business associations such as SCORE offer tips for establishing a strong presence in your local community. Suggestions include starting a local newsletter or creating a local advisory board made up of customers. John Jantsch's "Duct Tape Marketing" blog's "In your own backyard" section is insightful as well.

Make the most of local media and publicity opportunities

Generate awareness for your business locally by writing op-eds in the local newspaper, getting booked on local radio talk shows, and advertising in the good, old-fashioned Yellow Pages. Online community Craigslist continues to be a great local resource. For help getting booked on radio talk shows and otherwise generating local publicity, seek out the services of a good local public relations consultant by searching the directory of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Other local marketing options to keep in mind…

• Explore cause-related marketing opportunities to generate good will for your company.

• Consider taping a TV show on your local public access station — it's usually free.

• Give your Web site or blog a local focus or start a local blog.

• Develop a customer advisory board to get input from local customers.

• Create alliances with non-competing businesses — you promote me, I'll promote you.

Lou Bortone is an award-winning writer and video producer with over 20 years experience in marketing, branding and promotion. As an online video expert, Lou helps entrepreneurs create video for the web at www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com. In addition, Lou works as a freelance writer and professional ghostwriter, with a ghostwriting site at www.GhostwriteForYou.com and a blog at www.GhostwriteGuru.com.

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If you're like many entrepreneurs, the thought of marketing makes you slightly sick to your stomach. And it's more then a simple like or dislike of marketing, it's the idea of trying to fit it into your to-do list. You already have a million things going on, how can you possibly fit marketing in?

So, instead, you end up not doing anything...until you run out of work that is. Then you desperately race around, trying to cram as much marketing as possible into as short amount of time as possible to try and ramp up your business.

Business picks up, you stop marketing again.

As I'm sure you already know, this isn't a great way to grow a business on any level. But what do you do? You're already overwhelmed with everything you have to do in your business, not to mention everything you have to do in your life, so how can you possibly fit marketing into that?

Never fear, that's what the below 3 tips are designed to do, get you out of marketing overwhelm and into marketing superstar.

1. Make marketing a priority.

Okay, don't stop reading yet. This one might be tough to swallow but it has to be said. Marketing your business HAS to be a priority. If it's not, then you will doom yourself to a "feast or famine" business model (where you oscillate between too many and too few clients, and because you're in a constant roller coaster, you can never get enough traction to actually start growing your business).

But, I can hear you say, my priority needs to be on getting the work done. That's what my clients are paying me for, and because they're paying, then they have to be my top priority.

My response to that is well, not exactly. You're right, you need to get the work done, and do a good job, or you're going to run out of income pretty quickly. But, if you trade doing the client work over marketing, then you're never going to get ahead.

(And, to be honest, it's not fair to your clients either to have you constantly stressed about your business because you don't know what's in the pipeline. You owe it to yourself AND your clients to have a successful, thriving business.)

You need to have the mindset that marketing your business is JUST as important as doing the client work. Without the marketing, you WILL always struggle.

However, with that said, there's no need to panic because...

2. You don't have to do it all alone.

There's no law that says just because marketing is a priority means you need to do everything yourself. You can (and should) build a team. In fact, I would go one step further and tell you your team can ALSO help you with client work or admin work or just about anything.

Now with marketing, as with anything, there will probably be tasks you need to do yourself. But there will be many tasks you can easily outsource. The trick is to figure out what tasks you really need to do (and make time to do them) then outsource the rest.

But, I can hear you saying, what if I don't have the cash flow to outsource? See, that's the beauty of outsourcing marketing. There's a very clear ROI. So let's say one new client is worth $500 a month. Do you think regular marketing will bring you at least one new client? Of course. So maybe you set aside $250 a month for a virtual assistant to help you with some marketing tasks, knowing one new client will more than pay for your VA and any more clients above and beyond will be gravy.

(If you need help with marketing strategy to know what to outsource, drop me an email. I create marketing strategies for my clients, as well as do the work for them.)

3. Start small.

This is what I did in my own business. You'll notice I have a lot of marketing tasks going on right now -- I have my newsletter, I blog, I podcast, I'm on social networking sites, I'm doing direct mail. I didn't wake up one morning and say "I'm going to start everything today." No, I did things one at a time. I started with my newsletter, then I added blogging, then podcasting, then social networking, etc. After I mastered one task, I went on to add another. So my marketing wouldn't seem so overwhelming to me.

But remember, the biggest thing is to actually DO something. Start taking some action in your marketing, and the rest of the pieces should start to fall into place.

Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) is your Ka-Ching! marketing strategist and owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, a copywriting and marketing agency. She helps entrepreneurs become more successful at attracting more clients, selling more products and services and boosting their business. To find out how she can help you take your business to the next level, visit her site at http://www.MichelePW.com.

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Most sales people hate to cold call. It is frequently considered by many to be the single most stressful part of selling. So much so that many people have given up this noble and proud profession for non-selling positions. There are actually several reasons why sales reps consider cold calling one step below getting a root canal.

Fear of rejection is one of the biggest reasons reps dislike cold calling. After all, who wants to be told “no” all day long? However, there are other reasons that add to the disdain, including not wanting to bother anyone (the “telemarketing” syndrome), gatekeeper resistance, lack of confidence (in themselves, their product, their company, etc.), or they just don’t know how to do it. While these reason are understandable, they are all symptoms rather than causes.

In understanding that we don’t like to cold call, we also have to understand why we have call reluctance. For instance, we may not like rejection, but the reason we are rejected is that we are not approaching it the right way. Or, we get resistance from the gatekeeper or feel like we are bothering people because, again, we aren’t equipped with the skills to perform the duty properly so that we don’t get rejected or bother people.

It comes down to Will and Skill. We, as human beings prone to human nature, avoid things we are not good at, and thus lose the will. If we are good at something we will be more inclined to do it. Hence, when we improve our skills, our will improves proportionately. So, it’s important to understand why we have call reluctance – what are our challenges and why we are reluctant.

Why Cold Calling is Important

Before proceeding with recommendations on how to improve your cold calling, let’s review why cold calling is important. A customer’s buying and decision making process usually goes through several steps. First, they realize they have a problem and identify what the problem is. Second, they calculate the costs associated with the problem. Third, they evaluate alternatives. These first three steps comprise the “Planning Stage”. The next stage is the “Evaluation Stage”. In this stage they talk to vendors to consider alternatives. Once that’s done, they decide on a vendor and move on.

When the customer reaches the Evaluation Stage, to a certain extent they already decided on the approach they want to take. But what if that approach isn’t the right one for them? Or, what if their approach includes preconceived notions that would preclude you from being a contender for their business? When you call them, it’s already too late. You’ve had no inputs into their Planning Stage. As a result, you could be chasing their biases and forgone conclusions when, in fact, they are already leaning in another direction. This is what often happens when you get an RFP (Request For Proposal). The RFP is “wired” to another vendor or at least includes questions that reflect the customer’s biases to another solution. You end up wasting a lot of time responding with your proposal only to find they really knew whom they were choosing all along. If, on the other hand, you caught them in the Planning Stage and positioned yourself as a valued partner, then you could help them in identifying their problems AND alternative solutions.

Now what if you do catch someone in the Planning Stages, but they don’t know they are in that stage yet. In other words, they know they have a problem, but they haven’t consciously decided to do something about it. This is actually a perfect time for a cold call, assuming you handle it correctly. Here is how not to call someone in this situation. Sales Rep: “Hi, my name is Fred Johnson of Acme Software. My company helps businesses with their accounting problems. I was wondering if you had any accounting problems.” Prospect: “No! But thanks for calling. Bye.” Of course they’re going to say no, because they aren’t aware or sure they actually have problems, and hence they don’t have a need for you. Also, you haven’t shown them that you care about their problems. Instead, you simply came across as someone who only cares about selling them something.

If you approached this differently, you could get invited in to help them identify their core issues and explore alternatives. But you can’t come across on the initial cold call as if you are selling something. Instead, you need to position yourself as a trusted advisor by asking the right questions, listening to their answers, and proposing how you might be able to help with the exact pains they just described to you. A better dialogue might be, "Hi I'm Fred Johnson with Acme Software. We specialize in helping businesses improve their customer acquisition and retention. I was calling to see how important improving sales and customer retention are to your business. Do you have a moment for a few questions?"

Be a Boy Scout – Always Be Prepared

You help improve your cold calling by being prepared. We all get calls from sales people who clearly are unprepared and embarrass themselves by trying to “lower your phone bills” when they don’t even know how much you are currently paying for your phone bills. Or they try to sell you office equipment when you work in a shared-office environment and don’t purchase this sort of equipment.

Like most things I do, I have a process, and cold calling is no different. Your cold calling process includes the steps, reasons and outcomes for every call. To begin with, you should always have a clear purpose for the call – Why are you calling? Next, have a goal – What is your desired outcome? Is it to make a sale, schedule a meeting, or get introduced to the decision maker? You also have to remember that in order to get your prospect’s interest, you have to appeal to their needs, wants and desires. So remember WIIFM - What’s In It For Me? Of course, the “Me” in this case is your prospect. Make sure your discussions make it clear that everything you are asking has to do with helping their problem, not with you making a sale.

