Sales, Marketing, and Advertising

Good Marketing Tips For All Times

2009-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

The following marketing tips are excellent ways of expanding your customer base in these tough economic times. While this particular article was directed toward the consumer and small business B2C, Business to Consumer model, it is also well worth reading for B2B customers, Business to Business, in which the time from first contact to completing a sale is typically longer with B2B than in the B2C model.

7 Marketing Ideas to Expand Your Customer Base and Profits

How do you grab people's attention, arouse their interest, trigger their desire, and motivate them to take action? Answer that four-part question correctly and you've identified the secret to achieving tremendous sales and marketing success in your chosen business or field. To complicate matters, however, the potential answers are as numerous and multi-faceted as the growing number of niche markets, products and services, and marketing trends in our culture. While not all inclusive, the following list of priorities and small business marketing tips can help put your small business on a faster track to growth.

Marketing Tip #1: Gain Customer Confidence. Customer indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference, or confusion are among the top sales killers in the business world. It's up to you to project an image of experience, quality, dependability, excellent customer service, and/or value to your prospective customers in order to win their confidence. If you haven't clearly communicated the advantages and solid reasons for them to do business with you, then they'll be hesitant to commit, and the sale will go to your competitor.

Marketing Tip #2: Penetrate awareness of your target audience by using some form of integrated marketing. In other words, the more ways the public hears about you, the better your chances are for achieving brand recognition, credibility, and greater market share. Effective marketing is partly the result of exposing your target group to your name and your selling points (unique selling proposition) as often as possible (frequency), in as many ways as possible, and as cost-effectively as possible.

Marketing Tip #3: Enthusiasm, in both print and in person, is contagious (and I'm not talking about using multiple exclamation points after sentences!!! That detracts from your credibility.) If you deeply believe in your products, services, your company, and yourself, then your prospects will pick up on that passionate attitude and feel confident and optimistic about doing business with you.

Marketing Tip #4: Purchasing is an emotional decision. Instill in your prospects good feelings about your company, your business relationship with them, and how you can improve their lives or solve their problem. Accomplishing that is at least as important in the sales process as focusing attention on product features and benefits.

Marketing Tip #5: Dispel distrust. Gain customer confidence and overcome potential feelings of distrust by offering written guarantees of satisfaction, customer testimonials, references, and by joining respected and well-known professional organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau, Chambers of Commerce, and industry associations.

Marketing Tip #6: Impose a deadline. Counteract one of the biggest obstacles to closing a sale known to mankind: procrastination. To overcome the natural human tendency to deliberate, postpone, and delay, it's often necessary to inject a sense of urgency into your ads, sales presentations, and marketing messages. Whether supplies are limited or prices are going up at the end of the month, some prospects need to have a deadline or an incentive to motivate them to take action now.

Marketing Tip #7: Create a business marketing plan to identify and capitalize on your strengths and opportunities. Your strategic plan should also take into account factors such as your weaknesses (and possible remedies), external threats (competition, economic factors, etc.), your marketing mix strategy (products/services, promotional goals, pricing strategy, and distribution decisions), media strategy, sales and expense budgets, and target market analysis (know your customers).

Copyright © 2009 Joel Sussman

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Joel N. Sussman, an upstate New York business writer, newsletter publisher, and Internet marketer, has created an online small business resource, called "Marketing Survival Kit.com". Get access to hundreds of free and affordable business marketing ideas, strategies, and tools by visiting www.marketingsurvivalkit.com

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Professional Web Services, an Internet marketing services firm specializing in marketing, SEO, online advertising, and web branding to help expand their clients' customer base and increase bottom line sales. Contact us today to get your business and website found online in more places for your products or services you sale.

Prepare for Successful Trade Shows and Conventions This Year

2008-12-27T21:45:00.001-08:00

Sales Skills that Strike Gold at Trade Shows

For the self-employed, trade shows and conventions are a golden opportunity to gain exposure for your service or product offering. Unfortunately many hopeful entrepreneurs take on their first show with no idea of how to get the most new business for their trade-show dollars.

