Explode Your Sales With Good Communication

These are simple and effective methods to increase your sales. You may think that you know what your customer wants, but do you really? Instead of assuming that you know, why not listen to the customer and ask questions to find out what it is that they REALLY want.

1. Give your customers benefits, not features. Your customers don't want to know the ins and outs immediately of your products, they want to know how it benefits them! Save the details of the product for a secondary page that's NOT on your home page. You can give some main selling points, but keep the minor details off the home page and just list benefits.

For example, let's say you've got a strategy to get your clients out of debt. Don't tell them step-by-step how it works on the front page, be vague and leave the small print for another page. Instead tell them how they can imagine a life with riches and being debt free! That's a benefit, not a feature!

2. Keep in communication with potential buyers. I read somewhere that it takes at least 7 views of your products to get interested parties to buy them. They're obviously interested if they've gotten to your site and requested information, why not keep them informed about your news and updates to the site? You just may have a future customer.

It's also a good practice to use a "bookmark this page" and "tell a friend about this page" tool so you can get potential buyers for the future. Even if they're immediately not buying it doesn't mean they won't be back!

3. Encourage your site visitors to ask questions. Some people may think they're bothering you or wasting your time to ask you a question. Extend your open arms to each and every surfer that comes into your site and encourage them to ask about your site!

However if you see the same question coming up over and over again, it will benefit you and the client both if you create a "Frequently Asked Questions" page. People usually want immediate answers to their questions and it saves you the tedious same responses over and over again.

4. Make the buying experience easier. Don't ask for information that you don't need. Instead, ask for the bare minimum information from the customer so they can "get in, and get out". And then later on, you can send them a quick thank you note and a follow up to see how they liked your website.

Don't make your customer jump through hoops to buy your products. They'll only get frustrated and put it off for later - and later may never come!

By keeping these lines of communication open with your site visitors and potential customers, you'll find you gain more trust and credibility with them and in turn, more sales!

Business Cards Are Excellent Salesman

Since the 19th century business cards were widespread among people of all classes with a business to promote. The earliest form of business cards, known as tradecards, were used as advertising materials and as maps used to direct the public to the merchant’s store. Today business cards are among the most important marketing material that every business must have.

The business card is perhaps the best salesman that you can have. That is why it is essential that it contains much more than your name, address, and contact numbers and services. It should be designed keeping its purpose in mind – that is its being a powerful sales tool. So let’s start with the design. If you want to create a business card that contains a photo with gradient colors you can try using a glossy paper to ensure that the cards are printed as good as they look on the screen. Or else, you can get disappointed with the print out. 

In addition, if your card design contains background color or images, you can use papers that have gaps between them as these gaps will allow you to make up for the unavoidable elusiveness of the printer paper feed system. However, most stock cards don’t have gaps so if you don’t want to have trouble with printing, make sure your photos, images and text are at 3mm off the edge of the card. This way the minor printer imprecision will not destroy your business cards.

When it comes to printing, make sure that the paper stock that you will use is compatible to your printer. As inkjet and laser printer uses different technologies, it is important that you only feed paper type that is attuned to your printer choice. So for instance you will be using a laser printer, using a paper with glossy coating can cause damage to the printer. Hence, the right choice of paper stock will greatly affect your business cards print out.

Now let’s come to the strategies you can utilize in business card distribution. Aside from the usual handing out of your business cards during tradeshows, conventions, meetings and the like, tucking them in your products before delivery can be a good idea. Say you are a florist. You can consider tying your business card around the flowers. Or if use bags in packaging your products, you can staple or tie your card on the outside of the bag. You can also include you cards in your letters and invoices. And if you are really crafty you can slip in your cards into your designs – you can include them in your greeting cards, emboss them with your rubber stamps or blend them with your other artworks.   

There are endless possibilities when it comes to designing and handing out your business cards. You just have to know how to utilize these possibilities to your advantage. Remember that your business cards can be your best salesman, so make them represent you effectively.

A Tickler File For Sales And Networking

If you are involved in sales, fundraising or just an active networker, you have probably tried a variety of tools to manage your contact list and remind yourself to stay in touch with all of the prospects and people you meet. This tickler file is designed to be an inexpensive, effective, tool that can be used by salespeople in a variety of different types of organizations.

This tickler file uses inexpensive index cards and a simple file box. You will need the following items to create your own index card sales tool. I found everything I needed at my local office supply store. The total cost was around $25.00.

- A box to store the index cards
- Monthly 3" by 5" index tabs
- Daily (1-31) 3" by 5" index tabs
- Alphabetical 3" by 5" index tabs
- A ton of white ruled 3" by 5" index cards (you don't need a photo, right?)
- A bunch of colored 3" by 5" index cards (pick your favorite color)
- A small case to carry your in your pocket

Once you have purchased the required supplies, you can organize your 3X5. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that you are assembling your 3X5 on January 1st. If this is the case you would first organize your tabs in the order below (front to back):

- January tab
- Daily tabs 1-31
- February - December monthly tabs
- A-Z alphabetical tabs
- Blank index cards - white and your favorite color

All of your cards should now be in the file box and the first thing you should see is the January tab.

