Sales & Marketing Articles For Entrepreneurs & Small Business OwnersCreating A Successful Internet Marketing FunnelSocial media, blogging and article marketing offer effective ways to generate interest establish a presence for your brand and your company and create a powerful inbound marketing funnel. As with all forms of Internet marketing, online tracking and analytics help make this type of outreach accountable. They keep you on track, letting you know if […] Boomers … The Numbers, The Markets Keep Growing“You know, Norman, you really are the sweetest man in the world, but I’m the only one who knows it.” – Ethel – On Golden Pond (Universal Pictures, 1981) The Internet celebrated its 40th anniversary in September. It wasn’t such a big deal for the first 10 years until the PC got some traction. Our […] D Is For Direct MailDirect Mail, otherwise known as sending letters through the post to prospective customers is now pretty much a dying art. By many business owners, sending letters has been replaced by emails – can’t say I blame them really. After all, emails are cheaper, quicker and you can see who has opened it and read it. […] An Author’s Dilemma: Surviving The Seismic Shifts In The Book TradeBook signing tours use to be a regular part of the publishing industry. Authors expected to sign a deal, get an advance and then prepare for a tour. Some tours, those of the reigning literary superstars, had a glamorous side; for most they were a bit of a grind and a part of the road […] The Music Industry: Spinning A New Business ModelThe Internet has impacted all of the arts, but no sector has been hit quite as hard as the music industry. With CD sales fading and radio play shrinking, recording artists are finding less opportunities to get their music heard. To survive, many musicians are becoming brands in the service of brands. The industry is […] Dealing With The Dreaded Price ObjectionIn the fifteen years I have been working with sales teams I have consistently found that price objections are still one of the most commonly requested programs. In today’s commodity-driven world it is easy to fall prey to discounting your product or service in an effort to capture the sale. However, there is a better […] Find Your Playing FieldDo or do not, there is no try. – Yoda Energy is the essence of life. Everyday you choose how you are going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach that goal, and by maintaining focus. Ever find yourself wasting a lot of time and money without achieving great […] Creating a Long Term Marketing Action PlanMost companies develop action plans for what they consider the nuts-and-bolts part of their business, including production, sales, distribution, etc. It’s surprising how few companies automatically throw marketing into that mix. This is particularly true when it comes to small or mid-sized companies. Many entrepreneurs and business owners think of marketing as an extra, an […] C Is For Cold CallingPicking up the phone and talking to people you don’t know in order to try and sell them your products and services is something that most small business owners dread – and yet, most would consider cold calling or telemarketing to be a relatively easy way to get business through the door. Whether you choose […] Ethical Marketing Could Still Save E-MailMarketing doesn’t have to be a win-lose battle, says Shel Horowitz, author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First – but too many businesses can’t understand that they win when their customers also win. “It wouldn’t be so bad if win-lose marketers only shot themselves in the foot,” says Horowitz. “Unfortunately, as soon as […] Can Honest Copywriting Succeed?I confess–I’m a marketing heretic! I’ve built my career on breaking all the rules–and one of the rules I break is that I don’t hype. Do I put the best possible “spin” on the truth? Of course! But I refuse to deceive my readers into action. What are some of the common copywriter tricks that […] B Is For BloggingOver the last few years, there have been lots of new ways to market and promote your business springing up. One of those ways is to create a blog for your business. A blog – short for web-log – is an on-line diary. You can set one up for free at www.blogger.com or for […] The Next Big Trend In MarketingThis is not “brand new” news, but it is news small businesses should be taking note of and considering ways to utilize it for their marketing efforts. Your target market watches television, listens to the radio, observes roadside billboards and building banners, reads newspapers and magazines, reads ads in their email and on the internet… […] How To Get More Qualified Leads From Your NetworkBehind Door No. 1 are one dozen warm leads. Behind Door No. 2 are three times as many cold suspects. Which door would you want to open? I’m sure you said Door No. 1. But what if in order to gain access to the leads behind Door No. 1, you have to ask someone to […] Jump Start Stalled Sales – Four Steps To Help Close FasterWe all know how frustrating it is when a sales opportunity we’ve been working on suddenly stalls out. Our instinctive response is to begin thinking of ways to accelerate the prospect’s decision about the sale, usually by offering some financial incentive (a discount). Paradoxically, this often has the opposite effect. The prospect senses your eagerness, […] Five Questions Salespeople Need to Ask, But Rarely DoSalespeople won’t always get the call back, get the appointment, get to meet the decision maker, or get the order. Now it is, of course, unreasonable to expect to always get what we want. But, it is reasonable to believe that we might get what we want more often if we changed the way we […] How To Provide Buying Incentives Without DiscountingIn tough economic times, there’s a constant concern that customers will pull in the reins and make fewer purchases. If you’re Wal-Mart or some other commodity seller, you can simply drop your price to drive more volume, thereby maintaining your current revenue levels. But if you sell a premium product or service — one where […] A Is For AdvertisingWhen I first started Exceptional Thinking, just about everybody told me that I should do some advertising and to be honest, that’s what I thought I should do too. After all, that’s what businesses do to promote their products and services don’t they? So, dutifully I advertised. First in a business magazine that resulted in […] How to Recover in 2010 from a Steep Drop in Revenues / Sales in 2009A lot of businesses have seen a steep drop in their 2009 sales. 2009 was one of the worst recessions in the last 50 years. It has become evident that the economy is on the verge of coming back, now businesses are asking what their next move should be? The reality is that businesses need […] The Internet’s Marketing Silver BulletSocial media and blogging can immediately establish a company’s presence and deliver its message online. Business owners and entrepreneurs can now find specific communities that they can target and deliver their message addressing specific interests and concerns. But for most companies, the Internet’s capabilities and outreach are limited. There are countless businesses with websites, blogs […] |
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