Why is a Salesperson like a Refrigerator?

Let me ask, have you heard the joke about the light being on inside the fridge? Top sales professionals, like fridges, are always "on".

Let me ask, have you heard the joke about the light being on inside the fridge? You know, where you were asked to open the door of the fridge and voila, the light was on. Now I know you know the light only comes on when you open the door. But the refrigerator is always on! It has to be to do its job.

Top sales professionals, like fridges, are always "on". This is especially true for those who need to prospect to find new clients.

One individual I know worked many years as an electrician for a major U.S. automobile manufacturer. At the suggestion of a good friend, he decided to pursue a sales career in the financial services industry. This was a pretty major change in vocation; he went from dealing with watts and volts to handling people’s investment and insurance needs.

Was he a success? Well, in his first full year he shot up to becoming the top rep in North America for his company. To prove he was not a one hit wonder, he repeated this feat his second year, and yes, the third year too! To this day, he remains one of the top reps with his company.

So how did an electrician, now a salesman, become so successful? If you ask this modest man, he will say "It's simple really, you do the best you can for your client, and you always have to be on."

To meet this gentleman, you would know someone with an insatiable appetite for learning. He wanted to know everything he could about financial planning and the products he represented. He was a keen student of his sales manager and a constant observer of the successful reps around him. He was a sponge.

One day, I asked him what he meant when he said being "on". He told me "To be successful I have to meet a lot of new people. I have to be able to tell them quickly what it is I do and how I can help them."  He went on to say, "I look at everyone as an opportunity." "When I go to the super-market I look for the longest line and stand in it, I know I’ll have a chance to strike up a conversation with the person in front of me, and the person who comes behind me." Talk about captive audience.

I marvelled at one story he told me about when he went shopping for a bed cover and pillows. After he completed his purchase he thought, "I've done business with you, you should do business with me." He proceeded to book an appointment with the sales clerk who had sold him his pillows. He also asked if she would introduce him to her manager and the other sales clerks. He left the store that day with five appointments booked in his day timer.

Why? Because he was always "on".

Top sales people maintain a laser like focus combined with a strong desire to succeed.

Don't be as cold as a refrigerator, but do think about being "on" all the time.

Summary:
Top sales people maintain a laser like focus combined with a strong desire to succeed.

What Not To Do With Your Leads

Anyone that works in sales knows just how important it is to have lead sources to keep your pipeline filled. But it is not only how we obtain the leads that is important, it’s what we do with them once we get them.

One of the most critical mistakes a sales person can make once they receive a lead, is not acting on it immediately.

I once worked with a guy who belonged to a networking group, the soul purpose of his joining this group was to receive leads. This group wasn’t cheap either, it cost him $500.00 annually to be a member.

He would come back from his weekly meeting with a lead in his hand and pin it to the bulletin board above his desk, and there it would stay until he noticed it a few days later.

It drove me nuts!

In sales, and it does not matter what you are selling, every day is critical! At any moment, your competitor can call your customer and walk away with the business.

Another common mistake I have witnessed countless times, is contacting the lead in a timely fashion, but having absolutely no enthusiasm once you contact the customer.

When you call a potential customer, smile as you speak to them, the customer will pick up on the inflection in your voice and respond to it.

Don’t act as though the customer is a burden to you, and that you are doing them a favor.

Remember, you are the expert when it comes to your product, don’t expect your customer to know everything, if they did, they wouldn’t need you. So make sure they know that you are happy to help them.

Another no-no when following up on a lead is to yawn, sneeze, or cough into the receiver of the phone. I understand that these are normal and common bodily functions, but there is no excuse for doing it directly into the receiver, this is a great way to loose the sale, the yawn alone will most likely make the customer hang up the phone.

Always put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Imagine meeting someone for the first time over the telephone and your conversation is being interrupted by yawns, and sneezes, I doubt you would be gung-ho about doing business with them

Following up with a lead and then putting that person on hold is another common mistake I have come across. Although your reasons for putting your customer on hold may seem very important to you, your customer will find it to be annoying regardless of your reasons. So be sure to set aside a time to call your lead when you know the interruptions will be few.

So the next time you receive a lead, act on it immediately, let your customer know that you are happy to work with them, speak clearly and avoid interruptions, and watch your sales productivity increase!

Summary:
Anyone that works in sales knows just how important it is to have lead sources to keep your pipeline filled. But it is not only how we obtain the leads that is important, it’s what we do with them once we get them.

Understanding Sales Recruitment Services

Undoubtedly, employees are the backbone of any business! Regardless of the size and the renown of your company, the efficiency, profitability and longevity of your business are direct proportional with the professionalism, seriousness and implication of your employees. In order to achieve and maintain a solid and prosperous business, you have to make sure that you are surrounded by loyal, trusty, dedicated and hard-working employees. This rule is even more prominent in marketing, as every single action of your employees can trigger a pronounced increase or decrease in your profits! Thus, during the process of recruiting new members for your business, you should account for a wide range of personal traits and abilities in your future employees.

Apart from a satisfactory professional training level, your employees should have good communicational and interaction skills, good negotiation abilities, good decisional skills and so on. These traits can only be revealed during job interviews and testing periods. Elaborate individual evaluations are very time-consuming and few business owners can afford the luxury to personally assist in the process of recruiting new employees. The solution is to either assemble a reliable recruitment team that can take care of the recruitment process in your place, or better yet, ask for the help of a professional recruitment service.

Lots of businesses are nowadays turning to Sales Recruitment Services in order to find well-trained professionals with minimal time and effort. There is a wide range of reliable Sales Recruitment Services on the World Wide Web that can take care of all the aspects of employee recruitment in exchange for a previously established fee. If you simply don’t have the time to personally supervise the process of employee recruitment, online Sales Recruitment Services are best solution to your problem!

Once you have requested the help of a certain Sales Recruitment Service, you will be asked about the nature of your business and the exact profile of the sales persons you need in order to complete your business team. According to your instructions, the service will then take care of every single aspect of the recruitment process, frequently providing you with feed-back regarding the progress of the recruitment program. You will quickly start to receive appliances from well-trained professionals in the branch, allowing you to choose the sales persons that best fit your business. You also have the freedom to access the database of contacts at any time, in order to find the best candidates for your offered job vacancies.

Sales Recruitment Services are effective means of finding the most suitable candidates for your business. With the help of a professional online Sales Recruitment Service, you can enter in contact with a wide range of suitable candidates with a minimal investment of time and effort. Whether you are looking for a salesman, advertiser, telemarketer or a sales executive, territory manager, business development manager or sales director, online Sales Recruitment Agencies can quickly fulfill your requests!

Summary:
Undoubtedly, employees are the backbone of any business! Regardless of the size and the renown of your company, the efficiency, profitability and longevity of your business are direct proportional with the professiona

The Secret Ingredient That Creates The Sales

Copyright 2006 Karl Stadler

The internet has become a huge mall with little ally ways and secret entrances all over the place. There are a huge amount of sales websites all vying for the same attention. Indeed a highly competitive market.