You also don’t want to preach. This is what those annoying telemarketers do. They “tell” you what it’s all about and try to lead you down their path, which is to buy something, instead of asking what ails you. The key to doing this effectively is to ask questions about the prospect, such as what is currently not working for them, how much it is costing them to continue in this mode of operation, what happens if nothing changes, etc. It helps to use a script as well. Now I’m not suggesting you read from a script. What I mean is write down bullets on the points and questions you want to ask and use that as a guideline so you don’t drift off and digress from your goal. A good script should help you organize your thoughts and keep you on track. It will also help you discuss benefits rather than features.

You should always “warm up” your cold calls by doing research in advance. It is very easy to learn all about a company via the Internet. Read about their company’s background and products. Read their press releases and annual reports. Then when you call, you can refer to something significant about their business which helps break the ice and shows you are interested in them. And, don’t give up. These days it takes 6 to seven calls, maybe more, to get through to someone. The average sales rep gives up after 2 to three calls, not even half-way there. Perseverance is the key.

It also helps to profile your prospects before calling. Know who buys your product, when they buy it, how they buy it, and more. What is their profile? Are they affluent males between the ages of 35 and 49? Are they businesses with less than 100 employees and located in one facility? Are they departments within businesses who can’t readily get the services they need from their corporate offices? Once you know this, you can rank your call list and call the “A” players first, those who match your profile the best. If you use technology to help keep track of this information, which you should, then organize your call list, schedule your follow-ups, and manage your day. You will find that you will be more efficient, effective and successful.

Develop a Call Quota

Finally, as part of your cold calling process, remember not to take “No” personally. They are rejecting your offer, company or product, but not you personally (unless, of course, you upset them, in which case you deserve to take it personally). Accept the fact that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. You’re not going to succeed with every call. So don’t set yourself up for disappointment every time someone says they don’t want to meet with you. To help with this, give yourself a “Call Quota”. This is not a quota for how many calls you should make in a day. This involves knowing how many “No’s” it takes to get to a “Yes”.

Let’s say your revenue goal is $100,000. and the average client spends $5,000. To reach your goal, you’ll need 20 new clients. If your close ratio is 25%, you’ll need to call 80 new Prospects, because 25% of 80 is 20, the number of new clients you need. So, with this simple information, simply remember that 60 of those calls will be No. Your goal then is to find the 20 Yes’s and the 60 No’s shouldn’t bother you because you are expecting them.

Cold Calling doesn’t have to be the dreaded, avoid-at-any-cost chore that many sales reps make it out to be. With proper training and planning, it is actually fun and a very necessary step in beginning your sales process.

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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The promise of technology has always been the magnification of human activity. Technology allows us to do more in less time and at lower cost.

Marketing is not sales but it leads to sales. The purpose of marketing is to get/keep customers interested in your product/service. It’s all about staying in front of the customer in a constant and positive way.

It’s a busy world and even those customers who need, want and know about your product/service may space you out without constant and positive contact.

This article is about how you can use the internet to generate interest in your product/service in less time and at lower cost.

Old Time Marketing

Before the internet and email there were mass mailings of brochures, newsletters, and other printed materials. Mailings were and are a lot of work, they’re expensive and there always seems to be a problem with the printer (commercial not mechanical), problems which drive up costs. And then 98% plus of mailings end up unread and in the trash, what a waste.

Sponsoring a bowling team or 5K run is another traditional way to market; if your customers bowl and run. Pens and coffee cups are a good way to stay in front of people. I once sent out some very nice coffee cups to clients and centers of influence only to have a man, who’s been a great source of business, call and say, “I love the coffee cup; but did you have to put your mug on the mug?”

New Time Marketing

Websites are great, sometimes. To be successful business websites must have two things; compelling content and traffic. Compelling content includes things like ease of navigation, good color, quick loading time and buttons that work. And something of interest/value to the user/visitor when and if they get where they want to go on the site. Traffic is critical. The best site with the most compelling content is worthless without traffic.

Listing/registering your web site and its key words with search engines is like running ads in the phone books; if and when someone searches for a key word that matches your key words they may find your site on a list of sites. It used to be that those sites with the most hits/visits were listed first, but no more. Top listing is for sale or rent, but that’s ok because “top listing” is just the tip of the iceberg anyway.

A Word on Search Engines

What would you find if you did a search for “search engines” and then did the same search on all the “search engines” that come up? “Larger fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em and smaller fleas yet even smaller fleas and so on infinitum.”

The Iceberg Internet Marketing Model

Top listing and registering sites and key words are all good, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to pulling traffic to your site. Where internet marketing comes into its own is in that area below the waterline, below search engine listings.

There are thousands of e-zines (electronic magazines), hard copy magazines/newspapers and broadcasters of all types, with an on line presence, that deal with every subject you can imagine. Determine what kind of pubs your customers read, listen to, watch and make up a group email list. Access as many search engines as you can and harvest names and e-mail addresses and then set up a group for your pub-list. E-mailing pubs is not spamming because they want input and content, they’re pubs. E-mail lists for pubs are also available for purchase or rent if you don’t want to harvest.

Alliances are arrangements with other websites whereby they provide a link to your website. First, determine what associations, business groups, newsgroups and non-competing companies with whom your customers have contact. Next, harvest, rent or buy names and e-mail addresses. Your first e-mail to your alliance list should be a short introduction and proposal offering to provide content for their site if in return they provide a link to your site. Always have a statement on all group e-mails giving the receiver an easy way off the list.

The last component of the Iceberg Internet Marketing Model is a list of those who have asked to be on your e-mail list. Make it easy, no long forms, for people to get on your list, and get off.

Once you have your lists, you’re ready to send out articles, press releases, information of interest. All with your website address given, or better still, linked.

In Summary

Ever since we figured out how to use a rock to crush bones or nuts, and how to use a stick to extend our reach, we’ve been on the ever changing road of technology. The way to make money with new technology is not to reinvent the wheel by coming up with something brand new; it’s by doing more in less time and at lower cost.

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.

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I love racquetball. I played racquetball for over 18 years, very aggressively and very competitively. It's great exercise and a perfect way to let out your aggressions and stress. That's why I was so upset when my health club decided to forgo customer retention and worry about their own singular requirement - Getting new customers! Yes, I'm actually going to teach a customer retention lesson by discussing my racquetball experience.

I've been a member of this club for about 15 years. I was part of a league that played two times per week for 2-hours each night. There were roughly thirty members on this league and we were all friends and competed in a sociable and pleasant environment. The average tenure of the members of this league was about 10 years of racquetball experience at this club. Not all league members showed up each night. But typically anywhere between twenty and twenty-four would show up at any one time, which means we would fill up most of the courts with continuous singles games (one-on-one).

Then one day they closed down two of the 12 courts so they could expand their workout room. They added state of the art weight lifting equipment and hoped their existing body building clients would tell their friends and increase business. We weren't pleased, but at least we had 10 other courts to play on; enough to keep us all playing the full two hours without having to wait turns. Judging by the additional grunts and groans we heard coming from that new area, it seemed their plan worked. But I must admit that over time it seemed like the noise was ceasing and their increased business had waned. In the meantime, we loyal racquetball members continued to show up twice a week, every week, every year, paying our dues and buying supplies, soft drinks, and other miscellaneous purchases.

Then the owners decided to take over 2 more courts to build an aerobics gym with a climbing wall, dance area, and a few other amenities to attract new customers, at the expense of their existing racquetball members. Within a year, this new facility was as vacant as an atomic bomb testing ground. It was hardly ever used. And yes, we loyal racquetball members continued to spend our money at their club, which by the way, was the only club in town. Unfortunately, there were only 8 courts left and it started affecting our playing time since we now had to compete for court time and even started playing doubles (two-on-two) in order to get a chance to play at all.

A couple years after that they closed down another court to convert it into a Spinning room. Spinning is some sort of specialized stationary bike where you peddle your way to better health and fitness. Again, this was to bring in new health club members, at the expense of their existing loyal racquetball members, and again it flopped. Within 6 months the room remained dark and spun it's way into oblivion. But we loyal racquetball members kept coming week after week, without fail, spending our money in the only club in town, which now had only seven courts. They obviously hadn't re-converted any of these stolen courts so we could use them once again for racquetball. So they remained fallow.

As time went on, two more courts were closed due to damage. The owners said they didn't have funds to repair them. So we were forced to play in the 5 remaining courts. Needless to say, we were very unhappy. We could only play doubles and we frequently had to take turns since there weren't enough courts for us all to play at one time.

In year 15 of my playing at that club, we all arrived one night to the news that the owners were building a brand new health club less than a mile down the road and will be closing this older club once the new one opens. It would be three times the size with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, including an Olympic-sized pool. Well this indeed sounded like good news, at last. What sounded even better was the offer for existing members to get free membership into this new club for the first year it was open. They'd transfer our membership and we'd get to use all the facilities for a year at no extra charge. Now, I must say that we ONLY played racquetball at the original club. None of us used any of the other facilities there. And this was unlikely to change, new club or not. So naturally, guess what our single question was to the owners when they told us all this good news? How many racquetball courts will the new club have? Answer - Zero!

