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appointment Tagged Articles

Emotional Marketing, Part Two
In another article I talked about Emotional Marketing. I concluded it by saying that once the prospect has indicated an interest in what you do, that it wasn't the moment to pitch your service or outline all your product offerings. In fact, it's not even time to try for an appointment. In this article, I'll talk about the next step.

Marketing time
Smart marketers already know that marketing is more than advertising. Here's one tactic that might be overlooked: time.

How To Create An Advisory Board
“How do I go about creating an advisory board for my business?”

Getting Corporate Sponsorship

"I run an event management and promotions company and put on seminars and events for small business owners. I'm trying to attract major corporations to sponsor my events. I have a strong value proposition and a targeted community of small business owners who attend. I don't have any connections into these large corporations. How do you suggest I break the ice to introduce my company to them without a warm lead in?"

When Free Is Just Too Expensive
Offering free stuff as a marketing tactic is an accepted practice in most industries.

Scheduling
It’s been said, “You can always get more stuff, but you can never get more time!” There will always be more to do than you can accomplish in a day and more people needing more of you than you are willing to give! It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out! But don’t - instead think about the power of planning.

Sales Call Objective

It is important for you to know what you want to happen as a result of meeting with your prospect because everything you say will lead toward that goal and you control the conversation and steer it in the right direction. You need to decide what your sales call objective is before you call the prospect. Prospects are busy, and you will be more successful if you know your objective. Do everything you can to make it easier for the prospect to say yes.

The Power of Integrity
The definition of integrity has two parts, both equally important.

Prospect List
Make a list of prospects who have not yet been converted to customers. Then, select the ten who will most likely be most profitable for your business.

Get To Or Got To?
Every morning for several years, promptly at 10:00 a.m., a prominent business woman visited her mother in a nursing home. She was close to her mother and loved her very much.

Improve How Your Sales Force Sells by Phone
If your salespeople are unable to interest their prospects there is zero chance of reaching the goal for the call which, depending on the salesperson's role, could be anything from a qualified lead to a scheduled appointment to a transactional sale.

Trade Show Selling
Trade shows provide a unique but different type of opportunity to sell your products and services. Here are some tips to help you maximize your time and effectivness.

Overcome Call Reluctance - Get Your Salespeople to Prospect
By decreasing both the amount of resistance and time spent overcoming the resistance, you might be able to make it less overwhelming and therefore easier for your call reluctant salespeople to experience prospecting success.

Why You Should be Scared When Your Salespeople are Closing Lots of Business
Sales managers get caught up in the excitement of a closing frenzy when they should be taking a step back and asking themselves, what's wrong with this picture?

Don’t Let Fear Get in the Way of Marketing Your Home Staging Business
Internationally recognized home stager, Staging Diva, reminds home stagers that they must never stop marketing no matter how afraid they are of becoming too busy. She offers suggestions of how to structure your business so you can easily take on more home staging clients.

BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEES: WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY DO?
When you file for bankruptcy, a trustee is appointed to your case to help liquidate your assets and to make sure that creditors are taken care of as much as possible. This trustee has a lot of power and rights in your bankruptcy case. Where does the trustee come from, and what rights are granted to him in your case?

How to sell new business meetings - the greatest secret revealed
Do you want to know the greatest secret of selling new business meetings for sales prospecting. Its really easy to do and can double or triple your effectiveness overnight. Find out what it is here....

Using Technology For Network Marketing
The technology is an excellent medium to facilitate all your strategies to achieve goals for network marketing. The Internet itself provides numerous tools to enhance your marketing strategy.

Cold calling on a small business
Cold calling - in person that is - on a small business can quite often provoke a hostile response. You are invading their domain. How can we break down the barriers that sometimes are put up?

6 Miracle Closing Techniques for Struggling Contractors
In-home service contractors are finding it very challenging to sell to homeowners these days. If you’re a builder, home renovator, plumber, heating and cooling contractor, pest control company, landscaper or you sell to home owners, you’re probably struggling with your sales. It’s time to change your approach with your customers or you'll go out of business.

Depression and ADHD

Did you know that one out of four adults with ADHD suffer with depression? This is a higher rate than for the rest of the population. Depression can have a mysterious cloak around it, however, it helps to know that there are two types. “Primary Depression” is hereditary and you can feel depressed without there being a trigger or reason why you are depressed. “Secondary Depression” is the result of a trigger, perhaps because you are struggling with ADHD, repeatedly feeling like a failure despite great efforts to live up to society’s standards of what is “normal.”

Sales Coaching – The Free Consultation is Dead as a Sales Prospecting Introduction
If you’re a professional service provider one of the things you’ve been told you should do to get clients is offer a free consultation, review, or session of some sort. Once upon a time when this was a new idea it was very effective. It no longer works...

Increase Small Business Sales – Stop Asking for Referrals
Why would I tell you to stop asking for referrals when every sales “trainer”, sales manager, or sales mentor you’ve ever met tells you to ask for referrals? Oddly enough many commonly held beliefs are based on myths rather than facts...