Marketing skills and writing have become more and more important to the marketing of your products and will become increasingly so as the internet increases in size.

Don't be under the illusion that now is to late, there are millionaires made every day and there will still be made twenty years from now.

Advertising your site and product is the small part of marketing, the secret ingredient is in the pitch, whether a landing page, opt in or sales page.

Funny enough it has been the same for as long as you possibly can remember, from the first radio commercials, print commercials up to the latest in HDTV, it has not changed, what has changed is the jargon, the language and the way people perceive the world around them on a daily basis.

The way you write your sales pitch, where you place which word, how long must it be, what do you say, how do you say it, what guarantees do you give, how good do you make it sound, what is the perceived value, what does the buyer get, why or why not ad bonus products, what about the price.

The buzzword niche has now been around for a while, and in most places you will be taught that to get good business you must find your niche. For most this is easier said than done, think about it while you walk the dog, it  may help but it wont resolve the issue at hand.

Many new internet marketers make the same mistake, including me, when you start out, you want to sell everything to everyone, make millions of dollars and retire on the beach watching whatever you enjoy watching.

Many just throw in the towel after a while and that depends where they can push their patience to, others last a bit longer and as these leave new recruits eager to do the same join the party.

A vicious circle indeed and it seems that just a few at the top are making it. Many well known marketers are making it, but there are many more who remain quiet and anonymous that are raking in millions. It is up to you if you want to be well known or not, but use the right secret ingredient and you will be raking in the cash.

So for how long am I still going to be ranting on about the secret, or maybe it is my sales ploy, who knows?

Well lets let the cat out of the bag and not keep you in suspense any longer. You cant buy the secret ingredient. You are it. You just need to develop yourself using the right information.

What this means is that your product, book, sales letter or email needs to be unique to yourself. That is how your product will stand out from the rest. Just duplicating someone else's work might bring you  some success but the real success lies in you. Like any game before you can get those tricky moves going you need to do the basics right. Learn the basics and the rest will follow.

Do not believe that you are not a writer. For some it is harder work than for others, but if you intend to be a successful internet marketer and have those vacations at the beach, every moment spent will be worth your while.

Summary:
Advertising your site and product is the small part of marketing, the secret ingredient is in the pitch.

Setting Realistic Goals

When we make a sale, or take one step closer to meeting our goal, we are overcome with a felling of achievement which motivates us to sell more.

I’m sure that anybody who is reading this article has been in the situation where they may have been given unobtainable goals from one of their bosses, sales manager’s, or some higher up somewhere in the company.

When goals are given that are unrealistic, the mission is doomed from the beginning. It immediately gives a feeling of despair to the sales team, which can be devastating to morale.

The sales team will do their duty and work as hard as they can to obtain the goals, but when they fall short, they will have feelings of failure, and will be reluctant to move on.

Simply stated, unrealistic goals, take the fun out of selling.

A personal story . . .

During my years in the banking industry, I managed a sales team in a small branch inside of a grocery store. This is what is known as In-store banking. It was estimated that seven thousand people came through the grocery store where my branch was located on a weekly basis.

With that statistic, my sales team was given a goal of opening up six checking accounts per day, among other things.

This would be a monthly goal of one hundred and eighty checking accounts per month. To me and my team, this was highly unrealistic.

Then, In-store banking was brand new to the banking industry, and these goals were being handed down by people who never once stepped foot in an in-store branch.

Please understand, I am not bitter about this, I am just stating the facts, and believe this to be an on going problem with companies.

This problem works both ways. Sometimes the goals being handed down are not enough, and a sales team will fall short of what their potential could be.

Needless to say, my sales team never met their daily, weekly, or monthly goals. We did however, fight the good fight and manage to hold our own. But morale was never what it should have been.

Every six months my team and I would attend the semiannual sales rally, where we would sit and watch as the other branches so proudly accepted their awards for meeting their goals. It pained me to watch my team walk away empty handed knowing that they worked so hard.

My point is, when goals are being set, they need to be realistic and obtainable. The more you or your team reach their goal the more motivated they will be.

Once you are reaching your goal at a steady pace, challenge yourself or your team, and raise the bar. Challenge them to reach higher on a daily basis


Keep in mind, when you raise the bar, keep this new goal realistic as well, you don’t want to become over confident and put your goals out of reach.

Summary:
When we make a sale, or take one step closer to meeting our goal, we are overcome with a felling of achievement which motivates us to sell more.

Selling Success: Using Testimonials to Boost Your Numbers

If you’ve ever watched QVC, Home Shopping Network, or seen an infomercial, you know about the power of testimony.  It’s our experience that your sales will increase when customers are seen or heard testifying to the benefits of your product or service

It helps potential customers to imagine themselves as proud owners & users of the product or service you offer.  They want to experience the same benefits as the person who made a testimony to it.  The best way to get prospective clients to buy from you is to introduce them to other satisfied customers.  Since you won’t be taking customers around on sales calls testimonials will take their place

To do this, first you will need to ask your best customers whether you can interview them about the positive experience they’ve had with your product or service and record it either with a digital camera or a tape recorder.  Be sure to inform them how you’re going to use the information so they can be at ease knowing that you’re going to be using their words and images in front of perspective customers.  Once you have this, in a digital format, incorporate it into a PowerPoint presentation and playback to prospective customers.

For example maybe you know a situation where the cost of your product or service was initially an issue for a customer and they instead decided to buy from a low-price competitor.  After discovering that the selected vendor wouldn’t be able to deliver, the customer came back to do business with you.  They realized that the low price paid in the short run would actually cost more in the long and the value of providing quality and service is worth the extra money.

The best kind of customer is one you can give you a testimonial.  Then, should you encounter another prospect that voices similar concerns, you can simply say “ I understand how you feel and other customers to felt that way.  In fact, here are some comments from a customer who had the same concerns you have now “.  Once you play the PowerPoint presentation, they can see exactly what you mean.

Ask your best customers to talk about the benefits they receive from using your product or service.  If you have a number of different testimonials, you can always use the one that best fits the sale scenario.  One sales rep we know show pictures of customers using his product.  A picture of a happy, satisfied customer is worth a thousand brochures (and a lot less expensive).

Nothing sells better than truth and you can get closer to the truth and when it comes from someone who’s had a real life experience with you, your product, your services, and your company.

Good luck

Summary:
It helps potential customers to imagine themselves as proud owners & users of the product or service you offer.  Your best customers can talk about the positive experience they’ve had with your product or service.  You can present this testimonial to prospective clients.  A picture of a happy, satisfied customer is worth a thousand words.

Sell Services Online

Is it possible to take a normal offline service business like a legal practice, private medical practitioner or even a real estate business and make money with it from the Internet?

