3 Objectives Of Sales

Concentrate And Focus Your Efforts

It is easy for sales people to get focused on busy work and not on the most important things that they do each day. Whether you are in retail, service or direct sales, these three sales objectives will keep you on track. If you are doing things in your day that do not lead directly towards these objectives, then you need to re-think your prioroties.

Sales Objective #1 - Get Results For Your Customer or Satisfy Your Customers Needs.

As long as you make these your first priority, the others fall into place pretty well. Without a satisfied customer, your job becomes much more difficult and less satisfying. In order to find out customer needs and expectations, you must simply ASK and work on strategies to help them get there.

Sales Objective #2 - Retain and Increase Your Current Customers

This is the first of two ways to grow revenue. These are customers that you already have. The acquisition cost is already absorbed. These are the best places to grow revenue because they already have some level of confidence in you or your products. Mc Donald's was one of the pioneers in understanding that it was important to upsell. "Would you like fries with that?" turned into "Would you like a value meal?" All in order to slightly boost an average order.

Banks look at their customers based on how many products they are involced in. Checking, Saving, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Home Mortgage, Personal Loans, Christmas Club, etc.

If you have a customer that spend less than your average order or ticket, you should evaluate why that is. What can I do to grow that customer? Especially if you know that that customer uses another vendor and has considerably more potential.

Sales Objective #3 - Develop New Business

The second way to grow your business is to develop new business. This is normally the most difficult part and where most sales people struggle. It involves developing relationships with people they have not talked to before. It usually takes more effort to get appointments or to get them into the store. New business is needed to make up for the attrition of existing customers and for just bottom line growth.

You must have specific strategies and goals to retain and increase your current business and to develop new business while keeping the focus on the first objective of getting results for your customers or satisfying their needs. When you look at how much time you are spending on each of these directly each week, you may be surprised at how much better you COULD be!

Proud To Sell

When I was a kid, my granddad had a little sign in his office the stated, "Selling is like shaving, if you don't do it every day, you're a bum."

I used to think that was a very odd sign. I never really quite got it. You see, my granddad was a debit insurance salesman. He went door to door each week and collected premiums from the less affluent part of St. Louis. He was mugged three times, but kept at it until he retired.

While the sign is still a little corny, I have to say that I do get it now. No matter what you do in business or life for that matter, you are selling. Whether it be products or yourself, you are selling. You sell at work. You sell in relationships. Selling is nothing more than persuading someone to partner with you by providing them with something that they feel they want or need.

Too many people in business are offended or ashamed to be called a salesperson. Why? If you do it correctly, you are making people happy by providing something that they need or want. There are those that manipulate people and lie that give us all a bad reputation (remember Eve and the apple? Eve got sold a bill of goods!), but that can be overcome by working side by side with the customer and helping them get what they REALLY want!

Be proud to be a part of what is REALLY the world's oldest profession. Selling. Now, who have you helped TODAY?

Maximize Your Word Of Mouth

Good Advertising Can Help

There is no doubt that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. Positive word of mouth that is.

What are people are saying about you? Ask around. Ask people that are your customers as well as those that are not. Ask them what they think of when they hear the name of your business. Good or bad, it is what people are saying about you.

What would you like them to say? f you don't have a clear picture of what you want your message to be, you are going to have a very tough time making sure others are saying!

What are you doing to control it? Good advertising is multiplied word of mouth. Make sure that your advertising message accurately depicts your vision of your business!

Not a lot of answers. Just Questions to ask. Email me if you have some for me!

Point Your Marketing Conversations

In The Direction Of The Business

I was flattered to be invited to be a panelist at a Retail Recovery Marketing Summit for small business this week. I was invited as a radio and marketing expert. Also on the panel were a billboard salesman, cable sales manager, retail manager at Cracker Barrel and a newspaper publisher.

The format was for us to introduce ourselves and what we do. Following that were questions from a moderator and the audience for about 90 minutes. The introductions were very telling. This room was full of businesses that needed help with their marketing. Most of the introductions were features and benefits of the individual media and why businesses should buy them.

This is the problem with advertising. The sales reps want to talk about what they have and not what the businesses need! I handed out my piece on "The Road To The Customer" and have gotten unbelievable feedback from the session because I barely mentioned the radio stations. I talked only about what the businesses cared about, THEMSELVES and how to market better. If YOU do that, the revenue will come.

So, if you are a business or sales rep for advertising, make sure that your conversations are directed to the business and it's needs, NOT THE FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF THE MEDIA!

Help other people get what they want and you will get what you want.

How Much Is The Economy?

And How Much Is Attitude?

Sure, we all know that the econmy has not been robust lately, but have we conditioned ourselves to believe it is worse than it really is?

Last wee, we hosted a series of marketing seminars with a very attractive offer for customers to buy our radio stations at a nice discount by committing to an annual agreement and certain other terms and conditions. It was called The Advantage Plan. We did it last year with some pretty good success. This year was different. As of this writing, we have closed 30% more in revenue and eighteen new customers. Local small business. The economy was not even brought up by the folks that attended.

Why is that? The advertisers that were attending were looking for better ways to attract customers that they knew were doing business even during a down economy. The businesses that get out and attend these seminars are the ones that learn to fight through the tough times and do what it takes to become successful. No matter what everyone else tells them.

I feel for the businesses that don't attend or try to learn to do things differently, they are stuck in a cycle that will be hard to get out of when the economy rebounds. These other businesses that choose not to hear how bad things are today will reap the benefits ten fold when the economy breaks open again. And it will.