Time Management Does Not Work, Manage Yourself Instead.

When you feel like there is not enough time in the day to get everything done it is time to take a reality check. Let us face it, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It is how we choose to use that time that is causing pause. Pause to think about how to manage ourselves better. When we do not manage ourselves properly we feel stressed out and out of control, dashing madly from one activity to the other. It is at this time in our lives when we make unnecessary mistakes that can be costly.

To Make Sales Appointments In 2009 and Beyond - Is Cold Calling Dead?
Will social media and marketing ever replace the skills of cold calling and professional telesales. Absolutely not. Read this fantastic article to find out why...

A Legitimate Work From Home Business Teaches Be, Do, Have
Be, Do, Have. A simple phrase, yet so valuable when looking to operate a legitimate work from home business. Learn more about this interesting phrase as expert author Jeffrey David Nelson dives into the philosophical world of "Be, Do, Have."

(11) Questions To Answer Before Starting A New Business!

What is your intention for your business? One could say to be successful and make money of course. How do you intend to do this? How does it happen? How much time will it take? Who will you become in the process of building your business? This is the important question and the answer. Let’s assume you have never owned a business yet, you really have this burning desire to work for yourself. You have done your research and decided on a business to build, yes build.

Attitude, Belief, and Confidence...the ABC's of Sales

I once believed that in sales, if I could just learn that one killer closing statement, that one closing technique that worked every time, all my troubles would be over. Unfortunately, that statement and that technique do not exist. Don’t get me wrong; there are proper techniques that are extremely helpful in the sales process. Proper sales skills cannot be discounted. However, the three areas that will outshine rusty or nonexistent skills are the ABC’s of sales; and the lesson I quickly learned was that there is a balancing act.

Common Sales Mistakes Part 3
As markets tighten I thought we could reflect on some lessons learnt in the past by highly experienced, successful sales people. The following lessons are from some of the participants of my ‘Sell like a woman' research project and make for interesting reading in ‘what not to do' in sales. Here is the 3rd part of a 3 part series on common sales mistakes.

Three Business-Building Ideas To "Steal"

One of the great joys of our work is meeting a wide range of successful local business owners. Each has a wonderful story to tell about how they created and developed their firm, and each has special challenges. Each owner has a set of talents that make his or her business unique, and some valuable lessons for all of us on what has worked for them. On the principal that it’s easier to follow someone else’s best practices than spend time and effort making up our own, here are some lessons we can all apply from business people right in our own neighbourhood.

Crazy Talk or Clear Communication?
Most people have learned to hide their feelings. They've learned to be guarded because dropping the mask and being emotionally honest can lead to feeling vulnerable. In the heat of the moment, it can be hard to see how honesty and vulnerability might be good, how completely disarming they can be and how important they are to building trust and compassion.

Yoda needs to follow his own advice!
Decisions come from decision makers and salespeople have to get the conversations going with the top people. Oops, I didn't do that, what happened...

Body Language, How is Yours
Communication is key, with some 70-80% of communication being body language, how is yours? The real kicker is some 60% of body language is misunderstood or misread. Discover how and why body language occurs and what you can do with it.

Create Email Subject Lines That Draw Prospects In
Email is now the preferred prospecting tool, far surpassing the phone to the relief of many sellers who hate cold calling. Yet it hasn’t necessarily made prospecting any easier. Response rates are low and many sellers are discouraged by how difficult it is to engage contacts.

Getting past the Gate Keeper

This time of the year many people are trying to get back into the swing of things after their Christmas break. It's about this time that many sales people begin their prospecting efforts in earnest and many people are back from leave. It is as good a time as any to prospect. So as it's the New Year, I thought we could take a fresh look at some old issues. One of the most common complaints I hear from sales people time and time again is ‘How do I get around the gate keeper?'

TEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TELEMARKETING
TEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TELEMARKETING

Slow Down to Speed Up
When it seems the pace of life speeds up, we generally do what we can to accommodate it (mostly out of habit). And that is probably the worst thing that we can do for ourselves. We're unconscious to what our needs actually are in that moment, and we're expending extra energy to meet a need that is being imposed from an external source.

Foot Canvassing
An article discussing the benefits of Foot Canvassing

Cold Calling - Tips to make it easier
An article giving ways to motivate yourself to make cold calls.

The Invisible Close Sales Nugget: Where to Start When Designing Irresistible Offers
When service professionals start working on crafting Irresistible Offers in hopes of closing more business, it’s very common for them to start thinking about giving discounts or giving away free products and services to entice prospects to buy. In other words, they start with the question, “What would make this offer Irresistible to my prospects?”

Elevator Questions and Defining Statements
If you were able to get an appointment with the president of an organization that was a potential customer who could give you more business in one sale than all of your other customers combined and when you sat down in front of their desk they said to you, "OK salesperson, you have 3 minutes, why should I do business with you and your organization?" What would you do or say?

Recession Resistant Franchises
If you want to open your own franchise, you need to choose a franchise that will continue to thrive in a down economy. That is why choosing a recession-resistant business is so important. In this article, I offer my thoughts on types of franchises that will have to continue to thrive because everyone will have to continue to use them no matter what happens in the economy.