As someone who’s been doing this since 1996, I say the answer is a resounding “YES”.

If you are a business owner, or even an affiliate marketer, you know how hard it is to make a living online.

Many so-called Internet Marketing gurus will tell you that the only way to make money online is to create your own information products, hype them up with a completely fictitious sales letter and then sell via Clickbank, allowing an army of keen and eager affiliates to do your marketing for you.

Whilst that can and does work, there are other paths that are equally successful.

I know from experience, having made my living online by using my own web sites to promote other people’s businesses.

The business I chose were all service oriented. The reason for this is that a service business typically has a low overhead in order to provide the service.

I found that they were more willing to provide me with a larger share of the fees I was able to generate.

The key is to use sales language and “speak” to the businesses clients in language that they understand and respond to.

For example, there’s no point using a 5 page sales letter when you’re trying to sell the services of a conservative legal practice – it just won’t work.

The other key thing is to build the web site in a way that it looks to be providing objective advice.

People like objectivity when they are buying.

The sites I tend to concentrate on are business to business sites. I just don’t like selling to individuals, as they have less money to spend and are infinitely more fussy than a corporate buyer who typically just wants the facts.

My approach works and through various web sites, I have attracted the business of quite a few household name clients for my clients.

The great thing about the way I do business, is that I don’t necessarily have a client when I build my web sites.

Instead, I build a web site based on a certain topic and then quite literally build a business around it.

The sales copy doesn’t have to be blistering hot, it just has to be convincing and contain a strong call to action for the reader on the particular web page.

Make that call to action strong enough and the customers will come knocking on the door and there will be no need for cold-calling. The web site does the selling for you.

Of course, it’s not just down to the sales copy. There are a number of tools that can be used very effectively in order to make selling services online extremely easy.

For more details, please visit http://www.sales-letters.co.uk

Summary:
Want to sell services on the Internet - it's easy when you know how and David Carter, a highly successful UK Internet Marketer, writer and entrepreneur shows you just how easy it can be to sell professional services online.

Sales Techniques & The Death of The Sales Call

Sales techniques
A Google search on sales techniques or strategies (including more specific searches like a search on real estate sales technique or prospecting techniques or marketing tips or motivation strategies) will yield over a million results instantly. Even with so much information at your finger tips it is not any easier to perfect your sales techniques or advertising techniques. Even when you refine your search to terms like sales closing techniques, motivation techniques, presentation techniques, sales skills, and so on and so forth, it is rather hard to narrow down your search any further from among the million odd articles.
A Crisis of Individuality
The more one depends on the strategy 'gurus' or experts whether online, in books or wherever, the more one loses that individual touch, those carefully tested out personal skills and strategies. And it is this quality—individuality—that is very important in the environment we now live in—one of extreme competition. Your buyer would be looking out for that something extra, something off the beaten track, as it were. There are going to be numerous conventions, seminars and the like; breeding conformity. The gut feeling that makes you successful in dealings is your key to success. The important thing is to follow your instincts rather than blindly emulate the jargon spewing sales advisors.
Pick and Choose
That is not to say that all such sales tips should be avoid—far from it. Do learn from as many sources as you can but without forgetting your own self, because that is what makes you different from l the rest of the huge crowd. Business dealings depend on trust. So it is important to focus on your human side. Only then can you convince the other person that it is going to be a fair deal. As some put it, "the trust factor that is the bedrock to any sales or selling relationship". It is here that modern sales strategies fail. Their failure lies in their negligence of the human elements. To be convincing and to build up trustfulness, you have focus on your own personality rather than worrying about various external factors.
Focus
The focus, and we simply can not say it too many times, should be on making your buyer feel good, convincing him, ergo, trust building. Selling is essentially, when reduced to its elementary, most basic precepts a deal or a pact between two like minded people or parties. Let us also not forget that trust goes a long way. The same buyer, if and when convinced and satisfied with the sales, will come back and maybe also bring in other buyers. This is a very fundamental precept of the sales technique. And the one on which you can always fall back up on in times of trouble!

Summary:
A Google search on sales techniques or strategies (including more specific searches like a search on real estate sales technique or prospecting techniques or marketing tips or motivation strategies) will yield over a million results instantly. Even with so much information at your finger tips it is not any easier to perfect your sales techniques or advertising techniques. Even when you refine your search to terms like sales closing techniques, motivation techniques, presentation techniques, sales skills, and so on and so forth, it is rather hard to narrow down your search any further from among the million odd articles.

Relax Your Customer

Relax Your Customer

One of the most important skills a doctor can posses, is that of a bed side manner. In the same sense, it is important that sales people posses the same type of skill, to be able to put their customer at ease.

Relaxing your customer is important to any type of sales situation you may find yourself in. Remember, think of the customer as a guest in your house, you are the host, so you want to make them as comfortable as possible in your house. The more comfortable they are in your house, the easier it will be for them to talk to you.

In sales, trying to persuade someone we have never met before to buy our product can be very challenging.

It can be challenging for a number of reasons, mainly the fear that consumers associate with sales people.

The fear that we are all alike, comparing us to the unfair stereotype of the used car salesman. They are afraid of being convinced to buy something they don’t need at a price they can’t afford.

You need to find a common denominator with your customer, something you can both relate to, something non-business.

A non-business conversation is a great way to break the ice with your customer. We all want to make a sale, but since when is it a crime to get to know your customer?

This is easier than you may think, people love to talk, especially about them selves.

So ask questions. Ask about their pets, their families, their work, and their hobbies.

When I was in banking, I managed a branch inside of a supermarket. Our daily goals consisted of going out into the aisles, approaching customers, and trying to convince them to bank with us.

We applied certain techniques to this type of sales that worked rather well.

For instance, the pet food aisle was a good place to talk to people, because people loved to talk about their pets. A simple question such as; “What kind of dog do you have?” would get them talking with the greatest of ease.

The junk food aisle was also a good place to talk to people. For some reason the presence of candy and junk food put people in a good mood, and they were more prone to talk with a stranger.

One place we stayed away from, was the frozen food section, because people didn’t want to talk where it was cold. Understandable.

My point is, people love to talk as long as they can relate to the subject manner, so don’t be afraid to ask questions, and get to know your customer beyond that of the products they need.

The more relaxed you can make your customer in your setting, the better off the two of you will be, and the more sales you will walk away with.

This article may be reproduced by anyone at any time, as long as the authors name and reference links are kept in tact and active.

Summary:
One of the most important skills a doctor can posses, is that of a bed side manner. In the same sense, it is important that sales people posses the same type of skill, to be able to put their customer at ease.

Proactive Selling

This article distinguishes proactive selling from reactive selling and illustrates the technique and benefits associated with proactive selling.

Are you getting “no’s” bleed from customers saying no too often?  Try asking questions that can’t be answered with a no.  Try proactive selling.