We were devastated. Naturally, we complained but to no avail. Our only recourse was to join another club with racquetball courts. Unfortunately, that was all the way in the next town. My 8-minute ride twice per week turned into a 40-minute ride to a club that was older, dirtier, and more expensive. But at least we could continue playing our preferred sport. Ultimately, I moved out of state and it didn't matter any more, except that I am now a little heavier and have strained breathing when I go up a flight of stairs.

So what's the moral of this story? These business owners tried desperately for years to increase their business with fads and gimmicks to draw in new customers. However, they forgot their bread and butter customers - us loyal racquetball fans. We spent a lot of money at their club over the years and were a consistent revenue stream for them. Even when they continued to do things that harmed their relationship with us, we remained loyal. Of course that goes to show you that this sort of loyalty wasn't good. It's called "your the only show in town so I have to be loyal to you" loyalty. And perhaps that's what they thought - that since they were the only show in town, they could afford to take us for granted. So they eventually lost 30 good customers, instantly.

Are you taking your customers for granted? Are you ignoring your loyal clients? Are you making changes to your business and it's future direction without considering what affects it might have on your existing customers? You obviously need to acquire new customers. That's understandable. But I hope you aren't doing what too many other businesses do - acquire new customers while negatively affecting the retention of your existing ones. It costs up to seven to 10 times more to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one. With the increasing costs of marketing and selling, this shouldn't be a surprise. So why don't more businesses curtail some of these expensive acquisition practices and focus more on retention strategies? I don't know. Maybe they need to get hit in the head with a racquetball a couple times to knock some sense into them. Or maybe they should give us a call so we can show them how to do this the right way.

Don't forget your existing customers and they won't forget you!

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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When someone asks you about what you do, do you have a ready answer? Or do you stumble and stammer trying to explain your business?

I was recently at a writer’s conference where one of the main focuses was learning to create a successful book pitch. My instructor emphasized what a good pitch can do for a writer. She explained that when an editor asks an author about their writing project, they have one shot at sharing their pitch and getting the editor excited about their project. A great pitch makes a great first impression and can translate into a book contract. On the other hand, a pitch that is not well thought out can cost an author the chance of selling that project.

A good book pitch is a summary of the author’s idea, but more than that it’s a summary with a sizzle. At the conference, I learned that many authors spend hours crafting and memorizing their pitch. Then, when asked about their project, they are able to give a quick, concise synopsis that not only explains their idea, but makes the editor want to learn more.

I believe that the concept of creating a pitch can also apply to the home-based business world. As entrepreneurs, we can put together a summary of our business that will not only explain what we do, but grab the attention of whomever we’re speaking with.

A good business pitch summarizes the business concept in one to two short paragraphs, usually a total of 50 words or less. To begin, write out a list of the five most compelling aspects of your business. Try to think about your business as if you were on the outside looking in. What would interest you? What would make you want to learn more?

Try to answer these questions:

• Who is my target market?
• What are my top selling products/services?
• What about my company makes it stand out? If I were looking at starting a business, what would interest me about this company?
• Why did I choose this company?

Put your answers into sentences and you have the beginning of your business pitch. Try to keep your sentences short and use simple words. You want anyone who asks to be able to understand your answer, not get lost in your words. Take special care to describe what you like about your business. These same things will generally appeal to others as well.

While you want to keep your pitch simple, you also want it to give a picture of your business. Let’s say, for example, that you run health and wellness business. You wouldn’t want to use the statement, “I run a health and wellness business,” as a reply about what it is that you do. You want to add in a short description and catch the listener’s attention. For instance, you might say, “I operate my own business. We offer products such as chemical-free shampoo and natural snack foods to help others lead healthy lives.”

When I began my website, I was often caught off-guard when someone asked me about it. I would fumble for words and struggle to express exactly what it is that I do all day. I usually walked away from conversations like this feeling frustrated, and I’m sure the person I was speaking with was more confused than they were originally.

After learning the art of pitching, I can now give a short and snappy reply. “I run a Christian-based website for work-at-home moms,” I’ll say. “I offer resources to help them in their search and am able to make an income by offering advertising.” This usually leads to more questions about my website, which is exactly what I hope for. It gives me an opportunity to talk further about my business to those who are interested.

The next time someone asks you about your home-based business, remember to share your pitch with them. Take the time to hone your pitch to be as short, yet descriptive as possible. Over time, you’ll find yourself refining your words and your answers will become well-crafted summaries that pique the interest of anyone who asks. Word of mouth is one of the easiest ways to build your business and your pitch is a great way to get others talking.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. She graduated from Grace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. Jill has worked from since 2000 and started her own home-based business to assist other Christians who desire to work from home while maintaining a godly life.

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Having a quality sales force in place is essential to the success of most businesses. As with most employees, there are always a few employees who just don't fit the position they are attempting to fill. And in some cases, people who are a good fit can fail as well depending on the circumstances. But why do sales people fail? We believe that these are some of the primary reasons:

• Poor job fit. The person is just not cut out to sell. Let’s face it, not everyone can do this kind of work. No sense trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

• Poor management. Since sales managers are responsible for hiring, training and overseeing sales people, it is logical that they would have a significant influence on a sales person’s career. More often than not, sales managers do a poor job of hiring people who are cut out to sell. Just because a person is outgoing does not mean that person will be a good sales person.

• Laziness. Selling requires hard work and long hours. Some people just are not willing to put in the time necessary to travel, complete paper work, plan, follow up on problems and issues and develop relationships. Field sales people working less than, say, 60 hours per week are probably not going to be highly effective. Many sales people work 50, 60 and even 70 hour weeks. Most poor sales people put in far fewer hours. There are expectations to this, but not many. Selling is hard work and requires long hours to do it right.

• A short-term mentality. Sales people who view sales as a way to put a lot of money in their pockets in a hurry tend to have short-lived careers in any given organization. Why? Because they view the customer as a cash machine that they can tap quickly and at whatever cost is necessary. This type of approach leads to weak or no relationships with customers. A long-term, relationship-oriented approach is far better. The sales person’s income over the short-term might not be as significant, but over the long-haul is much better. My largest customer, whom we have the best relationship together, took me four years to finally get in the door and close. We are both very happy.

• Lack of follow-up and service orientation. Sales people who leave customers hanging when there is a problem or a question lose credibility with their customer base. Good sales people are highly customer-oriented and service-oriented. They bend over backwards to take care of their customers even if it means working longer hours and fighting a number of battles to get things done.

• Focusing on customers they are most comfortable with. Sales people sometimes are fearful of working new or lesser relationships to the extent they need to be worked. They often gravitate toward customers they have a strong relationship with. However, some of those customers might not buy much. They just like to chat and make the sales person feel good about the possibility of buying something.

• Having no plan. Sales people need a plan each and every day. This plan should be priority-driven and should guide the sales person as much as possible.

• Lack of organization skills. A good sales people is organized and deals with details. There is a school of thought that good people are not detail-oriented. That can be true in some cases, but if the sales person is not detail-oriented, he must work harder to deal with the important details.

• Inability to multi-task. Sales people are required to deal with a number of issues at the same time. Some people can't handle the pressure of this type of work.

• Poor training. Sales people need excellent product training and sales training. A sales person needs to understand how your business operates and how to sell your products or services. They also need to learn basic selling skills even if they are experienced sales veterans. The longer you are in sales, the more likely it is that you will forget these basic selling skills or even take many of them for granted. For instance, veteran sales people can forget to listen because they have heard nearly every problem their prospects can throw at them, so they are anxious to jump in with a solution before the prospect has a chance to articulate their problem. While the solution can be the correct one, the prospect is put off because he may feel that the sales person didn’t give him time to explain and felt disrespected, or worse, that the sales person did not appreciate the prospect’s concerns and was just recommending something without full understanding or consideration of the prospect’s exact needs.

• Bad support from the company. In some companies, the sales people do a good job, but the company fails. Processes are slow and inefficient. Customer service people don't support them well. Shipments are slow and inaccurate. The list goes on and on. Even a good sales person can fail if the company fails them. It is important for a sales person to know the company's deficiencies so that he will not over-promise and under-deliver.

There are some of the key reasons why sales people fail. How do your sales people stack up against this list? How well does your company support your sales people?

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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The Internet can be a scary place for those looking for a home-based business opportunity. The fear of not connecting personally with others is one concern and many people have been “taken” by online scams in their search for a legitimate business and are fearful to take any more risks. One way to overcome fears such as these is to market your online business locally. By simply offering the person a contact that they can speak to and possibly even meet face to face you will making the statement that your business is legitimate and trustworthy.

It is effective to market your online business locally primarily because potential customers and business recruits prefer to have the option of speaking with the business owner face to face. By attracting customers locally, you can maximize the opportunities to meet with them. You will no longer be that “someone they found online,” but someone that they will be able to relate to and feel confident doing business with.