Trade show participation is typically one of the more costly marketing strategies, so it pays to have a solid plan for success before you set up your trade show booth. For maximum revenue impact, your trade show strategy should include these four elements:

1. Have your sales skills prepared and polished

Before you get anywhere near the trade show, know your sales process inside and out. You will only have a few short moments with each prospect, so you have to make that valuable time count. Here are some sales skills to count on:

Be prepared with qualifying questions so you don’t waste valuable time with those who have no need for your product or service. Ask questions that will uncover your potential buyer’s needs.
Listen carefully for buyer “hot buttons” that will reveal your prospect’s buying motivation. If you address their specific needs (instead of offering a canned presentation), they will be much more likely to buy from you.
Anticipate objections, and be prepared with answers that will increase the buyer’s confidence. This will allow you to transform passive interest into qualified “hot” sales leads.

2. Have a prospect-gathering strategy

Lead generation for future sales is the number one goal of trade show participation. Most people do not intend to make purchasing decisions at trade shows. While many attend in order to gather product information, the majority of trade show attendees come for entertainment purposes—it’s just a nice way to get out of the office on a Friday afternoon. Simply put, without some way to gather information on prospect leads, your time and money are wasted.

There are several means for gathering prospect leads:

Collect and make notes on business cards for business-to-business trade shows
Have them sign up for your insider-information newsletter
Set appointments for prospect follow up with in-office or in-home visits

Be sure that your information-gathering tool collects all the information you need. You don’t want to find out at the last minute that your contact card should have had a line for “cell phone.”

When the show is over you will need to distinguish “hot” and “warm” leads from the mildly interested. This will help you set your follow up priority list and generate new business quickly.

3. Be proactive to initiate conversation

Once your booth is finally set up and the crowd begins to arrive, you must be ready to take the lead in starting up conversations with visitors. If you sit back and wait for people to ask about your product, you will be ignored.

It doesn’t take an extrovert to be a great conversation starter if you follow these few tips:

Stand, rather than sit, so that you’ll be at eye level with your audience
Seek out initial eye contact
Be approachable with an inviting smile
Don’t have a table between you and the crowd
Be prepared with open ended questions that lead to conversation

4. Have a lead follow up strategy

Once the show is over, don’t sit too long on those precious leads. Have a follow up strategy in place to contact them before they forget all about you and your offering. For best results, contact all your leads within the first two weeks of the show.

Your follow up strategy will most likely involve a phone call to the prospect. This is where so many good intentions fail. Let’s face it, making phone calls feels an awful lot like telemarketing, and you didn’t start up your business so that you could be a telemarketer. Right?

Making the first call is the most difficult, but if you remember a few important distinctions, it will be a lot easier to get through your list of calls:

You are calling people who gave you their contact information; therefore you are not making unsolicited phone calls.
Since these people have already met you, you are not a stranger to them.
You are calling people who have already shown interest in your product.

Contacting leads after the show requires your greatest selling skills. Much depends on how well you established rapport during your initial visit at the trade show. Did you leave them with something to remember you by or were you just another face in a long row of displays? In your post-show follow up you’ll need to take them from “Yeah, that looks like a cool product,” to “When can you deliver that, and do you take Visa or Master Card?”

As with all small business owners, your marketing budget has its limits; you want to make sure that your trade shows are paying off by generating new business. For the highest return on your trade show investment, prepare a solid strategy before you go. You’ll see a boost in sales that will have impact the whole year through.

Deborah Walker, Small Business Coach helps entrepreneurs build their bottom line with sales strategies and expert advice. Her revenue growth expertise can help keep your business in the black. Learn how Deborah can help your business at: http://www.RevenueQueen.com

Get your business off to a fast golden start with Professional Web Services internet marketing services today.

What is the Secret to Sales and Marketing Success?

2008-07-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Real Secret of Sales and Marketing Success

Those in business ignore sales and marketing at their peril. These disciplines are the very lifeblood of any commercial enterprise, whether a single mother working from home or a massive multi-national corporate body. Every business has either a service or a product to bring to the market, but bringing it is not enough - it has to be sold as well. To put this another way - consumers, potential customers and clients have to be both made aware of the product or service and then coerced into purchasing it.

Without customer knowledge or awareness, there can be no purchase, and where no one is buying there can be no profit. Marketing is the science of bringing the right product to the market, at the right price, in the right way, at a Nett profit. It is the responsibility of the sales and marketing team to ensure this happens.