Reactive Selling

Much of the time, we adopt a reactive posture with our customers. We “lob” a statement or benefit over the fence and wait for the customers to respond to the statement or benefit. Then we react to their response. Reactive statements include:

•  “I’m calling to see if there’s anything we can help you out with today.”  lob … wait … The response usually is “No, not today. Thank you.”  Our reaction is “Well, if something comes up….”
•  “Last week I sent you our line card and I’m following up to see if you’ve received it.” lob...wait...  The response usually is “Yep. But I don’t need anything...” or “I don’t remember.” Our reaction is, “Well, if something comes up...”

At the very best, many reactive sales calls end with the rep – not the customer – doing something.  Reactive sales calls result in the rep sending literature or setting up another phone call.

With reactive sales calls, you give up control of the conversation and reduce the possibility of making something happen.

Proactive Selling

Bring the customer into the conversation with an open-ended but specific question:

•  “How familiar are you with our Pro-Act registry service?”
•  “How familiar are you with our Inventory Elimination service?”
•  “How familiar are you with the depth of inventory we stock?

This question should be targeted towards the customer needs but can be very effective for cold-calling as well.  You retain control over the conversation and build the opportunity to qualify the customer.

In General

Also don’t forget to:

•  Begin each call with a specific Initial Value Statement.
•  Confirm that you’re speaking with the decision-maker.  “Are you the one who makes the decision to buy/sell…”
•  Ask if this is a good time to talk for a few minutes.
•  If the customer has done business with your company, thank them for their business.

And Finally…

Proactive selling won’t work for everyone and won’t work all the time.  But when you’re feeling like you’re getting “no’s” bleed, try proactive selling.

(This information comes from Planning for Success, a module in Entelechy’s High Performance Sales program.  Check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at www.unlockit.com.)

Terence R. Traut is the president of Entelechy, Inc., a company that helps organizations unlock the potential of their people through customized training programs in the areas of sales, management, customer service, and training.  Terence can be reached at 603-424-1237 or ttraut@unlockit.com.

Summary:
This article distinguishes proactive selling from reactive selling and illustrates the technique and benefits associated with proactive selling.

Mortgage Leads, Where to Begin

If you are considering investing your hard earned money with a mortgage lead company, or you are switching lead companies because you have gone through the pain of seeing your money go down the drain, here is a good place to begin.

Before you take that leap of faith with a lead company, take a step back and reexamine exactly what it is you are looking for from a lead company.

You should be looking for the exact same thing that you would expect from any other reputable company that you deal with. And that would be good quality service.

Before you invest your money, research the company, most of the research can be done right there on their web site. Read the FAQ’s, read about their return policy, read about how they acquire their leads, etc.

Once you have read all there is to read about their company, give them a call and speak with someone in their customer service department. Ask as many questions you feel to be appropriate, and verify everything you have read with them.

You should be able to get a good read on the company from the customer service representative about what  their company has to offer. And make sure their answers to your questions are matching up to what their site implies.       

Lead generation will be something you definitely want to research. It is crucial for you to find out where exactly the lead companies obtain their leads from.

Do they own and operate their own sites to obtain their leads? Or are they buying their leads from other lead companies and recycling them?

Remember, as with just about everything else, the better the quality of the product, the better your chances of success with it. The same holds true for mortgage leads.

Also, consider the pricing that is involved. Make sure you compare companies, and will you be getting what you paid for? You don’t want to be spending twenty-five dollars on a lead that has already been sold five to seven times.

Check out their return policy. Is it fair? Will they refund your money if the contact information is bad? Will they return your lead if the person on the lead is not responding to your calls? Will they return your lead if the customer says something to the effect of, “ I took care of that months ago.”

There is a lot to consider, so before you invest your hard earned money, take the time to do your research.

One more thing . . .

Before investing, call the lead company to make sure someone answers the phone, if you have to leave a message, make sure they return your call. Than, e-mail them and make sure you get a response, if not move on. If they are unresponsive now, you can bet they will be unresponsive when you have an issue with the lead.

You have worked very hard for your money, so before you invest it with a lead company, make sure you do enough research where you know that whatever company you decide to go with, you will be getting the best return on your investment. Good luck.

This article may be reproduced by anyone at any time, as long as the authors name and reference links are kept in tact and active.

Summary:
If you are considering investing your hard earned money with a mortgage lead company, or you are switching lead companies because you have gone through the pain of seeing your money go down the drain, here is a good place to begin.

Make Me Feel Important

Imagine this…everybody walking the universe with a piece of tape across their forehead saying “Make me feel important “.

This is the essence of sales and providing outrageous customer service.  It’s also the essence of building a great company and attracting all-star talent. 

Think about when you were provided a service or sold something.  Doesn’t it feel good when the service was provided in a quick, timely, efficient, and friendly manner?  It feels so good that you will go back and buy more (even if you don’t need anything) because you want to be around that feeling.

The following is a great example from one of my clients:

Paige had two wrist watches that needed to be fixed.  Walking into the jewelry store she remember thinking and assuming that something will get accomplished but probably only half way, and this would most likely be a process where she would have to keep calling or coming back.

To her amazement she was greeted with a smile and open arms, and the owner immediately confirmed to her  “ no worries “…that both watches would be ready within a week and that she will call her personally when ready.  Paige noticed in those few minutes that the owner was able to identify immediately what needed to be done.  The owner even went as far to call the manufacturer directly to confirm that she could get from them what was needed.

Paige remembered how she felt as she left.  She felt like skipping!  She was astonished that this kind of service still existed.  It completely changed her attitude and her day.  She was now smiling, and she felt fulfilled and also felt important!  All this happened in a matter of minutes.

This experience completely changed Paige’s attitude and demeanor for the day. 

•     She felt valued!
•     She was recognized from a previous visit.
•    She sensed immediate hope.
•     She was understood.
•     She certainly felt important.
•     She felt powerful because the process unexpectedly met her expectations in minimal time.        

The above mentioned are called people’s universal needs.  This is what professional selling and customer service is.  You are meeting people’s universal needs.  It’s so easy, but often overlooked.   Try it for a day…to everyone you come across…try making them feel important and see what happens!

Authors’ Note:
Paul Sember, President of Coach SEM, Inc. is an executive coach, motivator, and speaker, and uses a state of the art teleconference system to effectively work with executives and their teams around the world in creating a sales centric culture, providing outrageous customer service, and attracting and keeping all-star talent. Paul can be reached at 480-342-8990, E-mail paul@coachsem.com or visit his website at www.coachsem.com.

Summary:
Imagine everybody walking the universe with a piece of tape across their forehead saying “Make Me  Feel Important “.

This is the essence of sales and providing outrageous customer service.  It’s also the essence of building a great company and attracting all-star talent.

IT Sales: What is Your Unique Offering?

What benefits you can give your clients that will be different from the average Joe Consultant? In this article, you'll learn some ways to differentiate yourself from your competition to increase IT Sales. 