But how do you market locally? Here are some excellent tips:

Besides the common local advertising routes, such as Newspaper Ads, Yellow Pages, Etc., another effective (and inexpensive) way to advertise locally is to post business related flyers around your community. Many grocery stores, libraries, bookstores, and office supply stores offer bulletin boards for this purpose. Make yours stand out and be recognized, yet professional enough to warrant someone trusting you with their business. Also, if possibly have a tear-off section on your flyer so they can take your number and leave your flyer.

Look for events geared toward work-at-home businesses. There are organizations, such as the National Work at Home Mom Association, that hold events across the nation to help promote the work-at-home business owner. At events such as these, you can purchase a booth and make hundreds of local contacts, as well as sales, all in one day.

Reach out to your community. Join your local Chamber of Commerce, get involved in community events and become known to those around you. Pass out flyers and hand out business cards to everyone you meet. Door Flyers also work well for marketing – pick one neighborhood a week and go door to door. Be consistent with your marketing with door flyers, too. If a potential customer sees your ad repeatedly, they will feel more inclined to use your services in the future. Magnets can be great promotional items as well. You can have magnets printed with your business information and hand them out to people that you speak to about your products. Potential clients can keep these on their refrigerator or filing cabinet. You can also leave flyers, magnets or even catalogs around town in places like doctor’s offices, hair salons, etc.

Volunteer in your community for marketing success. Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing, Inc. suggests, “Volunteer at school events such as PTA meetings or community functions. When your child’s school needs a flyer, volunteer to do it and attach your card to it. Look to see where you can also inexpensively advertise. Often ads in the kid’s yearbook or community events newsletter will get your more exposure than the expensive ads in the daily newspapers.”

Direct mail is another great tool for gaining local clients. Get the Yellow Pages out and write a professional letter or send your brochures or postcards to those that would be interested in your products or services. Send a mailing to local businesses that my be interested in offering your products to their customers. For example, if you sell home décor products, send a professional letter to real estate agents in your local area. In the letter, describe how your products would be valuable for them to use as thank you gifts when they sell a home.

It’s important to talk to everyone you possibly can about your business. You can find prospective customers in line at the grocery store, while waiting at a doctor’s office, or even while playing at the park with your children. Let others know that you are excited about it and believe in it. If the people around you hear the excitement in your voice, they may become excited about your business, too! You’ll be rewarded with more sales and a business that prospers from year to year.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. She graduated from Grace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. Jill has worked from since 2000 and started her own home-based business to assist other Christians who desire to work from home while maintaining a godly life.

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(Work at Home Moms Perspective)

1. How did you get started in the Article Marketing world?

I’ve been involved in this industry long before it was called Article Marketing. In the 1990s it was more about the content exchange between expert authors and ezine publishers. Essentially, that is what our sites original purpose and intention was set out to solve: How to bring email newsletter publishers and expert authors together.

Even though EzineArticles.com was started in November of 1999, we rebuilt the site from scratch in August of 2004 and we consider that one of our defining milestones that brought us to where we are at today.

2. What's the best piece of advice you've received pertaining to article marketing?

The best advice I can offer is be consistent and go deep in your niche area of expertise. Don’t settle for 10 articles when you could write 100 or 1000 or more until you are the ultimate expert for your niche.

3. How do you believe article writing and marketing can be of use to the entrepreneur?

Article writing for the purposes of syndication or distribution (marketing) is a grassroots strategy that can help average or startup entrepreneurs to compete with the big dogs without having to spend a fortune to get started.

Everyone online entrepreneur or ‘netpreneur’ has the same problem: How to attract massive amounts of qualified traffic back to their website. Article marketing is one of the lowest cost and highest return ways to get that done… and the effects snowball over time so you can benefit for many years to follow.

4. EzineArticles.com is one of the premier Ezine Content websites on the web. What do you believe is the biggest contributor to the popularity of EzineArticles.com?

The quality of submissions from our expert authors have everything to do with it. :)

If you’re talking about what we did to make the site popular, it would come down to our obsession with the end-user experience. Almost every new feature we have innovated or introduced has come from a member or user contributed idea or suggestion.

5. What is the number one thing that you see article writers do wrong?

Many lack consistency in their submissions or they lack depth of quantity of submissions. Very few lack word-count depth, but most authors are sitting on a personal goldmine of original quality content they have already produced that could be easily repackaged into articles available for syndication… that is just waiting to be tapped and turned into traffic back to their website.

In terms of article mechanics, most authors could see a higher ROI from their article writing & marketing if they:

1) Expanded the length of their article title by another 20-40%

2) Ensured that the resource box has a benefit driven reason for the reader to surf or visit their website, join their free ezine or download a free report.

3) Did some level of keyword research to better understand what the market is trying to learn or understand relating to their niche topic or expertise.

6. For me, the hardest part of article writing is coming up with a topic that will be of interest to my readers. Do you have any tips to make picking a topic easier?

Sure, and this is a biggie: Stop trying to think you know what the market wants to read.

Instead, do keyword researches via any of the major keyword research tools (GoodKeywords, Overture, Google Suggest, WordTracker, etc) around your area of expertise.

Your objective is to write articles ONLY on topics the market is searching for or wants to read and not what you think the market wants to read.

Beyond keyword research, in my Article Production Strategies product, I cover many article topical idea generation ideas. One of them includes simply tracking what your competition writes about and then writing your own spin or take on the topics your competition has already decided to write about. Another idea is to invite your audience to send you questions (such as how I do here: http://AskChristopherKnight.com/ ) and your audience will give you endless suggestions in most cases about what they want to read about.

7. For the purpose of marketing, do you think it's best for a writer to stick to one general theme for their articles or to write on various topics? (For example, should candle makers only write about things relating to candles or should they write about anything that interests them)

I cover this topic here: Click HERE

I recommend that you only write about one area of expertise per unique author name and that your resource box should always be unified in the same topic of your article so that you never present a mixed message.

Most authors or experts write about many different areas of expertise and this is a great idea… just be sure to not mix topics within any single article as that will dilute your credibility.

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. She graduated from Grace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. Jill has worked from since 2000 and started her own home-based business to assist other Christians who desire to work from home while maintaining a godly life.

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I’d like to tell you a little story about Sam, an old acquaintance of mine. The first time I met Sam I had stopped in his little general store while passing through town to buy some soda for my long car ride back home. His was the only store in this very small rural town and he did a sizable amount of business. As I walked down one of the aisles to get to the refrigerated coolers in the back where they kept the soda, I couldn't help but notice that the shelves were loaded with containers of salt for sale. There were salt containers from the front of the aisle to the back, from top to bottom, and on both sides of the aisle. I couldn't believe it, an entire aisle dedicated to just salt.

I grabbed a couple sodas and went to check out. As Sam stood there smiling I said to him, "Excuse me, but I noticed you have hundreds and hundreds of salts for sale." Sam simply said, "Yup. That's right." So I said, "Well, you must be one heck of a salt salesman to sell that much salt." Sam slyly responded, "Nope. Actually, I'm a terrible salt salesman. But the guy who sold me all that salt, now HE was a great salt salesman." Dumbfounded, I paid for my soda, went to my car, and drove home.

Since I had so much time to think during my long drive, I couldn't help but wonder about how Sam's salt plight was so typical of customers who end up purchasing something they don't really need. They purchase what the sales person wants them to, which is not always what the customer really wants or needs. Obviously, Sam did not need all that salt, but the salesman made a good commission check on that sale nonetheless.

Do you think that the sales person who sold Sam all that salt has a snowball's chance in you-know-where of EVER selling ANYTHING to Sam again? Of course not! If he sold Sam only what he really needed at the time, he would have had a chance to develop a relationship for life and, over that life-time relationship, he would end up selling a lot more salt than he did in that one single sale.

This is one of the biggest lessons in sales - Understand what the customer needs and sell him the right solution for those needs. In doing so, you not only have done right by the customer, but the customer will trust you and that is how a relationship begins. Since customers are more knowledgeable, and even sophisticated, in today's market, they are looking for sales people who are more problem-solvers and planners who can work with them as a partner rather than someone who is just trying to sell them something. Therefore, sales reps need to sell VALUE, not products or services. By developing your relationship-selling skills you'll position yourself as a partner who sells value, which will make you stand out from the normal crowd of sales reps who are pushing products down their client's throats.

Relationship-selling involves listening, instead of "telling". Asking the right questions, shutting up, and carefully listening to the responses are the key ingredients for doing this right. Prospects will tell you almost anything if you show you care about them. The traditional "sales pitch" is now replaced with an interview, with the goal of solving your prospect's problems. By considering the prospect's bottom-line, instead of your own quota, you create a win-win situation. By solving their problems, you will get the sale and both of you will win.

In a non-relationship selling environment, the sale rep spends very little time in the early stages of the sales cycle. These stages include the initial contact phase where rapport needs to be built and the qualification phase where you establish whether there's a good fit or not before wasting a lot of time. As a result, that same sales rep ends up spending way too much time presenting the solution, since they don't know exactly what the right solution is. Therefore, the negotiating and closing phases take proportionately longer.