Successful Appointment Setting in Today's Economy

Many marketers have gradually come to realize that the key to getting your prospective clients to listen to you and hear you out isn't just getting an appointment. If you are in a business that requires you to set appointments first you may hear questions/comments like this: 'Give me the Readers Digest version right now or I'm not making an appointment.' OR 'I need to hear a little more detail BEFORE I meet with you' OR 'If this is going to cost me anything, I'm not interested' OR Gone are the days when the prospective customer just waited for your call or visit so YOU could inform him or her how things worked. How can you get your foot in the door to gain trust and image credibility?

Are You Telling Another Story?
An interesting look at how a good story can greatly enhance your marketing message.

15 Presentation Tips to Convert your Sale
How to Present your Ideas to Buyers How you present yourself and your ideas to a potential buyer will depend on the venue, occasion and number of people you're presenting to. There are also some differences between presenting to one and presenting to a panel/group.

Prospecting Improves Morale & Is The Key to Increasing Sales - Find Out the Success Formula

[Business:Sales] Prospecting needs to be part of the entire sales process not just when a sales persons calendar is filled to the brim with appointments. The reason is when the pipeline of appointments dry up the sales person will feel low and morale will suffer for them and those around them. When morale is low theirs one place to look for the culprit and that is the prospecting pipeline. This will be one of the major clues that will determine why morale is low or high. Find out what the SUCCESS FORMULA IS TO INCREASED SALES & INCREASED MORALE...

Interviewing Techniques - Finding your New Recruit
The most crucial part of the recruitment process is the interview stage. You’ve advertised and made the most of the tools at your disposal and assuming you have a great list of potential employees how do you proceed? We offer some practical tips for recruiters on interviewing.

2 Sure-Fire Tips for Self Motivation
If you want to be successful, then you need lots of Brain Energy and lots of Body Energy. This article shows how to achieve that.

Did we forget how to sell?
Did we forget how to sell?

3 Keys to Income Acceleration
How to Boost Your Bottom Line This Week

How To Get The Readers Of Your Sales Letters To Take Action.
Here is how to get the readers of your sales letters and marketing emails to take action.

Sales Training - Is There Any Need For Cold Calling Anymore?
There is much hype around at the moment that Cold Calling 'sucks' and that it has died a death. Never! In a business to business environment there will always be a place for cold calling.

Sales Training - How is Your Cold Calling Attitude?
Do you make cold calls for business? Do you set up appointments? The single biggest thing holding you back may be yourself. Read this fantastic article to find out why.

What Causes Your Salespeople to Fail in this Economy?

Bob was getting anxious over what to write to a suspect that blew him off. The prospect canceled an appointment and was vague about whether or not he would reschedule. This stopped Bob in his tracks and he literally spent an entire day getting feedback on what his email should say. Not only is Bob wasting time, it is time that could be spent finding and identifying additional opportunities, moving existing opportunities along and connecting with customers or clients and collecting referrals. So what causes Bob to do this and could we have predicted this behavior?

Learn How Walmart Made Joey a Millionaire!
Discover how selling your product to Walmart can make you a lot of money as it did for Joey..

Franchise Resales Part II - Due Diligence Tips
This is the second of a two part series dedicated to helping people better understand the give and takes of investing in a franchise resale.

10 Cold Calling Tips From A Sales Coach
1. Most people do not enjoy cold calling, but they need to realize it has to be done. It really is a mind-set. You have to set time daily to call, and make it part of your daily behavior/activities.

How to grow your Ideal Clients by 25% with zero cost of sales
We are big fans of “growing loyalty” among Ideal Clients over pretty much any other business building tactic—it’s the lowest cost sales activity you will ever engage in, since you are already doing business with them, you already know what they want and need, and you can easily find out if they are being wooed by someone else. How easy is that?

Waking Up To Opportunity
When you are at the right time and at the right place, you'll succeed even if you're falling asleep.

Trustworthiness
It pays to be on time. Don't keep your customers waiting - learn why here.

In front of the customer - selling face-to-face
When we eventually get an appointment with a decision maker we will need to make sure that we maximise our chance of getting the business.

Get going to get results
10 tips to make us more effective in selling. Increase your chances of getting business and closing sales.

Finding new customers when times are tough
Finding it hard to get new customers at present? Here are a few ideas that will help you succeed.

Follow Through or Foul Up

As entrepreneurs, we are usually great at coming up with ideas to promote our business. We know that it's not rocket science, and yet we struggle time and time again getting our ideas off the ground. This isn't really surprising because on top of wearing our marketing hat, we are also wearing our operational, financial, IT and HR hats. Yet when we look at all the different roles we have to play in our businesses, it is truly our sales and marketing hat that can fast track our business to the next level. So how can we ensure that we allocate it the time it deserves? More importantly how do we know that we are fully following through?