XYZ Consulting: A Case Study

XYZ Consulting moved into a new location in a 27-story building full of high-end firms. There are a number of other such buildings within a two-minute walk. They asked me if they should play up the close proximity?

Positively yes! They can effectively own that neighborhood. What is their unique benefit? They are right there. They can get things done better, faster, and cheaper than anyone else who is not right there.

Sell Your Unique Benefit

Sell service agreements and lead up with a response time guarantee. When you're right there, you can afford to make bold promises like you'll be onsite within 60 minutes of a server down emergency during regular business hours. You can even back that up by offering something like $100 off your bill that month if you're even a minute late.

If you have enough clients in that area and your staff is located right there, too, it's almost as if you're working on a corporate campus. Obviously there's no travel time involved.  Staff utilization rates should easily increase by 10 to 30 percent. There will be no hassle with driving, traffic, or parking. 

IT Sales Case Study: How To Identify These Businesses

What should XYZ do to identify these local businesses? Do a survey. Mail something out to every owner or CEO in the building and in the neighboring buildings.  You might even bribe them that if they return the survey, you'll give them a gift certificate for a dozen bagels at the coffee shop across the street.

IT Sales: The Survey

The survey should have really basic questions like:

•    How many PCs do you have?
•    How many employees so you have?
•    How do you get your IT support today?
•    What do you like and dislike about it?
•    What's your number one business challenge today?
•    What's your number one IT challenge? 

It's really a response vehicle. You're getting people to tell you not only what they want, but you're basically going to get people who are at least marginally interested.

This should produce a very good response rate and canvassing should be a breeze. It should be as simple as hanging out in the local coffee shop and getting to know the regulars and the people that are in and out of those offices all the time.

IT Sales: Get To Know The People Who Know Everyone

Befriend the local shoe repairperson, the person who's delivering Chinese, pizza or the deli, the mail carrier, the UPS and the FedEx driver. Get to know everyone so you can gradually network yourself into all the offices in the area. These people are already in and out of these offices all the time, and they can often point you in the right direction as to who to call on for IT sales.

The Bottom Line about IT Sales

If you really want to sell based on your guarantee and your proximity, brand everything around it. 

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Summary:
For IT sales, play up your unique advantage. In this case study, you’ll see how a company can play up their unique benefit of a convenient location to increase IT sales.

IT Marketing: Benefits Focused Sales Letter

No matter what niche you're in, you should write a benefits-focused sales letter. In this article you'll learn how this letter can improve your IT marketing.

Your high school English teacher probably told you that when you're writing a business letter, keep it nice and short and sweet. Put that advice away. (Your high school English teacher probably never sold anything besides his or her daughter's Girl Scout cookies!)

Long Sales Letters Should Be Used:

When you're looking to build urgency…
When you're looking to stir up the pot…
When you're looking to get people to take action…
When you're looking to take them through the pain of what happens when they don't do things the right way with data security…
When you're looking to take them through the joy and elation of making their staff so much more productive…
When you're looking at explaining to prospects the benefits of being able to grow their company 150% to 200% without adding much more in terms of staff…

Theese are the kinds things that are best conveyed in long sales copy IT marketing letters. Don't be afraid to do them!

Write to Your Prospect's “Points of Pain”

If you don't have a lot of expertise in writing sales letters, you may want to hire an advertising or marketing consultant or a freelance copywriter, who can do them for you. Whether you write it yourself, or outsource it, you must know your prospects' hot buttons. And you must know the main points of pain for your particular niche.

Offer Something for Free

To generate demand with IT marketing, you may just need to send out a letter with your business card and offer some kind of bribe like a free one-hour needs assessment. Just make sure you have a deadline and limit the freebie to the “first ___ local businesses that respond”.

If you're coming across as the IT expert for a niche industry, your IT marketing letters and calls should be a lot more welcomed. Your knowledge will be conveyed in the headline, and throughout the entire letter. You're offering something that's totally, completely relevant and most professionals will be open to hearing you. 

Be sure you letter talks about work that you've done for other firms like theirs (think testimonials) and how you can help them. The general trends and problems of the industry will really hit home with the person that you're targeting.

The Bottom Line on IT Marketing Sales Letters

Don't forget, the goal with this IT marketing project should be to move your prospect onto the next logical step which is more often than not an in-depth billable IT audit. You're moving them from “free” to “fee”... your “proving ground” project. 

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Biz Tech Talk. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Summary:
IT marketing can take the form of long sales letters. When you hit your prospects’ hot buttons, you’ll experience success with your IT marketing.

If you're in sales - STOP SELLING!

As conflicting a statement as it may seem many would be wise to subscribe to this advice.

If you are a sales person, you are in one of the toughest professions out there. It has been said less than 1% of the population has what it takes to be successful in sales. Those are not great odds. But many of us are attracted to the sales arena. We are the modern day gladiators who face daily challenges, survive and often thrive. We like helping people; we enjoy the competitive nature and recognition that comes with being successful at what we do.

So how do some men and women rise to the top while so many others only dream about success? 

Many of the top sales professionals I know have been fortunate to have had a mentor somewhere along the way who shared nuggets of golden advice. Many years ago my Regional Sales Manager made a statement one day that offended me. It also changed my life.

He said, "Clayton you're a good sales person, but you could be a great sales person." As one of the top sales people in the region my ego was bruised. I went away mad that he would say such a thing. I considered myself a dedicated student of selling, I had been on many sales courses and my results were very good.

His statement rolled around in my head for the balance of the day and that night. I needed to understand his thinking. The next morning, I worked up some courage, not really sure what I would hear and went into his office to ask him what he meant with his comment the day before.

He asked me to sit, and began by telling me how pleased he was that I was on his team, and explained he believed his role was to get the best out of people. I told him I felt a bit insulted, I considered myself better than just good at sales. He reassured me I was, but if I wanted to be a great sales person I had to listen carefully to some advice. I still remember as if it were yesterday, at 9 am on a Friday morning he said two words that stunned me, "Stop selling." I was dumbfounded, stop selling? He went on to explain, "Your job is not to sell anything. Your job is to help your customer make an informed purchasing decision."

Well he had to repeat the statement two times before the light bulb began to come on for me. Of course he was absolutely right. I needed to move from being a gladiator ready to do battle, to becoming a trusted advisor. My responsibility was to bring subject matter expertise to the table and help the potential purchaser understand the pros and cons of their decision. It is their money, it is their decision.  Had I done everything I could to help them make an informed one?

Over the years I have shared this nugget with many "good" sales people. I smile as I watch their reaction when I suggest they can improve their sales if they STOP SELLING. If you practice this philosophy today I commend you. Should you adopt it going forward, I wish you much personal success.

Help your customers make informed purchasing decisions!

If you are in sales do you carry a flashlight?

Many years ago I attended a sales workshop in Arizona. It didn't take much to convince me to leave Toronto Canada in the middle of winter and go to Scottsdale. Little did I know how much that trip would change my outlook on selling.