To sell value and develop a relationship-selling environment, you need to become a strategic partner who can bring value to the entire relationship, right from the start. Spending more time in the up-front phases of the sales process to build rapport and trust and to properly qualify your prospect to understand their needs, will make the next steps in the process go much easier and quicker.

You also need to be easy to do business with. Don't make every step a painful experience. Each step should be viewed as something that is helping your prospect and driving them toward the conclusion ("their" conclusion) that they would be crazy not to purchase from you. If you are viewed as a valued problem-solver, then you will actually help them make their decisions, which is what many customers need. In other words, be part of their team.

Remember, it's all about the customer, and not about what is best for you. So next time, try positioning yourself this way instead of focusing on your own needs. You'll end up selling a lot more salt than you ever did before.

Good Luck & Good Selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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Have you ever been on a sales call where the client was in total control? Of course you were. We all were. And it's a real bear trying to change things when it happens. At some point, it becomes a runaway sales call and the client has manipulated and controlled everything. When this occurs, you lose all negotiating power, your ability to identify their problems, the chance to close, and anything else that will help you win their business.

I was in one of those memorable events once along with one of my resellers, in a previous life. Since we only sold through the dealer channel (i.e., value-added resellers), I was there representing the software vendor I worked for at the time and supporting our reseller. So I let the reseller run the meeting. Sounds innocent enough. Yea, Right! The client had about four or five people in the room and were very polite and cordial. And then they brought in Hans, their "technical guru". (Seriously, that was his name – Hans) That's when things changed for the worse.

Hans began to tell us about how challenging their business was as one of the leading carpet manufacturers in the industry. They sold to carpet distributors (who sold to stores such as Home Depot), major retail outlets (such as Home Depot), small carpet dealers, and other various distribution channels. As a result, their challenge was forecasting future business, since many of their clients changed or canceled their orders even after his company started manufacturing their orders. This caused enormous wastes when not managed properly. So they were looking for a product that would help them plan their business, forecast sales, manage their accounts, and basically cure world hunger (well, not exactly, but that's what it sounded like at the time).

Every time our reseller tried to present how our product could potentially solve his problem, Hans, in his heavy Bavarian accent, would shoot it down, saying in a condescending tone, "You don't understand our business. That won't work because..." It seemed like he kept trying to set us up with a description of a problem, only to say that anything we proposed wouldn't work. It was as if he already knew it wouldn't work before he opened his mouth. And, in fact, that's exactly what was happening. You see, he told us that every vendor he brought in had the same useless solutions and we were no different than them. He proceeded to challenge us to solve his problem since no one else could. He was in total control of the meeting. He made it clear that he was bringing in vendor after vendor, only to chew them up and spit them out. This painful episode prevailed for quite some time, that is until I spoke.

Since I let the reseller do all the talking so far, I noticed that he was desperately trying to solve this guy's problem and sell him our product. I, on the other hand, saw something else going on -- a big game that Hans was enjoying. I think he called it "Kill the vendor". He was, in fact, trying to find a solution since his problem was genuine. But he was using his unique situation to challenge every vendor he could get his hands on. That is until I realized that his problem was a process problem, not a technology issue. In other words, his problem was systemic and had to be resolved by the way they did business with their clients. Once that was resolved, then they could use technology to track and manage their business. Unless they fixed the way they handled their own customers, technology wouldn't do them much good.

I waited for just the right moment to initiate a well-placed cough to get their attention. I then leaned forward in my chair and said, "Excuse me Hans, but what makes you think that technology can solve your problem." He started to answer, but only a few half words and stutters came out. He stared at me, then at the ceiling. After what seemed like 5 minutes of total silence, he leaned forward and said, "No one has ever asked me that before." So I said, "So what's the answer?" And he said, "I don't know. But I think you are on to something. We've been looking for a solution in the wrong place." We then had a very cordial and intellectual discussion about business processes and how to handle customers who screw up his business by canceling orders after he started manufacturing them. Hans' demeanor totally changed. He started treating us with respect and assigned himself a project to figure out how they will change their processes to resolve their internal issues. Only after that was done would he revisit technology.

I have since moved on and don't know what Hans and his company ultimately decided to do. Frankly, I don't think our product could have helped him anyway, but it was a very interesting exercise in managing a sales call. Wouldn't you agree? With some good listening skills and asking just the right questions, you can keep control of your sales meetings, qualify your prospects, and arrive at the right solutions, even if that means walking away because you don’t have the right solution for their problem.

Good Luck & Good Selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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A consulting colleague of mine recently sent me an email with a dilemma he was facing. His email said, "Hey Russ, I have two clients that I will be meeting with to review how I can help them improve their sales. We are looking at their business plans and reviewing their geographical market. What's a fair hourly rate for someone to come in and review sales, processes and do a SWOT analysis?"

When I hear "hourly rate", I usually think of my mechanic. "Well, your framastat isn't passing signals to your defibulator, so we need to run some diagnostics and probably will have to replace your entire transgasual system. I'm guessing 12 hours at $200 per hour. Yes sir, we're talking about $2400 or so for the job," as he spits his cigar stub out of his mouth and into an oily can sitting next to my poor unsuspecting car. While this may be fine for the trades, business consultants can't operate this way. We have to look at the big picture and consider the value of the work being done.

Rarely, if ever, do we go in and fix something that's broke, like a framastat. Instead, we analyze symptoms, recommend ways to improve those conditions, and implement processes to enhance the customer's situation. I liken that more to what a doctor does. They analyze what's wrong and prescribe alternatives to correct the situation. If you agree with their prognosis, then you can either use that doctor to resolve your problem, choose another doctor, or take no action at all, in which case the problem will go away by itself or persist until you don't feel it any longer or pass away as a result of ignoring it. In either case, you paid for the diagnostic visit, which is of value to you since you, a) know what's wrong, and b) know what alternatives from which to choose. And the doctor's visit costs the same amount no matter how long it took. He charged by visit, not by hour.

I never charge by the hour since it is subject to debate, negotiations, etc. I am not a mechanic? In fact, I don't even charge by project. I charge by "value". Here is how I responded to my colleague's email. "Consider this -- I'm sure you will do some prep work in advance of your meeting, and that will take some time. You will spend time on-site with your client. And, you will undoubtedly do follow-up work, such as write a needs analysis or implementation plan. Now, this final analysis or report is of value, right? And, your client could take it to another consulting firm to implement, or do it themselves. So you have to make sure you get enough out of it by showing your client it's value, regardless of how many hours it takes you to complete. By the way, do you really have any idea how many hours it WILL take? Of course not.

"The real question is not how much to charge per hour, but how valuable will this project be to your client? And that is something only you (and your client) need to work out. But I will tell you this -- I do nothing for just a few hundred dollars. It's not worth my time to get a few bucks for a small project, unless it is one step toward a committed larger project (i.e., Phase 1). Why? Because my time is valuable too. These small jobs are often the customer's attempt at trying to get free advice. If it only takes a brief moment to figure out, and therefore only worth a few dollars, then how valuable can it be? Not very! However, if this is multi-phased project and the first phase is a brief project plan or needs analysis, then it is definitely a valuable exercise and therefore worth doing, since it is part of a larger project. If the customer decides to use someone else to implement the solution you recommended, so be it. At least you'll get paid for your efforts and the value delivered to the client. You need to ask a lot of questions to learn what pains they are having, find out the cost of those pains to the client, then associate a VALUE to the solution. That's what your fee should be based upon.

"Oh, and by all means, DON'T DISCOUNT. If you do, you will be the 'discount guy' of your area and everyone will find out (because they'll tell each other, especially if they are referrals) and you will forever have to discount for everyone. Bad habit! Instead of discounting, take away some value and sell what's left for a lower fee."

So, he took my advice and changed his approach. Darn! I just realized that I gave him free advice that had value. Oh well, it wasn't that bad. My colleague ended up taking a full-time position with one of his clients. Perhaps he isn't quite ready to enter the exciting world of consulting. When he learns about value-pricing, then I'm sure he will be one step closer to a new career.

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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You’ve heard the saying before that there is no “I” in team. And that’s true. A team is a collection of people working toward the same goal with the single objective of successfully reaching a satisfied conclusion. However, when you’re a sales rep there’s a slightly different spin on this little pearl of wisdom. Sometimes it’s a natural tendency to think more about “Me” than the team.

As a sales rep, you deal with a variety of people in a team-selling environment. In the early phases of selling when the opportunity is still new, you may deal with your inside sales or telemarketing people to help qualify the account. On the technical side you may engage the pre-sales systems engineer who works with the client’s technical or IT people. As you negotiate the deal the contracts people can get involved. When you get the order you could deal with your order entry staff. And, when the sale is made the customer support team may be deployed. There may even be additional people and departments you work with depending on your company and selling process.

Nevertheless, when it comes right down to it, who gets the ‘ax’ when the revenue numbers aren’t achieved? Who gets fired when the territory doesn’t hit quota? Who gets kicked to the curb when the big deal goes to a competitor? The SALES REP!!