No-Cost DIY Website Makeover

Despite all the success in the world from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Online Advertising (PPC), if people are not contacting you or buying from your website– it's a failure! What's the first page that people see when they visit your website – It had better impress them, or they're gone – so it might be worth the effort to learn how you can get people to contact you and buy from you and increase your online leads, before you spend a single cent. When you read this article you will; * Hear what makes visitors contact you or buy from your web pages. * See what you can do, at no cost, to increase your web sales. * Imagine how you will feel when your online sales start to be profitable.

Why Cold Calling does NOT work, using traditional methods

So what is the secret to highly successful cold calling? Why is it that some people always seem to get the appointment? Do they use some new fangled tricks that you can only learn at hugely expensive telesales training courses? If you want to find a simple way of boosting your sales, using the phone, without the rejection, then read the rest of this article. So what do you do next - you ask them what I call a "problem statement" question.

ORGANIZE is Not a Four Letter Word
Go from overwhelmed to organized in a few simple steps.

Is Your Peak Season Right Around the Corner?
Is the upcoming season usually busy for you? If so, what are you doing now to maximize your results? Far too often we leave our promotional efforts until it’s too late. The next thing we know, we find ourselves scrambling at the last minute, rushing our promotions and not maximizing on the time and money we spent.

Diamonds Are a Rep’s Best Friend
“How Current Customers Can Make You Rich!”

Top 7 Ways to Increase Sales Regardless of the Economy
Has the economy put your sales into a tailspin? Here are 7 ways to reverse those dismal sales and put more dollars into your bank account.

Finding a Way to Succeed

Strategies and Tactics are important - very important, especially in this economy. But even today, they take a back seat to your ability to find a way to get the job done. Whether that job is making appointments, uncovering compelling reasons to buy, getting opportunities qualified, making compelling presentations, dealing with objections or closing, you must find a way to master that part of the sales process.

Are Your Operations a Well-Oiled Machine?

“Customers now penalize businesses that infringe on their time, whether through delays, mistakes, or inconveniences.” Have you ever had that “customer from hell” who was unreasonable in her demands? Did a minor “screw up” in serving the customer cost you big bucks? Have you ever considered what it costs you to make a mistake? A mistake is a waste. "Waste is worse than loss." Thomas Edison

How To Create A Reputation for Honesty as a Leader-Part 2
It is possible to have a well deserved reputation for honesty-the most important reputation a leader can have, simply by modeling a few behaviors.

Home Party Plan Selling Tips How To Increase Home Party Sales Ratios For More Direct Sales Profits
Need more cash? In my last article, An Open Letter To : Direct Sales Consultant, Direct Selling Business Owners On How To Triple Home Party Sales we laid the foundation for improving direct selling ratios . Today we are going to focus our minds of increasing and improving home party sales ratios. This will lead to more home party sales and direct sales profit!

Entrepreneurs as Coaches

I was at a client's company last week and heard a brief hallway conversation as I was waiting for my lunch appointment. The gist of what was said sounded like two people in a war torn country. "I bought lots of canned goods that were on sale just in case I lose my job" said person one. The response was "Yeah, I know what you mean; I just went to the thrift store to get my kids spring clothes because I am afraid to spend too much money." This went back and forth until they were out of earshot.

Formula for Sales Templating

Sales templating is a technique that can help you develop a consistent sales process regardless of the background of your individual salespeople. What is sales templating? It is the technique by which you document the steps of the ideal typical sale. Sales templating allows you to capture the best practices and nuances of each of your salespeople to create a model sales process that all of them can follow. In addition to making your job as manager easier, sales templating will improve the performance of your sales force. By creating an overt, step-wise sales template or process, you give the salesperson the means to maintain control of the sales situation.

Increase Your Focus
Unable to concentrate on the task at hand? Don't waste work time with daydreams or frazzled thoughts. Here's how to increase your focus and get back to business.

Your New Web Site Business – What Different Business Models You Can You Use?
You want to set up an internet business but are not sure what kind of business model you want. Here are a few examples of the kind of businesses you usually find on the internet.

Home Business Expert: How To Prospect
Every business must have customers and this is where knowledge as to how to prospect comes in handy because many of them will eventually become customers.

Make the Switch From Selling to Educating to Increase Sales Conversion Rate
Are you selling your products or services? How is that working for you? Would you like to increase sales conversion rate? Then you may need to switch your sales skills from selling to educating.

Create Opportunities in our Tough Economy

Every day we’re hearing about how tough it is out there. Prospects won’t take calls. Budgets are on hold. And yet, I remain optimistic, seeing opportunity all around us. While many clients are halting spending, others are getting creative and looking at their businesses from new perspectives. They are seeking ways to leverage these difficult times and evolve their own companies. They refuse to let the difficult economy stall their growth.

Give Your Business a Short And Quick Marketing Blitz
Want to give your business a some new ideas and make concentrated effort to obtain new customers? Why not take on a student or more experienced person for a few months and have a marketing blitz?

When is it okay to lie?
Tell your clients the truth so that they'll have a reason to trust you.

Here's What I Got...
The best professional sales are made not from talking about Advantages, but from talking about Benefits.

Avoiding drift...
Often in planning for our businesses, we set up performance metrics that are tied to ANNUAL goals.