Let me digress for a moment. Upon arrival at the hotel I was immediately impressed. A beautiful setting, first class service, lovely room, and sun, lots of warm sunshine! The next day, regrettably we were indoors for the first of three days in a meeting room, 17 of us, indoors in Scottsdale. On the breaks many of us would rush to stand outside and enjoy the sun. It was on one of these breaks we were standing at a side entrance to the hotel when a large number of very tall men approached. Now I'm not a tall person. I stand 5'7" first thing in the morning before gravity sets in. Turns out these "giants" were the San Antonio Spurs basketball team in town to play the Phoenix Suns. They were using a side entrance to avoid fans at the front of the hotel. I don't think I came up to the belly button of one of them!

But back to the sales workshop. Our facilitator had a captivating Texan drawl, causing me to listen intently to his stories and tips based on years of experience. The content was terrific, the group really bonded, and the three days evaporated.  Towards the end of the final day I just had to ask a question of our workshop leader who had so impressed all of us. I was about to have one of those "ah huh" moments in life.

I asked "If you could share only one piece of advice on how to be a top sales person what would that be?" I'll never forget as he went into a pensive stance, holding his elbow while putting his forefinger to his lips, "What a tough question." He then paused for maybe a minute or two, it seemed longer.

What he shared was so profound I have added it to my repertoire of sales truisms.  It has shaped my philosophy and behavior ever since. He started by cautioning us that in the sales profession we run the risk of developing egos bigger than the moon. Top sales people think of themselves as super stars and want to be in the spotlight. Confidence he said is a good thing, and recognition at the appropriate time and place is important in fact necessary, but an unchecked ego can do damage. And here it came, he paused and with conviction added, "If there is only one piece of advice I'd ask you remember, it is to always shine the spotlight on your customer. They are the most important person, not you!" The room went silent. Our egos on pause, we reflected hard on what we just heard. 

For some reason my thoughts turned to the Spurs who, two days earlier had walked past us. They play under the spotlight all the time. Fans pay to enjoy their athletic excellence on the court. We want them to be in the spotlight, we want them to succeed, and we want them to play to win.

In sales, we're not playing basketball. It's a different game, and it's one of the best games in the world. If the sales arena is where you play and you want to win, remember these words of wisdom. 

Always shine the spotlight on your customer.

Summary:

It didn't take much to convince me to leave Toronto Canada in the middle of winter and go to Scottsdale Arizona. Little did I know how much that trip would change my outlook on selling.

How To Motivate People To Buy

What motivates the people who visit any website to buy?

This is the one question that every Internet Marketer is seeking the answer to. If you know how to motivate people to buy, then you can increase your sales and your conversion rate. And wouldn’t that be good for your profit and your business?

So what motivates people to buy?

It is often said that you should give people what they need, because that is what they are going to buy. That may well have been the case once but sadly today society has changed and people no longer buy what they need.

Instead they buy what they want and what they crave – hence people struggling to put food on the table, but have a 42” plasma TV, satellite system and a bottle of Jack Daniels!

You need to pitch your product not as something they need, but as something they absolutely must have; make it so they crave your product and absolutely must get their hands on it.

People also buy because they want to get pleasure from what they buy. Someone doesn’t walk into a car dealership and buy a top of the range Mercedes because they need it; a Skoda or Toyota would have done the job just as well.

They buy the Mercedes because they want the pleasure that goes with it. Whether this is the comfort of the car, the joy of all the gadgets, or the fact that it is a status symbol – they drive a Mercedes! Whatever their reason it will be because they have associated pleasure with owning a Mercedes and so they buy one when they could have saved tens of thousands of dollars and bought a cheaper car!

Another reason people buy is because they want to avoid pain. Volvo are one of the best selling cars in Europe. Why? They are not the prettiest of cars, nor that expensive, nor are they of the perceived class of a Jaguar, BMW or Mercedes.

Volvo’s sell well because people want to avoid the pain associated with car accidents. Volvo’s are some of the safest cars on the market and as such appeal to people who want to protect their family and passengers.

These are three of the main ways that people are motivated to buy. If you can work out how to use this in your sales copy, your emails, your newsletter and your website, then you can convert more visitors into paying customers.

Identify your target market and learn their pain – what problem are you solving for them with your product?

Understand this and your sales copy can become smoking hot and you can boost your conversion rate!

Summary:
What motivates the people who visit any website to buy?

This is the one question that every Internet Marketer is seeking the answer to. If you know how to motivate people to buy, then you can increase your sales and your conversion rate. And wouldn’t that be good for your profit and your business?

So what motivates people to buy?

It is often said that you should give people what they need, because that is what they are going to buy. That may well have been the case o...

Garage Sales - Good For Everyone

Ah, the garage sale! That little slice of suburbia that ties communities together, brings friends and neighbours to your doorstep, and helps your turn the cast off flotsam of bygone years into money in your pocket. These familiar scenes of summertime are a great way for people to buy the stuff they need at a fraction of the retail cost.

Similarly, garage sales are a great way to get rid of stuff that you no longer use or need. A garage sale is a favourite of collectors, bargain hunters, and the random passer-by with an idea of seeing what there is to buy at low, low prices. Having a garage sale can be fun or stressful, useful or counter-productive, profitable or costly.

There are many reasons for having a garage sale. Perhaps you want to sell all those unused "treasures" taking up space in your house. Perhaps it is to clean out the house prior to an imminent move. Perhaps you simply want to make a few extra dollars. Some people simply do it for an opportunity to meet the neighbours and do a little haggling. A garage sale is very useful at all these times and for all these reasons.

With a garage sale, you need to give the people what they want (reasonably decent stuff at cheap prices) to get what you want (floor space in your house). While the phrase “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” is true, there is another fact that is equally true, and even more important.

Junk is Junk … and nobody will buy it…. usually.

You can always try to sell broken or non-working so they can be used as parts for repairing other things people may have at home. Just be honest about it and price it as a broken item. You’ll be surprised just what kinds of things people will buy.

People who go to a garage sale have many things they may be looking for. Some are just on the lookout for good stuff at great prices. A few will just be passing by and spot something they have always wanted but could not afford until they saw it at your sale. Some are dedicated garage-salers armed with maps of advertised garage sales, hunting for specific items or items they never knew they needed. Some will attend simply to meet the folks from down the block. Some will even attend your garage sale just to have items for their own garage sales. Whatever their reasons, you need to attract buyers who will see your items, like your prices, and walk away with the things they do actually want and need.

But setting up a garage sale properly and pricing your goods so that they sell fast and furious at a price you like…well those are topics for other articles.

Summary:
Ah, the garage sale! That little slice of suburbia that ties communities together, brings friends and neighbours to your doorstep, and helps your turn the cast off flotsam of bygone years into money in your pocket. These familiar scenes of summertime are a great way for people to buy the stuff they need at a fraction of the retail cost.