We understand the concept of team selling and always want to be a “team player”. That’s a good thing since you need your team to help close business. Without the team, you cannot succeed. Don’t ever forget it. However, this advice can hurt you if you lose focus on who has the most at stake. Sure, this sounds selfish and greedy. But guess what, you’re the one whose commission plan has 50% at risk. If you don’t make your quota, half your income is at stake. The order entry people still get paid. The contracts administrator still takes home the same amount she did last month. Seems everyone still gets paid the same whether YOU get the deal or not – except you!

But wait! Don’t you also get paid the “Big Bucks” when you hit your quota? Don’t you get the huge bonus and over-rides when you “blow out” your numbers? What about then? Well, that my friend is what sales is all about. You are in a high-risk position. If you sell, you’re a hero and make lots of money (theoretically speaking, that is). And if you fail, you make less. Sometimes lots less. But what about the team?

If YOU have everything on the line, then who cares about the team? They get paid the same and you take all the risk. So why become a team player? You can’t spell team without “M” and “E”. So what about “ME” you say. Why should I care about the team? When I hear this from sales reps, I feel like crying. Some even believe that their team is there to serve their purposes and if things go wrong or they lose the deal, the team can take the fall. Teamwork doesn’t mean, “Let’s spread the blame as widely as possible.” It’s not about blame. It’s about success.

So, why should you care about your team? Well, if you don’t know by now, it might be too late. You cannot do your job without your team. Period! End of story! Sure, they get paid the same, win or lose. But they help make you a success. As that desperate man named Jerry said to the beautiful lady in that famous motion picture, “You complete me.” That’s exactly what your team does – they COMPLETE you. Team players in a sales environment sometimes have to weave a delicate thread when trying to balance their priorities. How do you take care of the team’s interests and priorities while not neglecting your own?

This reminds me of when I was on the high school wrestling team. Unlike football, which was truly a team sport, wrestling is a bit duplicitous. First, you are on a team and the entire team can have a winning or losing match, and season. However, each wrestler has to go out there and defeat their opponent one-on-one. You are on the mat all by yourself (well, with your opponent, of course). Your team isn’t out there with you trying to pin the other guy. If you win, that’s great for you. But you can win and your team can still lose if there aren’t enough individual wrestlers on your team who win.

In high school wrestling, each individual wrestler gets points for winning. If you win by scoring more individual points than your opponent, then your team gets, say, three points. If you pin your opponent, your team gets, say, five points. So you can pin your opponent in 10 seconds flat and look like a hero. But if the rest of your team doesn’t have enough individual points, the team loses. Sure, you can move on to wrestle in the District or Regional Championships, as an individual. But you could still be playing for a losing team. The best scenario I remember was having a personal success record and reaching the championship tournaments, while wrestling for a team with a winning season. Pride times two!

In sales, there is a big difference however. When the sales rep is out there on the mat with his or her opponent, the rest of the team is really out there too. The technical expert pitches in when needed. The contracts person does their part. Management helps where they can. And finally, if all goes well, the team overcomes diversity, the customer makes the best purchase decision for them, and everyone wins.

One way to ensure the team succeeds is to have a well-defined sales process. This entails laying out all the steps necessary to bring a sales lead from suspect to prospect to customer. The process should define who does what within each step, for how long they do it, how they hand off to the next responsible team player, if and when they get engaged again, and many more details that the entire team should understand and follow. The need for, and development of, sales processes is the subject of another article. In fact, books are written on this subject, not to mention the livelihood of many consultants dependent on them, including yours truly. But it is important to mention here as it relates to a team selling approach. No sense having a team if all the players are moving in different directions and cross-purposes.

So the next time you’re out there selling your head off, don’t forget you have a support team behind you whose sole purpose is to make the team, and you, succeed regardless of who gets paid what, and regardless of how you actually spell T.E.A.M.

Good luck and good selling!

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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If you are in sales and you just keep on talking instead of listening, you're a DEAD MAN! Well, not literally, I hope. But as far as getting that sale, you might as well be walking among the non-living because chances are you won't win over that client. They say that if you cross Selling with Talking, you get Stalking. So let's not stalk our customers. Your goal should be to ask the right questions in order to get the prospect to talk as much as possible. The more they're talking, the more you're learning - learning about their needs, pains, requirements, and what it is that you might be able to help them with.

Listening is not something that comes natural for many people since it is human nature to prefer talking. And when people talk, their favorite topic is...you guessed it... THEMSELVES! People love talking about themselves. If you don't believe that, try this little game next time you're on a cross-country flight. Try asking the person sitting next to you open-ended questions such as, "What kind of work are you in?" and "What made you decide to go into that field" and "What sort of challenges do you find are most common in the work you do?" Watch how quickly they jump all over those questions. Why? Because they get to talk about their favorite subject - Themselves. I used to do this when I flew cross-country for a couple of years and would actually say nearly nothing the entire 5-hour flight, while my seating companion blabbered on the entire trip. It's fun to do this, albeit rather trying on the nerves. But it is an excellent example of my point, not to mention excellent practice to help improve your listening skills.

So why is listening so important? Well, for one, we already mentioned that people prefer talking to listening. So, as a sales person you are actually letting them do what they want to do the most. Second, listening builds trust by showing you have respect for them. Also, listening compliments people by showing that you care. These are all reasons for listening that benefit the talker, or your prospective client. But what about you -- the sales person. How can listening help you?

The secret to getting your prospect to tell you everything is to simply listen. Acquiring the skill of good listening will increase the amount of money you earn, period...end of story. As I mentioned earlier, you have to ask the right kinds of questions first in order to get them to talk to begin with. Ask open-ended question, or questions that don't require a simple yes or no response. Open-ended questions typically begin with the words Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Build more questions based on the responses you receive from your previous questions. Ask questions about their company, their customers, their plans, what sort of challenges they are experiencing, what they did in the past to try to resolve those problems, and more. Get them to open up, then shut up and listen. You will gather very valuable information that will help you to better qualify your prospects and make the sale by getting them to purchase the exact solution to the problems they just described. But how do you listen?

A very good listening technique is called "Active Listening". Active listening involves a bit of body language and verbal queues. When they are speaking, respond to certain points or topics with comments such as, "Really!", "No kidding!", "Wow!", "What happened then?", or "Tell me more." This creates an interaction, but without you having to actually say anything. It also shows that you’re paying attention and interested. Also, listen with your body. Lean forward and toward the client to show you are interested. Never slouch or sit back looking too relaxed, else it will appear that you are bored and disinterested. Take notes. Even if they are not very meaningful or helpful to you later, taking notes shows that you are interested enough to log parts of the dialog for future reference.

Practice this at home. No, I don't mean talk to yourself in the mirror and wait for an answer. I mean try this out on your family and friends. Try these same techniques on them and two things will happen. First, you will hone your skills for when you are in a selling situation, and we now know how that will help you. Second, your family and friends will realize that you really care and may actually say, "Wow, you are such a good conversationalist." when ironically, you were just being a good listener. So don't be a "dead man" (or woman) - Be a good listener and watch your sales increase.

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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Public relations can be an effective way to generate awareness and name recognition for your business. PR is also considered to be a low-cost alternative to other marketing tactics such as traditional advertising and media buying. Your PR strategy should begin with the following key elements:

1. Build your target list: Compile an accurate database of key media contacts.
2. Develop your hook: Tell a compelling story.
3. Follow up: Cultivate relationships with the media and stay in touch.

Following are five steps to help you get good PR:

1. Turbo-charge your press releases
Your news releases should be newsworthy, targeted to the appropriate contact and, above all, engaging. Break through the clutter by enclosing something unique or creative (related to your business) with your release.

2. Maximize email marketing

Email marketing software has made it easier than ever to send out professional newsletters and press releases. User-friendly templates let you customize, target and track your email releases. It's a low-cost way to stay top-of-mind with the media. Constant Contact offers low-cost do-it-yourself email marketing solutions, as do Bronto and Benchmark Email.

3. Make the media's job easier

Tailor your pitch to the appropriate writer or reporter. If you're not sure who to send your release to, call the newspaper, magazine, TV or radio station first and ask. Respect their time and deadlines. Have a press kit ready if the media ask for more info, but don't flood them with sales materials. Give them what they need, when they need it, and you'll increase your chances for positive press coverage.

4. Develop relationships with press contacts

Network with the media at industry events. Make an effort to get to know local reporters and leverage those relationships. Establish yourself as a resource to reporters and editors. Need to find reporters or editors? Burrells,Luce Media Contacts database lists 300,000 contacts at 60,000 media outlets (fees vary). Or use Google News to search for news articles with the name of your company, your competitors or your industry, as a way to build a list of names of reporters.

5. Start a blog

Establishing a company blog is low-cost way to position your business as a leader and an expert in your field. You can then direct the media to your blog and include the URL in your press releases and emails. Blogger and WordPress are free, easy-to-use blog publishing tool that can have you up and blogging in minutes. An alternate, low-cost blog publishing site is TypePad.

If you work to become a reliable and trusted source to the media - and if you provide them with real news - they will put you and your business in a positive light.