How to Gain Access to that Executive You Simply Must See
To get in the door in new accounts at the executive level, you must first establish your value with the executive. There in lies the challenge.

Manage Your Salespeople by Working Smart, Negotiate Quotas

How do you get your salespeople to "buy-in" to keeping good records of what they do every day? Sit down one-on-one, and negotiate their annual quotas with them. Help them translate their annual quota into their individual daily behavior. For example, a $5 million annual quota might equal three New Dials, one New Appointment, two Futures, one Referral Received and two Customer Visits every day. Don't forget to have them either write in or phone in their daily behavior numbers to post on the community "behavior board" for all to see. Look for more unconventional management tips in a future Today's Sales Meeting Minute.

Sales Training – Salespeople Add Four Stars To Your Own Movie Premier
Virtually all selling has that initial contact between the salesperson and the prospect. Whether you sell business to business or business to consumer, whether the prospect initiates the contact or the salesperson does, this is the time to premier your own movie.

Most Frequently Requested Help
What do you think is the most frequently requested plea for help? Overcoming Objections? Handling Stalls and Put-Offs? Closing? Getting Appointments? It's getting calls returned.

Salespeople and the Momentum Factor
Momentum seems to be a force when it comes to sales performance. When Bob gets on a roll, new opportunities fill the pipeline, move along fairly quickly and close at the first opportunity...until the momentum changes. When Bob goes on vacation, gets distracted, becomes busy with deliverables or gets sick, it's a whole different Bob.

Keeping Promises Builds Your Reputation
How many times have businesses promised to get back to you about your inquiry, quote, order (or anything else) and actually done it?

9 Signals Foreshadowing Rejection
If you’re at all normal you don’t like getting rejected. Sometimes it’s over quickly and other times you think things are going well until…wham you get clobbered. With the way things are now you’re getting rejected more often and more quickly than ever before.

What You Need to Know to Sell More
I’ve known salespeople who have struggled for months either memorizing a presentation they were given or writing one. What a waste of precious time. All the while you’re worrying about getting or having the perfect presentation you’re missing out on what you want most, SALES.

Increase Sales and Marketing Response with an Irresistible Call to Action
The real goal of marketing and advertising is to get people to take action. Whether that’s calling for an appointment, going to your Website, walking in your store, or busting out a credit card and buying something right now.

Keep Your Pipeline Full!
It’s not uncommon to lose focus on your pipeline – or funnel – and consistently filling it with new opportunities. Reps often spend too much time on a few opportunities that are on the verge of closing at the bottom of the funnel, and don’t seek out new leads to fill the funnel.

Hidden Secrets to Crack the Voicemail Gatekeeper
Voicemail is perhaps the hardest gatekeeper to get past in the SMB market space. Executives play many roles and have little time for sellers. They use voicemail as their screening tool and you need not only a great message, but perseverance and creativity to crack through.

Getting Past the Executive Gatekeeper
Some sellers fail miserably when trying to gain access to a company executive. Unfortunately, rather than taking the time to develop a strategy, they smile and dial, hoping their canned pitch will be enough to get an appointment. This strategy doesn’t get many sellers past today’s sophisticated executive gatekeepers, and many aren’t willing to give a seller a second chance.

Top 10 Keys to Getting Through and Getting Heard
It is a lot more difficult to address getting through in a short article than it is in a book or through training and coaching but I'll give it a shot. Following are the 10 Keys to Getting Through and Getting Heard:

Where Should Salespeople Spend TheirTime?
A reader asked how much time should be spent on each base path in Baseline Selling. That certainly differs by industry, salesperson and prospect but I can provide you with a few guidelines.

The TACTIC You dont have to like cold calls you only have to make them

The STORY: Bob absolutely detests cold calling, and when he is in a sales slump, like he is this month, he’ll do just about anything to avoid the phone. The past customer files in his desk will suddenly all get new folders. He’ll update his Rolodex with all the new phone and fax numbers that he can remember. Picking the lint off his suit becomes a serious endeavor. Figuring out his commissions, should he make some sales beyond the normal price points, requires intense calculator work. Lunch time starts at around 10:40 a.m.

Get Them to Act on Your Sales Offer
How do you get a complete stranger to buy from you? That’s one of the biggest challenges you face. Your ability to overcome that challenge greatly impacts your sales success.

5 Checks to Increase Your Sales Success
No matter how ready you are to sell something you can’t sell anyone anything they don’t want. You can say all the right things yet walk away without a sale and not know why. However, if you’ll add these 5 checks to your sales conversation list you’ll sell more.

Want to increase sales? Think Halloween
Soon little goblins and witches will be knocking on doors; holding out their hands or bags; and asking "Trick or Treat?" So what makes them any different than you as a professional sales person?

Could Your Pre-approach Letters be Missing the Mark?
Most pre-approach letters are a terrible waste of ink, paper, and postage. They don’t add any value to the receiver. They produce poor results for the sender.

How to Make Getting Sales Success Easier
Man, sometimes it feels like everything depends on you. If you let up for one second you’re falling behind. Can you keep up the pace?