Similarly, garage sales are a great way to get rid of stuff that you no longer use or need. A garage sale is a favourite of collectors, b...

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!

Summary:
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.

eShagun.com-Revolutionizing the way you send Gift to India - Gift card vs Traditional gifts

Revolutionizing Gifting to India
Gift giving in Indian culture is as holy as any religious engagement.  Gifts also denote how much you care and how you care. Gifts can be given in cash and kind, from a simple single stick Rose Flower to a Rolls Royce.  They help in improving and building personal and professional relationships. Especially, the weight of the gift increases when it reaches you from far away land. 

Just imagine giving a splendid anniversary gift to your parents in India or giving a gift to your sister back home on Rakhi.  These moments are priceless and there is a simple way to do them, gifting visa gift cards to India. At the premium visa gifting website eShagun.com, all you do is choose the Denomination of the gift card and the recipient chooses the gift from over 300,000 locations across India.

 Gifts in corporate lifestyle definitely are considered as the best morale booster and now it is made easy by eShagun.com and their Visa Gift Card.  The visa gift cards exclusively from eShagun.com are the best way to recognize and uniquely reward incentives to your organizations Indian employees and/or is most scalable method of thanking your loyal Indian customers.  eShagun.com has simplified your gifting needs by marking the gifts with nominated amounts pre loaded on them, ready for distribution.

This service is exclusively available online only through eShagun.com, a complete secure ordering website. The gift cards are user friendly and hassle free.  These gifts can not be over priced.  The denomination you choose will be the same gift amount your loved one in India will receive hence far better than choosing and sending a gift.  This now has revolutionized the way people gift their loved ones in India.  You just choose the denomination or the price range of your gift and leave the rest to the website.  It will handle all the necessary transactions (of course secure) for you’re girt to reach your loved ones. With Visa gift cards at eShagun.com, you just give your loved ones what they want.

There are many other features on the website.  As you sign up with the website you are entitled to the following services.
You can send free online greeting cards with customized look and feel.  Not just this, because of your schedule there is a huge chance of you forgetting many important occasions, so this website will provide you with a free reminder service.  Hence, from now on there are no sorry cards only great gifts with visa gift cards.  The second most important thing is the registration will entitle you for the five star experience of gifting.  You will suddenly be upgraded to a master gift giver and definitely will earn many brownie points with your loved ones.  There are no more guess works, shabby ordering processes, generic and impersonalized gifts and what more the recipient has more than 300,000 locations across India to choose his shopping location.  This is what I call five star gifting experience.

Summary:
Gift giving in Indian culture is as holy as any religious engagement.  Gifts also denote how much you care and how you care. Gifts can be given in cash

Don't Shoot the Sales Team

Revenue is down.  Sales are slowing.  The CEO looks up from the business plan and realizes that the company won’t meet analysts’ expectations.  Focusing on the organization’s sales leader, the stage is set for sacrificing a scapegoat.

Upon who else should the axe fall when the sales organization misses revenue targets?  After all, aren’t sales and revenue the responsibility of the sales leader?  The answer may be as easily forgotten as it is obvious.

To one degree or another everyone in an organization impacts the revenue generating process.  The strategic plan of the board of directors and the CEO provides the overall strategy for revenue generation.  The marketing department provides crucial demographic and psychographic customer or client information on which the sales department relies in formulating industry and account strategies.  Manufacturing, finance, legal, customer service and all other departments facilitate or constrain the process of generating revenue, each in their own peculiar way.

The sales organization’s influence in enterprise revenue generation is con-centrated in the sales pipeline.  Identifying bona fide sales opportunities, managing those opportunities through the sales pipeline until they produce revenue, and then managing customer or client relationships are the primary responsibilities of the sales and sales management teams.  Rarely, if ever, does the sales organization control the resources of manufacturing, marketing, finance, legal and customer service.

The picture most companies present to the world show the sales organization “out there,” in front of customers and clients and in front of the rest of the company’s departments.  Even marketing, the first cousin of sales, is more often than not as disconnected from sales as are the other departments.  The sales group leads the company charge, and the other departments take up rear support positions, providing tangible and intangible support.

Revenue generation is a cross functional, company-wide process that involves every department and all employees in the organization.  The CEO and the Board of Directors set corporate strategy and everyone else in the organization executes that strategy.   We have never observed a situation where the sales organization is in disarray while all the other business segments are humming along with little or no friction.  In those rare cases where the failure or underperformance of an enterprise’s revenue generation process lies within the sales organization, the appropriate sales executives, managers and sales professionals should be held accountable and should suffer the requisite consequences.  Before CEO’s shoot their sales teams, however, they might want to take a critical look at the entire revenue generation process and how each business segment contributes to or detracts from the success of the process.  Like America’s favorite psychologist, Dr. Phil, would advise:  Every department in an organization either contributes to the company’s revenue generation process or contaminates it.

Summary:
Revenue is down.  Sales are slowing.  The CEO looks up from the business plan and realizes that the company won’t meet analysts’ expectations.  Focusing on the organization’s sales leader, the stage is set for sacrificing a scapegoat.

Upon who else should the axe fall when the sales organization

Don’t Let Your Hot Leads Cool Off

Every day in sales and business is critical. That lead  you receive today, could very well be in the hands of your competition tomorrow.

That is why I can’t stress enough the importance of taking full advantage of your leads once you receive them.

Leads are not meant to sit around pinned onto bulletin boards, or placed in a tickler file. They are meant to be acted on.

The thought process of the customer is to shop around for a product or service, so they have put the word on the street that they are on the market for a particular product.

If someone within your professional circle gives you a qualified lead, it is highly reasonable that the customer on this lead has made several people aware of their interests in a product or service. Which would mean that their name and phone number is being passed around in more than one professional circle.

The timing on a lead is so important, the moment you receive the lead, pick up the phone and make contact with that person.

By not acting on a lead, you have two things working against you. One, you are allowing for your competition to get the jump on you. And two, you are giving your potential customer an opportunity to seek out somebody else to provide them with the product or service they are looking for.

I once worked with a guy when I was in the banking industry. He belonged to a few networking groups, and when he received a lead at one of his weekly meetings, he would come back to the office, pin the lead onto his calendar and let it sit there for three to five days.

When he finally got around to calling the name on the lead, he always received the same response. The customers would inform him that they were no longer interested, because they were working with someone else.

He would than hang up the phone and complain that he had the worst luck when it came to leads.

I think the message here is clear. This is an example of what not to do with your leads.

By letting a hot lead sit around and cool off, you are guaranteed to lose that customer.

Keep in mind, when someone gives you a lead, that someone is most likely giving your potential customer feed back. So that potential customer will have your name, and know when the lead was given to you.

I don’t think your customer would appreciate a phone call three to five days after you have received their information. Even if they are still on the market for your product, you will not be off to a good start.

