Why Traditional Sales Processes Reduce Sales Results
Why salespeople lie to their clientsAsk most people to describe a salesperson, and likely as not, you'll find yourself deluged by words like "huckster," "snake oil peddler," "fast talker," "con artist" and, of course, "untrustworthy," "arrogant" and "dishonest." You’re right – it’s not fair, it’s just the way it is.Funny thing is I hardly ever meet a sales professional who hasn’t at least once used a term like those above to describe another sales professional they had a bad experience with! Sometimes, we even dislike our own kind…..We wonder exactly what we ever did to earn such an enviable reputation. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is, those of us who sell for a living do so in an environment created by a few highly visible unscrupulous salespeople, who are more interested in making a short-term buck than they are in creating long-term profitable relationships with their clients.Even the most well meaning salespeople lie on occasion, and when they're caught (as they almost invariably are), this only serves to further poison their relationships with their customers – and the selling environment for all of us.In general, there are three key reasons why salespeople are dishonest with their clients:They don’t know their product. Some salespeople lie by accident because they're unsure or uninformed about the products they're selling. In many cases, they lie simply because they're too embarrassed to say, “I don’t know.”They're too empathetic. Some salespeople lie because they're insecure about themselves, or their relationship with their prospect. The driving factor for these salespeople is: “I just want the customer to like me!”

Effective Customer Interviews Make Life Much Easier!
One of the critical success factors for service-related businesses is our ability to understand a client’s needs and requirements. Misunderstandings can lead to loss of repeat business, economic loss, and damage to reputation.Although interactions in small business are often much more casual than those at the big end of town, interviews with clients differ from ordinary conversations even though they may appear to resemble them:Friendly conversationa. Not directed toward a purpose b. Equal distribution of talking/listening c. Fewer questions d. Redundancy and repetition are drawbacks to conversationInterviewa. Directed towards a purpose and therefore has a structure that must reflect its purposeb. Largely questions from one and answers from other party (interviewer mainly listens while encouraging interviewee to talk)c. Redundancy and repetition desirable in interviewsd. Interviewer needs to use a range of strategies to make sure interviewee has been fully understoodA good structure for an interview is:1. Establish rapport 2. Get the big picture (general information gathering) 3. Gather specific information 4. Intervene (give information, advice, or instructions) 5. End, including feedback and summaryThese stages may be interactive, occurring several times throughout the interview.Interviews go wrong in predictable ways. Approximately 40% of clients do not ask an initial question that explains their need in precise terms, so the purpose of the interview is to clarify the question. And that process can fall foul of one of five common causes of communication a

Sales and Closing Techniques
One essential criteria of being a successful salesperson is the ability to be able to close a sale effectively. You don't have to be a salesperson to do this, yet you do need to put at least some of your focus on sales to be successful, whether it is yourself doing the closing or are someone you hire. After you have done the difficult part, which is prospecting, you need to close. This is not really hard but is the singlemost important step. The final close happens when you ask the prospect to make a decision. Selling and marketing, as you may have guessed by now, are actually 2 seperate things completely.Most people don't realize that closing is essentially a process rather than one particular action at the conclusion of a presentation. During the sales process, you should be moving the prospect towards the close step by step. Every time you get a prospect to advance or to agree to take the next step increment by increment (such as a 3-way call, going to your web site, having lunch with you or trying the products, etc), you move the prospect closer to the close. It is a key factor to understanding the whole process, not just one single aspect of it. Many people are so fearful of closing that they never "ask for the sale" or the "sign up" when it comes right down to it. People desire to own things -- be it a product/service or business. If you are not closing, you're probably wasting your time as well as your prospect's time. It is kind of like a story with no ending. Today, so many sales people "relationship" their prospect way, way too much. Essentially, they are sensitive about being pushy so they never ask for the sale. If you truly believe in the products, the opportuni

Real Estate Agents Can Produce Big Responses Without Spending a Lot of Time or Money
Postcard Marketing Technique #1 Get Their Attention With a Powerful HeadlineDon't try to close your sale with postcards. There isn't enough room to provide all the information needed to close get the listing. Instead, briefly state the major benefit(s) you offer to attract your prospect's attention. Then motivate them to get more detailed information. For example, send them to your web site or give them a phone number to call.Postcard Marketing Technique #2: Design Your Postcard to Look Like Personal Message to Your ProspectYour prospect's attention is fleeting and you only have seconds to attract their attention. Design your postcard to stand out from the crowd. It might be the color, or shape or size. Whatever attracts attention and lures prospects into reading your postcard.Postcard Marketing Technique #3: Make the Right Offer to the Right Group of PeopleDo not assume that by "offer", I mean you're your real estate services or experience. This is a major marketing mistake made by numerous real estate agents and it severely limits the amounts of leads they generate. At the core of your success or failure as a marketer of your services is your ability to match up your list of potential buyers with your offers.Contact the WRONG prospect with the WRONG offer and you will generate little or no leads.Contact the WRONG prospects with the RIGHT offer and you will generate little or no leads.Contact the RIGHT prospects with the WRONG offer and you will generate little or no leads.Contact the RIGHT prospects

Cost-Effective Communication For Small Businesses
Communicating through blogging is very effective, especially for small organizations who cannot afford to spend much on updating their clients on every small event in the company. For the purpose of internal communication, a blog can function as a ‘change long’ for a website. It automatically updates the information list of a company and simplifies identification of the desired information by categorizing it under dates and time.Advantages of Blogging: Blogs enables coordination by improving the level of communication within members of a group. Members of a group could be readers if the company is into publication or any related area or they could be customers of a company who need regular updates on the product offerings since they have placed deposits; employees of the company and its stakeholders can also be the members o the blog. It is advisable that the blogs are secured by using passwords.Blogging retains Customers: Different types of blogging can be used for varied businesses because each business has different priorities and modes of operation. For some businesses, however, intimate blogging i.e. one-on-one (person-to-person) blogging helps to maintain relationships with the existing customers. This kind of personal touch offered by blogging helps to retain customers and generates repeat orders, which translates into revenue stability over the long-term.Cut Costs and Manage Time: Blogs are also effective in cutting operating costs and enable time management for small firms when used effectively. For instance, if you are in the business of consulting, you need to build a network of clients by going to meetings and attending conferences. Such establis

Spank Your Ads
If you were like me – total ignorance on fire - when I started my business from home, then this story might sound familiar. I did what the leaders did to pave the way, and they were getting the results that I wanted so I did what they did. I placed $1,000’s on newspaper classifieds. Spent three grand PLUS on a fancy lead capture splash page. I purchased THOUSANDS of leads to "keep in flow" only to discover that those lead generation companies resell and resell so all you are doing is calling people who have been contacted many times before, and frankly they don't even remember looking for an opportunity. This sucky marketing nearly bankrupted me financially and emotionally. What I didn’t know (and I don’t even know if the leaders know) is that I could have gotten all my advertising to pay for itself. If your advertising pays for itself - then basically all your leads are free.Now, You might be asking yourself – “How did she do that?” Let me tell you that I combed the internet for a way to make free leads (remember nearly bankrupt), low cost leads, anything I could get my poor tired monitor-sore eyes to read. One more e-book I would exhaustingly tell myself. Then EUREKA I found it. A free website that already had the map in place. It exposed the secrets that franchises had known for years. How successful marketing works, and a simple plan that a newbie like me could understand. And all this time I was blaming myself that I hadn’t purchased enough leads, or put out enough newspaper classifieds or whatever I thought would assist me with success. It wasn’t just ME that was the problem – I was doing the work – I was just going backwards about making my business successful.