What do Fishing & Selling have in Common?
The simple answer is they both require the right tools and skill. Let me explain.

By Knowing Exactly Whom You Are Selling Will Increase Sales
Are you focusing your sales efforts and behaviors on the wrong people?

Time Management Tip - Make an Appointment with Yourself
Are you losing minutes and hours? Learn a simple technique to enhance your time management.

Effective Telemarketing

For many sales people, the telephone is an important resource that they use to develop their business. Yet, according to a study by Behavioural Sciences Research Press: ● 40% of established sales people experienced periods of ‘call reluctance’ severe enough to threaten their livelihood in sales. ● the average ‘call reluctant’ sales person loses more than 15 new accounts each month to their competitors.

Maximising the Impact of Testimonials
“If you become a testimonial-based seller, (which I believe to be the most powerful form of sales in the world). Then you can get testimonials for every element, or every step, of your sales cycle.” Jeffrey Gitomer, author of Little Red Book of Sales Answers

Increase Sales by Getting Strangers Coming to You
When you were little weren’t you told, “Don’t talk to strangers?” Of course you were. The adults around you told you this to protect you from harm.

Sales Stops & Starts
Do you have a costly sales habit? The habit of heavily prospecting until you fill your sales funnel, and then stopping your prospecting efforts. You do it because you get busy meeting with prospects and taking care of clients.

Buying the Benefits
The word benefit comes from two French words; bein or bon meaning well or good, and fit from faire or fait meaning to do or to make, so a benefit is what your product or service does that will fit well or do a good job for your prospect, in other words how well will your product/service fit your prospects needs.

Specialists Win More Referrals
If you claim to do everything, your clients won't rely on you for anything.

Sales Appointments to Sell Free Services
Barbara left a voice mail for me today. 10 points for Barbara. She got me to call back. 10 more points for Barbara. When she finally had me on the phone she asked, and who are you with? -20 points for Barbara. It was over for me right there...Read MOre

IDENTIFY AND ARRANGE AN APPOINTMENT WITH A CENTRE OF INFLUENCE
How to generate a regular flow of new customers through networking with different influential people. How to grab the attention of potential business clients.

Your To Do Lists - do they help or hinder?

We all have them and many of us would love it if we could find a way to manage them better. To actually Get Things Done! Your To Do Lists - do they help or hinder? There are a number of ways to document and track to do lists. Different strategies will work for different people. The trick is to find a system that works for the way that you think. Today I will talk about 4 different ways to manage your to-do lists.

Scheduling and Planning - Keeping on Track - Part 2
Keeping your day on track can often times be a challenge in today's schedule hectic environment. We have provided 8 tips for you to use to make your day go smoother.

Scheduling and Planning - Keeping on Track - Part 1
Keeping your day on track can often times be a challenge in today's schedule hectic environment. We have provided 7 tips for you to use to make your day go smoother.

Preparing Yourself for the Big Sale
If you want to earn the big bucks in sales and achieve all your goals and dreams, you have to be prepared. I believe that preparation is the foundation for any level of achievement.This article provides seven sure fire ways to insure that you are one hundred percent ready to capitalize on any sales opportunity.

Productivity: Rhythm vs. Perpetual Motion

Many people feel that in order to be truly efficient in their work day, they have to be constantly busy, constantly moving from one thing to another. These people make a constant effort to not waste a single moment in their day. The reality? Productivity is more about rhythm than perpetual motion. Just as top athletes and performers need to find a personal rhythm, so you, as a professional in your field, need to find the proper rhythm for how you use your day.

How To Hire A Virtual Assistant

If you are a business owner and you are looking for the most cost effective way to get the work done that you need help with and don't want to take on a full time employee, then a Virtual Assistant could be just what you need. Finding the right virtual assistant doesn't have to be a difficult task. To help you out we are going to provide you with a list of things you need to look for in a virtual assistant.

How 2 Beliefs Increase Sales
While the way you think and what you believe is important when it comes to your sales success the beliefs of your prospects matter too. There are two beliefs your prospect must have, or you’ll never increase your sales success.

Managing Sales Motivation - Find the Motivational Drains
Most sales people need motivation. Motivation comes in many different forms. One way to motivate your team is to identify areas that are draining their motivation. This article will help you find the drain and plug it to regain motivation.

They’re All Tuned to WIIFM
Be Impressed, Not Impressive. Spend most of your time with someone making him or her feel that you're tuned into his or her station and you're bound to have better results.

Should we cold call?
Cold Calling! Most people don't like doing it. But millions of pounds of business are changing hands today with people that do. Would you like to be amonst them?

Opening Statements Are the Keys to Successful Calls
The opening statement is the most essential part of your call. The point you need to communicate in the first few seconds The purpose for your opening is twofold Stupid Questions Get Stupid Answers

How Awkward is it for You to Ask Questions?
Maybe you aren't asking the right questions in the right order for the right reasons? Asking the right questions is definitely a skill and the best sales people are very adept at it.

