Sales & Marketing Articles For Entrepreneurs & Small Business OwnersThe Incredible Selling Power Of ‘The Silent Promise’Every business, large or small, and every individual in sales, operates by a purpose…and only three forms of purpose are available: The 1st purpose: To be pleased by customers means that although you probably have a positive work and service ethic…your main focus and talking point inside the company is about your budgets, your results, […] To Create a Positive “Economic Outlook” For 2009, Learn To “Look Out” At The Market To See Serious Sales PotentialThere is no doubt that we are in a recession and so this is a time for using our brains, not for ‘bracing’ ourselves for what might happen…or for indulging in the kind of ‘bravado’ that involves mindless expressions such as ‘what recession?’ The best way to face a recession is to imagine that it […] To Succeed In Business, In The Sense Of Advancement, Earnings And Enjoyment … You Must Avoid Being a Walking Contradiction!Let me give some examples of ‘walking contradictions’. If you look closely at the lives of most people in the building and related trades, they are usually involved in intricate and exacting work…and yet their service behaviour is often disastrous and anything but thorough. This is an enormous contradiction and one that is experienced and […] Sometimes, Where There’s a Way … There’s a Will!From an early age we are taught that almost everything worth knowing has already been thought through, which suggests that we should accept ‘past thoughts’ and move into the future accordingly. No doubt you remember from school that ‘i comes before e, except after c’…so where does that leave words like seizure and leisure? See […] The Advice You Can Rely On To Improve Sales: Try Ardour!As a business pursuit, the selling process has been complicated beyond belief, to the point where many people have been deceived into thinking that all the ‘answers are buried under rocks in the middle of the outback. They are not; in fact the answers to selling success are on full view just about every day, […] Here Is The Principal Reason Why Most People Fail At “Making Sales”Here is a brief hypothetical to lead into the topic of this article: you find yourself ‘having no choice’ but to deliver a half hour presentation to an audience of 100 people, and you know that if the presentation goes well it will mean a lot to your company, and to you too. So as […] You Will Be The Same In 5 Years As You Are Today, Except For Two Things: The People You Meet And The Items You ReadI once brought a particularly gifted speaker to Australia and New Zealand, to address our staff and customers…and I recall him saying this to me: ‘John, if I wanted to know anything about you I would just go to your bookcase, and then I would see who your heroes are, what business issues you consider […] “The War Of The Worlds” Novel In 1898 Was Science Fiction, But Today In Business The Battle Is Real And Unabated … And Rarely Debated!In business, the ‘worlds’ include suppliers, their sales people, their internal divisions, their customers, their customers’ customers and the staff of their customers. The reference to ‘war’ relates to the various ‘worlds’ being at odds with each other, to the point of becoming enemies and doing harm to each other. For example… • The staff […] The Measure Of Your Success Is Influenced By What You MeasureWhen I ran the marketing and sales operations for the Schwarzkopf organization, I often ran focus group sessions for individual salons, involving just a few of their clients…with salon staff present too. At these meetings we would discuss how clients felt about 1. Receiving styling ideas from staff, 2. Being given product recommendations for home […] The “Spectrum Of Selling” From The Point Of Access To Success!No one in selling wants to fail, and indeed I am sure that everyone in sales wants to ‘do well’. If this is true, then we need to remember and clearly understand the saying ‘success begets success’…which simply means that the only way to achieve success is to sell success. Sadly, a very small percentage […] In Selling, When The Student Is Ready To Learn … The Teacher Is Never Far Away!The most effective women and men in selling that I have met, somehow just keep getting better…even though they are already held in very high esteem by both customers and management. These people do not find business to be easy, in fact the opposite is true; they see the challenges of attracting, serving and selling […] In Your Selling & Advertising Efforts … If You Don’t Start At The End, You’ll Be Finished At The Beginning!Using food as an example, there are perhaps four ways to influence diners with meal offerings, and in descending order they are as follows: 1. tasting the food being offered, 2. seeing a photo of the meal, 3. glancing over a menu description of the meal, 4. studying a recipe relating to the meal. None […] When It Comes To Setting Traps To Win New Customers … Be Sure To Snare With FlairWhen you think about it, aiming to attract new customers is very much like setting a trap for a mouse or a larger creature. The difference of course is that our trap should be a positive one, offering help, not harm…however the bait we use must be as enticing to a prospect as cheese is […] People That Use Small Talk Never Make Big SalesThe message in this article is aimed at both sales people and anyone in business that deals with and buys from sales people on a regular basis. You will surely have met sales people that feel the need to ingratiate themselves with potential customers by using small talk. In many cases the over-use of small […] Selling Starts With An Assertion That Attracts, Distracts … Or Attacks!In a court of law the prosecution and defence teams begin with an ‘assertion’ of innocence or guilt…and then they each have to provide evidence to prove and win their case. The same process is supposed to happen in all forms of selling, whether you are aiming to further develop business with a customer or […] On Second Thoughts, This Is How To Achieve Sustained Sales Success …In recent times I have been using a number of good business ideas that involve the term ‘second’, based on having second thoughts about key issues. For example, the phrase ‘features and benefits’ means nothing to the market, because customers are only interested in what we get done, not what we do…and so on second […] A Recession: Is It Coming, Here Now … Or Mostly In Our Minds?There is no question that the business community, just about everywhere, is heading towards tough times in the short to medium term…due in part to credit card debt, a fall in employment figures, a reduction in disposable incomes and therefore a drop in consumer confidence and spending, etc. However, the greatest problem facing businesses and […] Probe 6: A Key Device To Improve Your Sales Efforts And Results In 2009As you would know, before pilots guide the planes they operate on to the runway and into the sky, they are compelled to always go through a checklist of critical items…to ensure success and safety for the journey ahead. What you may not know is that the majority of companies and sales people do not […] The “Pay To Play” Factor Is Still Ignored By Most Business PeopleIf you were in the market for a music CD you really like and want, which is the most important element you will look forward to: paying for the CD or playing the CD? It’s a simple question and the answer of course is even easier: playing and enjoying the CD is what matters most. […] A Key Attribute Of High-Achievers Is That They Have No Choice But To Win!It is my sincere belief that the best decision you can make about doing very well in business…is to have no choice but to succeed. A business associate of mine said to me last week ‘How do you manage to write an article every single week?’ The answer could be divided into several parts; for […] |
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