Lou Bortone is an award-winning writer and video producer with over 20 years experience in marketing, branding and promotion. As an online video expert, Lou helps entrepreneurs create video for the web at www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com. In addition, Lou works as a freelance writer and professional ghostwriter, with a ghostwriting site at www.GhostwriteForYou.com and a blog at www.GhostwriteGuru.com.

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How to identify who is - and more importantly, who isn't!

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure
is trying to please everybody."--Bill Cosby

Have you ever had clients that were more trouble than they were worth? Maybe they were always late to pay, or didn't do what they said they'd do. Maybe you just had a personality clash, or they expected more than you were able to offer. Whatever the situation, chances are you had an inkling when you first met that client...a tiny voice that you didn't listen to, that was probably overshadowed by the bigger voice that said, "Hey, it's business; I'll take it!"

Drawing The Line
Learn to say no to those clients, before they start draining your energy! The key to being able to do this is to understand Your Ideal Client. Once you know how to recognize who is ideal and who is not, you can practice turning down business from the latter. If you have trouble saying no, you'll need to learn this critical business skill, and what to do to get rid of problem clients you already have; see the resources at the bottom of this article. If you have a coach, ask them to help you complete the Ideal Client exercise, or to role-play those "saying no" conversations.

How to Discover YOUR Ideal Client
There are many ways to approach the Ideal Client/Customer Profile. You can sit down and imagine the best, most wonderful client you could have--whether that is an abstract entity, a celebrity (what writer wouldn't want Oprah as a customer, for example), or a specific demographic profile. If your customers are more likely to be companies, you could look at your current client list, and pick the company that gives you the most business, the most joy, the least heartburn.

The Ideal Client Profile
Whoever you pick, start a profile matrix with two columns: "My Ideal Client Is:" on the left; "My Ideal Client is Not:", on the right. In the column on the left, list all the characteristics of that type of person or company. Use the questions below as prompts to get you thinking about all the different aspects of each client.

Then, either think of the opposite of all those aspects, or pick the "client from hell" and fill in corresponding traits in the right-hand column. Be really honest with this exercise! If you'd rather only have clients who make over $500,000, put that down! Your clients who don't fit your Ideal characteristics, whether you write them down or not, will eventually know it. May as well get that over with early!

Prompts: Consider these aspects of your Ideal Customer or Client:

• What career or business are they in?
• What demographics do they fit? (age, sex, race, religion, income, marital status, etc.)
• What do they think is important in business? In life?
• What do they like most about you and your business, products and services?
• What is the nature of their relationship with you? (transactional, long-time customer, acquaintance, friend, refers others to you, etc.)
• How do they do business with you? (by phone, in person, on the Web; quick transactions, takes time to negotiate; pays early, on-time, at 30 days; etc.)
• What personality characteristics do they have?
• What do you get from them (besides payment)?

Now What?
Compare your current client list to the two columns in The Ideal Client Profile. How many have the characteristics of your Ideal Client? If the answer is "not many," you may need to work on firing some of your clients! Check out some resources below on how to do this.

Next, post your Ideal Client Profile somewhere you will see it often. Every time a new potential client comes along, start looking for those Ideal characteristics...and beware the non-ideal! If that little voice starts to tell you something might be wrong, check in with the non-ideal list--and be ready with some ways to turn away non-ideal clients. Offer them other options--refer them to someone else who is a better fit, and make two people happier!

Ideal Clients--For Life
There are many ways to leverage the work you have just done with the Ideal Client Profile. Here are some ideas:

• Audit your marketing materials. Do your business cards, brochures, ads and website appeal to your Ideal Client? Are you sending the right message, to the right potential clients? Hone your materials, and start seeing better-qualified potential clients walk in the door.
• Consider your marketing channels. Based on your Ideal Client profile, where would you expect to find these clients? Is that where your marketing efforts are focused? If not, figure out a way to get in front of them!
• Review your contracts, policies, terms and conditions. Are they set up to be friendly to your Ideal Clients? Do they give you clear avenues for dealing with non-ideal clients? If not, update them, and you might see non-ideal clients take care of themselves.

Start attracting your Ideal Clients today!

Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly from over 100 countries on six continents.

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Most sales people know that they need to develop a relationship with their clients. If they don’t know this in today’s society and business climate, then they are probably living in a coal mine in Tibet. However, what they may have difficulty with is knowing what to do to develop that relationship and how to do it. Sales training and a sales process are the keys to knowing the “how”.

The “what” to do is addressed by a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategy combined with CRM technology. This strategy and technology combination helps sales reps with knowing what they need to do next in order to move the relationship forward. For instance, given the right contacts at an account, they may need to establish a meeting with the decision maker, schedule a demonstration, and develop a proposal. However, these are just the mechanics of a sales process – the “what” to do for each step of the way.

While the mechanics are critical to the sales process, what they don’t address is the “how”. How do sales reps reach the decision makers to set up a meeting? How do they develop the best solutions-based proposal? How do they demonstrate the product in a fashion that reveals the best solutions to the prospect’s problems? The way to build a relationship with a client is to learn the “how” of selling, which is obtained through sales training. Sales training comes in many shapes and forms, but the best ones are those that follow a process. Each step of the process moves the relationship one step closer to a win-win solution and encapsulates the selling skills necessary within each step.

A basic flaw in many sales rep’s style is to try to solve the client’s problems by educating them with a product pitch. Customers, especially decision makers, are not interested in the technical details. What they need to understand is how your solution will fix their problems and remove their pains. What often happens is that sales reps tend to make these product pitches to lower-level employees who are not the decision makers. Obviously, this wastes everyone’s time. What needs to be done instead is to focus more on asking the right questions, listening carefully to what the client is saying (and implying), developing the right solution using your products or services, and presenting those solutions as they directly relate to the client’s problems, all done with the right decision maker.

Each of these steps, and more, are learned processes and skills. The saying, “Good sales people are born, not made” is false. Selling is a science, not an art. With proper sales training and a solid sales process, nearly anyone can become a successful sales professional. So what does a good process look like and what are the skills needed for each step?

Let’s look at one in particular, the PEAK Sales Process. PEAK is an acronym, which stands for: Prospect, Engage, Acquire, and Keep. This pyramid diagram below depicts the steps in the PEAK Sales Process where each step builds upon the prior.

Step one, Prospect, is where the initial contact is made which involves cold calling in order to find a candidate client. At this point, this is really just a raw lead rather than a qualified prospect. Here, the training would involve how to make cold calls, your attitude, the first impression you make, and the approach you make during the first phone call or meeting. Once you’ve prospected and found a candidate, you need to Engage them in the process of the sale. This training involves learning how to qualify what is now considered to be a suspect by asking the right questions and listening carefully to their responses. Listening skills are paramount at this stage since the next steps in the process are based on what information is discovered in this engagement stage.

The goal of the engagement stage is to understand the client’s problems and requirements in order to match the right solution to their needs. As a result of good questioning and listening, the sales rep will not only understand this critical information, but they will also ensure that the suspect is fully qualified. To be qualified, the client must have a budget, have the authority to make the decision or at least introduce you to the decision maker(s), have requirements for which you have good solutions, and be able to make a decision and purchase within a reasonable timeframe.

Once qualified, the next stage is where you Acquire them as a new client. This involves moving them from being a suspect to a prospect. In the acquisition stage, the sales rep presents and proposes their solution, negotiates with the client, handles objections, and closes the sale. If the prior stages were handled correctly, then this stage becomes much easier since the client’s needs are fully understood, they basically told the sales rep what they need, the sales rep’s trust and credibility should already be established, and the close becomes a natural progression of the process, as opposed to the typical “dreaded event” that most sales reps fear and loath. Hence, the goal of the acquisition stage is to get the prospect to become a customer.

The final stage is where we Keep the customer. This is where they become a full-fledged customer and when the relationship is most important. Unfortunately, many companies do not have a customer retention strategy and lose the long-term relationship, and hence any forthcoming business potential. An on-going relationship after the sale is critical to your future business and viability. There are several steps and skills necessary to ensure this relationship continues and to make sure your customer becomes, and remains, loyal to your business.

Having a clearly defined sales process with specific skill sets for each stage will ensure that your sales reps will replicate their successes and become more consistent and effective. Regrettably, many sales reps are not trained or experienced with these skills, nor do they perform them in the right order because there is no process. They ask the prospect questions when they should be closing or they try to close when they should be qualifying or they do a myriad of other actions at the wrong stage of the sales cycle. Performing the right actions at the right stages of the process is the key to successful selling.

With proper sales training and a first-rate sales process, your sales team will not only learn the appropriate skills but also when and where to apply them to become more successful. Thus, they will learn “How” to sell better. Combine this with “What” to do by developing a CRM strategy and using CRM technology, and you’ll have an unbeatable, world-class sales team.

Russ Lombardo is President of PEAK Sales Consulting, LLC and an experienced CRM and Sales consultant, trainer, writer, speaker and radio show host. Russ works with businesses to help improve their customer acquisition and retention for increased revenue and success. Russ is author of the books, "CyberSelling", "CRM For The Common Man" and "Smart Marketing". He can be reached at 702-655-5652 and emailed at russ@peaksalesconsulting.com.