Fail to Plan to Increase Sales & Plan to Fail
You've heard it before, but you don't understand the impact and implications. You can't get the results you want if you either don't know how, or won't take the time to plan to get them.

Does it Make Sense to Keep Doing What isn't Working & Expect Increased Sales?
Persistence is good, but not if you're persistently doing the wrong things. That's just being pig headed and stupid.

Reason Number 13 You Can’t Sell Insurance
You don’t set appointments for the right reason. The only reason to set an appointment with a prospect is to explore how you can do business together.

Where's the Problem with Increasing Sales?
As a small business owner or sales producer, you understand what it takes to succeed in sales. Yet, when your sales aren’t where you want and need them to be it usually comes down to a fundamental.

When Sales are Down these are the 3 things You Don't Want to Do
At some point in your business your sales will be down. When this happens you have a natural desire to do the very three things that will keep your sales down.

What Mistake Ends Your Hopes for Increasing Sales?
Your sales are down, your self-confidence is gone, and you feel like you’re beating your head against a brick wall. Maybe you should just quit.

Seven Tips to Amp Up the Power of Your Marketing Copy
In order to write copy that does all that you have to know a good bit about the art and science of copywriting. Otherwise, it’s really hard to develop the kind of marketing materials that grab people by the eyeballs, keep them reading, and inspire them to take action or buy from you.

Are Your Marketing Materials Selling the Wrong Things
What do prospects really need to know to hire you? Well, let’s start by thinking about what you would want to know…

The 9 Chill out steps to C Level Selling
How many times have you thought about engaging with the CEO, then when it comes to making the call you bottle out and call another point of contact lower down the chain, sounds familiar. I know the feeling.

10 top tips to reduce your Carbon footprint when selling
Most salespeople never give it a second thought when it comes to thinking about reducing their own carbon footprint during their sales role, so here are my top tips on how to help save the planet and still make the sale

Price Is an Issue Its Not THE Issue
You’ve hired a dedicated sales force. Your company has the best product. Great service is delivered after the sale. So why is your team losing sales to “low price?” Colleen Stanley of SalesLeadership explains four reasons great companies run into this problem.

Give Great Sample Sessions that Grow your Business
One of the best ways to build your practice is to offer sample sessions. Most people have never worked with a coach, and a sample session can be a powerful process that introduces them to you and your coaching practice. Here are some tips that will create a meaningful and profitable session for you both.

When to Send Literature
Sooner or later, a prospect is going to tell you, "Send literature." It’s a natural response to a salesperson. It’s an easy way to reject the salesperson without getting personal. Before you agree to send literature, ask yourself, "Why is the prospect requesting literature? Is this a sign of no interest?"

10 Steps to Mapping Out Your Plan
Once you have a vision and values-based S.M.A.R.T goals, it’s time to put a plan together for achieving them. Here are 10 easy steps for completing your plan:

Part Nine - Prospecting for More Sales
Part Nine of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Part Seven - Prospecting for More Sales
Part Seven of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Part Six - Prospecting for More Sales
Part Six of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Lessons from the Gym that Can Help Your Business
It's been a difficult journey toward becoming fit, but it reminded me of a few lessons that apply equally to building a business. The following are a few of the lessons I have learned from the gym.

Get Your Team and Customers Raving About You!
I’ve long believed that our impact as people and leaders is a function of the relationships we have around us. This article is about building those connections with our team, our customers or even our families doesn’t have to be a big deal or take massive effort. It can be found in the simple things.

Are You a Human Being or a Human Doing?
What's this personal time for? Anything other than work. Remember that gym membership? This is when you can actually use it. Or get a massage, visit a museum, browse the bookstore, or have lunch with a friend. This is [a part of] the time that will make you a well-rounded, interesting human being rather than a worker-bee "human doing."

How to Create Simple Systems To Save You Time and Make You More Money

Time flies by very quickly. The oldest member of our family, (my husband) turned 53 last week and the youngest member, 'Casper' is nearly a year old! This reminded me of the experience we had at the local vet when we first brought Casper home. If the owner of that practice only realised that by making simple changes she could have increased her profits by at least 10% - 20% without working any harder. This week's article will show how you can too!

What is their problem?
Sales professionals depend on knowing how to ask the right questions to discover the real needs of our clients. Often our clients tell us what they would like us to do, such as, "I need a solution on change management," but without telling us the ultimate result they want to achieve.

The Customer is Always Right, (Especially when you think they aren't!)
It takes a long time for a self employed business owner to build up a reputation for great customer service. I am a caring person, and putting customer service first is something I hold very dear as an important aspect of how I do business.

Why Overcoming Objections Can Lose The Sale
How ironic it is that the more we try and overcome resistance, the more we actually create it.

How to Replace Your Sales Script with a Conversation
Dear Ari, My name is Ben Cross and I’m in the network marketing business. As you know, in network marketing we sell two things: the product of the company we represent and the business opportunity for others to get involved in the business.