Next, you should start creating cards for your leads. In the beginning, this is going to take some time (assuming you have a lot of leads). You might choose to use one color card for prospects, one color for customers, another for personal contacts, etc. If you are not going to organize your contacts by color, you will only need white cards. Nonetheless, you can either copy your contacts information onto the cards or simply staple their business card to one of the index cards.

The system works like this.

Let's imagine it is January 1st. and you attend a networking event where you meet a potential client. You get this lead's business card at the event and you want to contact him/her on the 2nd., so when you get to your office, you staple the leads business card to a white index card and drop it behind the "2" tab and then go home for the day. After all, it is new years day and you have been working hard to create your new sales system and you attended a networking event.

So, you arrive at work on January 2nd. and open up your tickler file. The first thing you should do is move the "1" tab back behind the February tab. You will always be rolling the system forward like this, so that the first tab you see in the box represents the most current month, then the most current day.
Now, you go to the tab for today (Jan 2nd.) and find the card for the lead that you met at the networking event yesterday. You call the lead and learn that he/she is out of town until January 6th. so you make a note which says, "1/2/05 - Mr. Lead is on vacation till 1/6". Now you drop the card behind the "6" tab for the month of January.

You will continue to roll this lead forward in the system, making notes at each step, until the lead either turns into a customer or asks you to leave them alone.

When the lead turns into a customer, I staple their business card to a colored card and place it behind the appropriate alphabetical tab. If their is another opportunity with this client, I move the colored card back to the dated section and move them through the process again.

Of course, as you add more people to your pipeline, you might not get to contact everyone on the day you have them slotted for. Just move them to the next day's slot at the end of the current day so you contact them tomorrow.

You will not want to carry around a huge metal box full of index cards, which is why you want to have a small index card wallet or box, so if you are going to be on the road or out of the office, you can simply grab your cards for the day and go.
Not just for salespeople.

While the system is great for salespeople, it also is a great tool for those of us who are focusing on networking. I actually use three different colored cards and use white for leads, blue for clients and red for my networking contacts (patriotic, I know). On the red cards, I write either 7, 14, 30, 45, 60, etc in the upper right hand corner of the index card to remind myself how frequently I want to contact the person, so I simply move the card forward based on the number on the card. If I want to contact someone every seven days, I move the card ahead a week after I make contact.

10 top tips to become the worst sales person in your company

Have you ever had sales people who just never seem to make it no matter how hard they try? These sales people are one of the main factors for decline in business. Your sales people are the heart of your company and without good ones you will find it difficult to succeed in selling your products. To train good sales people you sometimes need to take a different approach.

Here are 10 tips that will save you from becoming the worst sales person in the company:

1.    Not being punctual: being on time is very important to a customer. Take into consideration that many of your seasonal Christmas customers will be new. Your sales people will represent the first contact these customers have with your company. First impressions are lasting ones and your sales person need to make a good impression. Being on time will give a good impression to the client and increase their confidence in your company.

2.    Poor presentation: some sales people just do not have all their ducks in a row and simply do not present the product well. A presentation is the first thing a customer will know about your product. If your product is not shown correctly to the customer he is very unlikely to buy.

3.    Bad attitude: rudeness and unprofessional behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances. It is quite surprising that you will meet some sales people who are just plain rude and short with you the consumer. This gives the potential buyer the wrong impression about your company. They do not get a proper picture of the product, as they will probably not even wait for the presentation to end. You will lose many sales like this.

4.    Not being articulate: a sales person must know how to express himself with confidence and fluency. He needs to be able to greet the prospect and introduce himself with assurance. This will start the whole presentation off to a good start. When he actually presents the product he must be sure to do this in a confident manner. He should also be prepared to answer all questions concisely and well. If your sales person cannot do this, your sale will not go through.

5.    Not listening to a customer: a sales person should not only be able to present your product but listen to the prospective buyer. There is nothing more irritating to the consumer than having a sales person go on about a product and not letting you ask a few simple questions. After all whose money is on the line here? Worse still is when you do finally get to ask your question and instead of giving you a straight answer they go off on a tangent and have clearly not been listening to you. This will make a customer angry and they will probably never do business with you.

6.    Basing a sale on cost: it is extremely risky for a sales person to depend on cost to close the sales. The prospective buyer will be quick to take advantage when he sees that the deal depends on the cost factor. He will drive the price as low as he can and you will take a heavy cut in profits for the sake of a sale. The buyer may hold off and then not even buy.

7.    Not knowing when to close a sale: This is a common fault but a lethal one. Many sales have been lost because the sales person did not know when to close the sale. A good sales person is in tune with the prospective buyer and knows instinctively when to move to close the sale.

8.    Hard sell: Hard sell is when sales people try to push the sale on the prospective customer. This will make the buyer aggressive and he will try to get rid of your sales person as soon as possible. It is a proven fact that nobody likes to be sold to.

9.    Inflexibility: a sales person should be aware of different personalities and various situations. They must be flexible and able to adapt to different circumstances. The presentation may be the same but the buyers are rarely the same. Each buyer wants to feel special and expects the sales person to understand his circumstances. Inflexibility will cost you many sales.

10.    Not following up a hot prospect: Follow up is very important. It is actually plain good manners. You have spoken to a person who has expressed interest in your company’s product but may not have been able to make a decision yet. It is courteous and good for business to follow up with hem. You may even make a sale this way. If your sales person does not know how to do this you will end up losing valuable customers and sales.