Author Archive
DON’T GO IT ALONE!
If you are in the services business, it is imperative that you involve other experts in the “selling process.” Your prospective customers and clients are “buying” not just you, the sales executive, but the ENTIRE ORGANIZATION. Find a way to “showcase” your top experts to your prospects. For someone who has never purchased from you, it is critical that they get to know more than just you!
WHY HIRE NOW?
To implement an authentic sales and marketing process, it is important that a business continues to search for talent on an on-going basis. Does it mean you hire now? NO…but, when you do need to hire, you have a lineup of talent available that you are able to bring on-board. As well, you will not hire the “first one” that comes along because you are in a “desperate state.” In addition, it sends a message to the organization that you are always on the lookout to upgrade your team. The “flip side” of that is it sends a message to your team that you are always looking for top producers and consciously or subconsciously sends a deeper message that no one is irreplaceable and the business is not fully dependent upon one individual.
Follow-Up or Is it Follow-Through?
For those who participate in sports, the follow-through on a golf, tennis or baseball swing is critical to the success of the flight of the ball! It seems odd that the last step in the process has such dramatic impact on the outcome, but ask any coach or teacher in those sports and they will tell you how important it is!
The same holds true for marketing…we make contact with prospective buyers, doing all kinds of things to get them to the point of buying from us and then…we lose touch and don’t follow-through with them or put simply, we don’t follow-up with them!
So…how much better would my golf swing be with a better follow-through? Follow-through with your prospective clients and customers CONSISTENTLY!
From 20X to 7X? Think about it…
Thomas Smith wrote a guide called Successful Advertising in 1885.[6] The saying he used is still being used today.
The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
The second time, they don’t notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.
Ancient Chinese Warrior & Marketing?
Sun Tzu in THE ART OF WAR: ”Strategy without tactics is the long road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Think about it…it still applies in today’s world and today’s world of marketing!