Hidden Sales Presssure: 7 Ways To Make It Go Away
Everyday, people from all over the world send me their selling challenges. This one just came in from Julie in Atlanta, Georgia:

Why Trying To Get The Appoinment, Can Be a Recipe for Dis-Appointment
Last week, this e-mail from Jack arrived in my inbox:

Throw Out Your Selling Language - Unlock Your Natural Voice
I was sitting at my desk last week when my phone rang. I picked it up and said, "This is Ari with Unlock The Game." The woman on the other end of the phone said, "Hi, my name is Julie Jackson, I'm with XYZ company and we are a...and we offer...". As she continued to speak, I stopped her in mid-sentence and said, "Hi, Julie."

How to Recognize and Diffuse Hidden Pressures in Cold Calling
Wouldn’t you like to make cold calling pleasant for both you and the other person? The best way to achieve this is to completely eliminate sales pressure.

7 Cold Calling Secrets Even the Sales Gurus Don't Know
More and more e-mails are arriving in my in-box from people who hate cold calling. Here's what they're saying:

Relationship Basics
People who are winning at working understand relationship basics. Common courtesy, mutual assistance, timely communication are tools they use to build, foster, and enhance their relationships. They understand their relationship approach is a reflection of their foundational principles. And those principles start with giving.

NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY? HOW TO 'CREATE' TIME
In today’s hectic world, most of us feel we need ‘more time’ – certainly I have been struggling with getting enough this month – so lets take a closer look how we can create and manage our time.

A Nine-Step Approach For Coaches, Consultants, and Business Advisors to Get All the Clients that You Can Handle
Provides a framework for business advisors to generate business.

17 Questions to Ask Existing Franchisees
Visiting a franchisee is most likely a two step process. The first step is to visit the franchisee unannounced during their peak hours. Be a “secret shopper”.

Crafting Powerful Goals
Action Steps are critical to your success. Think of Action Steps as the building blocks or the rungs on a ladder leading toward your goals. These action steps are the small daily things you do each and everyday. Eventually they become habits for success.

What Resentment Teaches You

Dear Jane, I’m so resentful I feel like I’m going to burst (or at least raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels). I don’t know what to do to let it go. Is there a process? As much as I resent feeling resentment, I am learning to accept it as one of my greatest teachers. Every time I feel it (often dozens of times daily), I have a chance to examine it for what it really is: a disguised regret. Here’s one brief example:

First Contact: What to Do, Why, and How to Get Better Results

Depending on the selling approach you're using, you are closing between .6% - 7% , regardless of size of solution or industry. These numbers are far lower than they need to be: so long as your primary focus is on making a sale and you focus on needs assessment and solution choice (factors which are the buyer's final considerations), and ignore the change management issues buyers must handle before they choose a solution, you are delaying a close by a factor of 8.

Find the right coach

You’ve heard about coaching or met people who have found coaching beneficial. You’re not quite satisfied with your life in some way but either you can’t see how to improve it or you know what needs to be done but can’t quite get started. You know that if you feel great about your life you’ll have more to put into your business and you’ll get more from it. You understand that coaching could help you sooner rather than later but how do you find the right coach?

Thought Power
This article is exploring the power of our thoughts or to put it another way, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!

Telemarketing and you: Disastrous failure or dramatic success?
If your business is relatively high value, low volume, or your customers have the potential to grow in value to you over time, you should consider including professional outbound telephoning in your sales and marketing activities. But how do you go about it, who will do it and what will it cost?

Being Late Can Lose You Business
What can you do differently to ensure you're on time for all your appointments? Being late sends out many messages... you're disorganised, sloppy and unprofessional. When you can count on someone who is consistently on time the opposite message is conveyed. Just by being punctual makes you stand out from the crowd.

Cold Calls Anyone?
Does cold calling work anymore? If so, when and how should you do it? If it doesn't what should you do instead?

What Makes Your Customers Wince
Let's face it there are lots of people impersonating professional salespeople and when that happens this is what happens - it makes your prospects and customers wince. This article reveals what makes people wince during a sales call.

Handling "I'm Not Interested."
Get to the truth and uncover the true objection when dealing with a prospect who's putting you off.

How To Make An Appointment
There is a specific art to making an appointment. Many salespeople do this badly because they have never been trained how to do it and they end up talking themselves out of the arrangement. You can read how to do this effectively in the article below.

10 Things A Manager Needs To Do On The Very First Day
One of the biggest challenges for any new manager, is how to approach (and even survive) the very first day in their new appointment. Indeed what you do on day one, may well frame the relationship with your employees for years to come...

Chill Out Guide to opening the call to get an appointment
Always having problems making an appointment over the phone, 9 times out of 10 it's a wasted call. I will not try and kid you that there is a magic formula, because if there was, no one would ever tell you. If all else fails try this one.

Appointment Letters – Small Business Tips to Get Your Foot in the Door
Many small businesses struggle with writing letters to potential clients trying to get an appointment with them. But it doesn't have to be as difficult as it may seem. As a professional copy writer, here are my top 10 tips for effective appointment letters.

Tips for Effective Appointment Setting – The Appointment Setting Close
Learning when and how to close the appointment setting can be challenging as handling your prospect’s objections.

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