Leads were meant to be acted on. So the next time you receive one, don’t hesitate, stop what you are doing, and contact that person. Good luck.

This article may be reproduced by anyone at any time, as long as the authors name and reference links are kept in tact and active.

Summary:
Every day in sales and business is critical. That lead  you receive today, could very well be in the hands of your competition tomorrow.

Computer Consulting Services: Selling the Network as Security and Data Protection

Small business prospects and clients may view your computer consulting services as part of their insurance policy. You write up a service agreement that lists what’s covered and what’s not, as well as various parameters for coverage. Then each month, quarter, or year you collect some kind of retainer deposit, similar to an insurance premium.

Play Up the Value of your Computer Consulting Services

Part of the reason small business owners never miss a premium is because they want to make sure that your firm will be there in their time of need. So effectively, one of the reasons small businesses hire your firm is for "security". Rather than go kicking and screaming trying to vehemently deny this, play up the value of your computer consulting services and add security and data protection into your sales pitch - as major parts of your clients’ network investments.

Superior Security Foundation

Be sure to weave some of the following security and data protection points into your computer consulting services sales presentations.  In sharp contrast to a client/server network like the one you’re proposing, a peer-to-peer "server" generally isn’t capable of maintaining its own user account security database.

As a result, a standalone peer-to-peer network is limited to "share-level" access control. This means everyone that connects to this peer-to-peer "server" share point has the same user name and password. There’s no way to differentiate between access levels of users and no way to terminate an individual’s password when he or she leaves the company.

Highlight Your Computer Consulting Services

A dedicated server OS, on the other hand, provides much better control over who has access to which shared resources. Each person can be assigned his or her own user name and password. Be sure to highlight how your proposed networking solution takes this into account.

Security with your proposed networking solution is also more flexible or granular. With most peer-to-peer "servers", security can only be controlled at the share level. When a share point is set up on a dedicated server with a true NOS security can be controlled all the way down to the file level.

The Bottom Line about Computer Consulting Services

Consider adapting this file cabinet analogy for your client presentations: Would you rather grant employees unrestricted access to an entire room full of file cabinets, or just a few select hanging folders in certain file drawers which are pertinent to their job?

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Summary:
Computer Consulting Services are a security blanket for companies. Businesses will be able to control which employees have what access to files which are protected from a server designed by computer consulting services.

Anticipation Of My First Sale

What's the a biggest motivational tool out there when you start an internet home based business? Well for me it was the anticipation of making my first sale.

When I started my internet home based business I quickly learned that nothing comes for free and you have to work at it to become successful. I thought that I could make lots of money in a short period of time; well I couldn't have been more wrong.

Yes, I got into the get rich quick scams to begin with, searching on the internet for ways to make money fast. First there was the "get paid for doing surveys" scheme. Then I thought that I could sell things on e-bay to make a quick buck. While there are lots of people doing this it’s not a way to get rich quick. Next was the pyramid scheme. As time went on the money kept going out and nothing was coming in.

I could have quit there but I was determined. I changed my way of thinking and started to search for legitimate ways to make money online. That's when I found my first no "B.S" internet home based business. I learned everything there was to learn about it, applied the strategies and then reread it all to see if there was anything I missed. Doing those simple things can make all the difference.

While working my new business online I soon learned that one business wasn't going to be enough to sustain me working at home. So I decided to take on four more legit home based businesses so that I could obtain multiple streams of income. If I could get each of them making $500.00/month that would be enough to allow me to stay at home. I dedicated myself to learning everything about them as well and all the while I kept repeating the things I had learned. Repetition and Duplication are the keys to making any home based business work.

Things started to happen after a month and a half had went by. My site was indexed from the search engines and I got a few signups to my affiliate programs. This in it self was enough to keep me plugging along, but still no sales. I was more determined than ever now, spending countless hours at my desk.

And then it happened....I got my first sale. I couldn't tell you how happy I was.

Things have been picking up more steadily each and every month. The more I apply the things I've learned the more successful I become. The more I repeat things I've learned the more successful I become and the more I track and duplicate things I've learned....well you get the point.

Summary:
What's the a biggest motivational tool out there when you start an internet home based business? Well for me it was the anticipation of making my first sale.

When I started my internet home based business I quickly learned that nothing comes for free and you have to work at it to become successful. I thought that I could make lots of money in a short period of time; well I couldn't have been more wrong.

Yes, I got into the get rich quick scams to begin with, searching...

5 Tips For Closing That Consulting Deal

There are several reasons why consultants ultimately lose deals they should have won. Unless your portfolio is poor, consultants lose contracts because they either didnt listen or they didnt speak effectively to convey what services they could offer, that would help the client reach their goals. Here are a few tips to help you sell your services.

Every consultant feels that if there is anything that they do well, its talking the talk. Effective speaking is more of an art than a science. If you cant effectively convey how your services are going to help the client, you wont get the contract.

Reflect Before You React
Its human nature to say the first thing that comes to our mind when we're asked a question. Take a moment to think of what answer is best for the client. It will show that you put thought into your work and dont just plow ahead. Your clients will appreciate that.  Your best reaction is not always your first reaction.

Keep It Simple Superstar
Just because you know the ins and outs of your business doesnt mean that your client will. Speak to them on their level, not yours. Keep the conversation simple and get straight to the point. If your client understands what you can do for them, they are more likely to hire you. If you try and dazzle them with industry speak, you'll lose them, and lose the contract.

You may find that if you are speaking to a perspective client on the phone, stand up. For many people, standing makes them get straight to the point.

Let the Client Talk
If you want to learn how to best position yourself, find out exactly what the client wants and ask questions to home in on what their needs are. By asking questions, you gain a better understanding of how you can help the client, and the client feels that they are part of the solution.  This gives you a chance to reflect on what you can offer your prospective client.

A Little Enthusiasm Goes A Long Way
Your client feels passionate about what they do, and if you show that you are passionate and enthusiastic about providing them the solution they want, you'll get the client onboard. Enthusiasm will open many doors for you.

Lets Get Personal
It takes experience and a watchful eye, however, if you show your client that they are more than just another big deal for their portfolio you will learn how to best work with them.  Treat all clients the same way, and you will find your schedule empty of projects. Remember that clients say things for a reason. If they volunteer that they cant talk right now because they are getting ready for Bobby's birthday party on Saturday, on your follow up call, ask them casually how the party went. Don't pry, and don't send balloons. By casually asking about the party, you show that you pay attention to details.  Knowing how successful the party was will prepare you on how to approach the conversation.

Remember that you need to sell to the customer's needs, not your skills. Master this and you will have a long career as a consultant.

Summary:
There are several reasons why consultants ultimately lose deals they should have won. Unless your portfolio is poor, consultants lose contracts because they either didnt listen or they didnt speak effectively to convey what services they could offer, that would help the client reach their goals. Here are a few tips to help you sell your services.