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Using Your (small) Size as a Competitive Advantage

Are you ever frustrated or hesitant when you talk to prospective customers because you can't readily explain why they should come to you rather than go to your competitors? Sure, you might have your 30-second elevator speech, but then they ask you that dreaded question, "So what makes you different?" Then, all those self-doubts creep in, and you just aren't sure what to say. Differentiation can boost confidence--yours in yourself and that prospective customer's confidence in you!

Dif-fer-en-ti-ate v. tr. To perceive or show the difference in or between; discriminate.

In business terms, to differentiate means to create a benefit that customers perceive as being of greater value to them than what they can get elsewhere. It's not enough for you to be different--a potential customer has to take note of the difference and must feel that the difference somehow fits their need better. (Other words that mean virtually the same thing: Competitive Advantage; Unique Selling Proposition; or Value Proposition.)

As you are building your business, you can use differentiation to attract more customers. Once you have momentum, differentiation allows you to charge a higher price because you are delivering more value to your customers. Make a point to evaluate and adjust your differentiation methods at least annually.

The various methods of differentiating your businesses fall into four general categories:

Price Differentiation
Focus Differentiation
Product/Service Differentiation
Customer Service Differentiation

Price Differentiation

Differentiating on price is probably the most common and easily understood method. HOWEVER, for Solo Entrepreneurs, caution is in order. On the one hand, potential customers might expect a lower price from you than from your larger competition because they perceive you as having less overhead, etc. On the other hand, cheaper prices can evoke perceptions of lower quality, a less-stable business, etc. And if you compete on price against competitors with deeper pockets, you can price yourself right into bankruptcy. Be creative with this differentiator by competing on something other than straight price. For example, you might offer:

• More value--offer more products or services for the same price.
• Freebies --accessories, companion products, free upgrades, and coupons for future purchases.
• Free shipping, etc.--convenience sells, especially when it is free!
• Discounts--includes offering regular sales, coupons, etc. (see cautions above)

Focus Differentiation

For Solo Entrepreneurs, this is the most important method of differentiation, and in many ways, the easiest. Why? Because as a Solo Entrepreneur, you simply can't be everything to everybody, so you must pick a specific way to focus your business. Once you have done that, you have an automatic advantage over larger companies because you can become more of an expert in that one field --and you can build close relationships with key customers that will be hard to duplicate. For example, you might differentiate yourself through:

• Location--take advantage your closeness to prospective customers.
• Customer specialization--be very specific about what characteristics your customers will have - for example, racing bicycle enthusiasts or companies with a spiritual conscience.
• Customer relationships--know customers really well, form partnerships with them, and get them to speak for you!
• Affinity relationships--associate your product/service with a well-known person or organization.
• One-stop shopping--offer everything your target market needs, in your area of expertise.
• Wide selection (within your niche) - although this one may seem to be the opposite of focus--the key is to be very specific in one dimension and very broad in another.

Product/Service Offering Differentiation

How much you are able to differentiate your product or service offering will vary based on what type of business you are in. For instance, if you are in a highly regulated business, your options may be limited. Explore a totally new market or type of product or service, however, and the possibilities abound. The key to successful differentiation in this category, again, is to know your customers, really, really well. Talk to them often, and you will know what they need most and be able to offer it, long before your competitors know what is happening. For example, your product or service could stand out in one of these ways:

• Quality--create a product or service that is exceptional in one or more ways.
• Lasts longer
• Better features
• Easier to use
• Safer
• New/First--be the first one to offer something in your location/field.
• Features/Options--offer lots of choices, unusual combinations, or solve a problem for a customer in a way no one else does.
• Customization--as a Solo Entrepreneur, you may be able to more easily handle special orders than big, mass-market competitors.

Customer Service Differentiation

Have you noticed how customer service seems to be out of vogue these days? This situation makes excellent customer service a great opportunity for differentiation and another natural advantage for Solo Entrepreneurs that already know what's important to their customers. Build your reputation on making customers feel really good about doing business with you. Works great with referral marketing, too. Examples:

• Deliver Fast--next day, or one-hour--make it faster than customers think possible.
• Unique channel--offer a service over the phone or Internet instead of in person or in their office rather than yours.
• Service-delight customers!--it may seem expensive to offer exceptional service--but it pays off in word-of-mouth advertising.
• Before/during/after-sales support--provide technical or other support to customers using your product. You might use joint ventures to provide that support--but customers will perceive it as being from you!
• Guarantee/warranty--offer 100% money-back, or free replacement parts.
• YOU--offer yourself, your unique blend of talents and skills, to attract customers. Make sure they get access to you, too!

Keys to Successful Differentiation:

• Know your customers, really, really well.
• Pick a blend of differentiation methods that, in the eyes of your customers, truly sets you apart.
• Talk about your differentiation in terms of customer benefits.
• Tell everyone about what differentiates you--often.
• Keep your differentiation fresh by listening for changing customer needs.

Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly from over 100 countries on six continents.

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AllBusiness.com: I remember as a young college kid (yeah, I'm old enough to say that now), I worked in a ski and patio furniture store (it was the Midwest so skiing in the winter, patio furniture in the summer). What I learned quickly in selling the goods was that most people had no working knowledge of skiing or patio furniture and it came down to a price game with our competitors.

So I educated them first and foremost about patio furniture. I explained why an aluminum frame was better, how powder coating lasted longer than any other finish, and why the manufacturer felt comfortable offering a five year warranty.

So customers weren't given the hard sell, but an education. And that invariably turned into customers checking out the competition and then almost always coming back to us to buy (even if another store was selling the same thing). Here are a few ways you can better educate your customers.

Touch each customer while they're in your store - spend a little time explaining why a certain product or brand is unique or better than everything else that's out there (or teach about the entire category (biking, skiing, patio furniture, etc.)).

Host a special event - It doesn't have to be sales-oriented. Create educational events and the sales will follow.

Use your database and email - I'm a big proponent of emails that aren't about selling something, but about educating someone. What's relevant to your customer base? Speak to that and include the selling part as a mention at the end. For instance, you may want to educate your customers about sunscreen and the importance of wearing it. And then at the end just add, "here are three products we recommend."

Educate Your Customers to Increase Sales [AllBusiness.com]

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Small Business Buzz: The number one rule for advertising quality in your product or service is to not use the word “quality.” Because this word is overused by the general business public, consumers ignore it. In fact, using the word “quality” can often invoke suspicion, much like when a business uses the phrase “you can trust me.”

Here are some tips for effectively conveying quality to potential customers:

Alternative Descriptions

The word “quality” in general is a limiting term, despite the negative connotations that it’s overuse has produced. It’s hard to do (I just caught myself using the term in my own advertising for my photography services), but instead you should go with alternatives like these:

premium, unparalleled, superior, impeccable, exceptional, unmatched, excellence, distinguished

Also, keep in mind that, the more expensive your product/service, the more sophisticated your “quality” word should be.

Speaking of Price. . .

Accept the fact that, if your product or service is truly of the best quality, then it won’t be the cheapest on the market. It takes money to provide a worthwhile product, which means that you will have to charge your customers a bit more. But, if you do things right, your customers will understand that they are getting what they pay for. So be careful. Saying that your product is “inexpensive” or cheap implies poor quality to the consumer. You cannot use the two concepts together. Instead, try words like “affordable” or “reasonable.”

Advertising Quality in Your Product [Small Business Buzz]

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Is this a familiar scenario? You’re this close to landing the biggest deal you ever encountered. The solution you are pitching is nearly one hundred thousand dollars and will keep you busy the better part of the long Winter months ahead and possibly into the Spring. You planned about 4 months worth of consulting and are eager to begin. Now, at the final meeting with your client, you are about to get the sweet answer you’ve been working hard to get for months. There’s not much else that compares to the excitement of getting a signature on a huge deal you’ve been working on for what seems like forever. But here you are, actually watching the client sign your order.

You’re set. You go out and celebrate that night with your spouse and talk about how much you deserved this and what it meant to your income and, of course, your business. The long hours. The pressure. The sacrifices. But now that’s all over and you got what you deserved. A huge contract that will yield a lot of consulting dollars for your relatively small operation.

The next day you order the products or materials from your vendor. It arrives in a couple days and having already set up the first meeting with your client, you set out with everything you need to begin work. The first few weeks would include discussions and interviews for the discovery analysis. Then the planning phase. And finally the customizations, implementation, training, and roll out. The plan is perfect and you are the right man, or woman, for the job.

Reality Hits

Did you ever wake up out of a dream and have no idea where you are or how you got there? Well, that’s how you feel months later when you realize that your project is coming to a close. It is a great success. Your client loves you. The users are getting on board with the project and are very enthusiastic. The program works like a charm. Everything is coming together. Except for one thing -- Your Business! You suddenly realize as you finalize this long-term project that your business is totally stagnating, and you have no idea how you got to that point.

As if you were a prisoner being paroled after a 20 year sentence and seeing how society has totally changed in your absence, you emerge to find that you have absolutely no opportunities lined up to pursue. Worse than that, your vendors thought you went out of business