Individuals have their preferences. For some it is search engine marketing, for others it is email marketing, for many it is direct marketing. But whatever the preference, the marketing strategy and all it entails is a vital step. It is the very root of the success you desire for yourself and your employer.

Training seminars and events should be attended often by all those operating in the sales and marketing arena. Selling is a skill that comes naturally to some, but not to most. Yet it is possible to master these skills so they become more like drills. With the right training and strategies in place, the appropriate successful selling responses should kick in automatically. With marketing too, the responses should be creative and limitless.

There is such a choice of media now that for the marketers it can be overwhelming. The power of the internet and the universal ownership of televisions mean that a vast number of people and markets can be reached quickly - almost instantly. A quick review of what people enter into the search engines also helps paint a picture of the market psychology. It is amazing how people type words in an almost random order. For example, one of the most searched terms is engine marketing search. I find that amusing, but over one million people type that in every month. Why do they reverse the words? I don't know - but it is important to know that they do so marketing strategy can reflect these things where necessary.

Some managers will opt to delegate everything to a marketing agency. The problem here is that many are prima donnas and will take the opportunity to do what they have always wanted to do, and use your money to do it. They can be like architects who do the same. The point is that for an agency marketing campaign, there must be a tightly detailed and described brief and a contract that while not limiting the ideas or creative juices of the agents and their staff, keeps them firmly bound to what you require. All this of course should be underpinned by solid market research.

At its most basic level, both selling and marketing are about the art of communications and the best choice of media for the markets to be targeted. Not all potential customers require the same approach. For example, wholesale and retail markets will attract different methods of communication by the sales team. Again, if a product is to be sold in a store or shop, it is not the same approach as advertising an article to be sold at auction. The advertisements for each will appear in different magazines and other media, and the ads will vary too in design, presentation and language.

The real secret of success here is to start to do things differently. The old maxim about being surprised when there is no change in circumstances while you continue to do things in the same way stands as an eternal truth. I would encourage anyone to go and see, hear and / or read what Dan Kennedy has to say on this subject. A quick Google search will reveal a wealth of material. My best counsel is that you should note well what he has to say. Dan is one of the foremost sales and marketing consultants in America.

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John Campbell's aim is to help people succeed in their day to day jobs. Discover how to use specific advertising and marketing secrets to generate all the leads, customers, profits and business you could only dream about before - with practically no work on your part. See The Magnetic Marketing Tool Kit ( www.magneticmarketingtoolkit.com ) to learn more .......

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eCommerce Online Storefronts Effortless Commerce

2007-11-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks to new online technologies, the Internet now affords everyone an opportunity for profits. One of the latest business trends on the Internet is something called Effortless Commerce, an integrated, turnkey managed eCommerce solution that enables even those customers who don't have their own websites to sell and deliver content to a worldwide audience.

Business eCommerce Trends: How Online Storefronts Provide another Option to do Business Online

Have you ever wondered how artists, musicians, or business people who do NOT have a website, can join in the world of ecommerce and make profits? Thanks to new online technologies, the Internet now affords everyone an opportunity for profits. One of the latest business trends on the Internet is something called Effortless Commerce, an integrated, turnkey managed eCommerce solution that enables even those folks who don't have their own websites to sell and deliver content to a worldwide audience. The technology enables people to profit from their content who otherwise could not easily do so. They can literally create a product, put it on a storefront for sale, and make profits.

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet.

Let's say you are a personal trainer who has a new DVD to sell, or a young aspired musician with the latest music that you would like to get out to the world. You don't make enough money yet to spend the money for a website. You have explored the route of getting a manager and sales team to sell your product into retail stores, but this cuts into the percent of profits that you could make. Where can you turn?

The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown dramatically since the wide introduction of the Internet. The Census Bureau of the US Department of Commerce estimated that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2007, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, was $33.6 billion, an increase of 6.4 percent (0.8%) from the first quarter of 2007.

Online storefront using Effortless Commerce requires no coding or technical expertise. People have the option to offer products in downloadable formats so that their customers can purchase physical disks, digital downloads, or both. Their online store will automatically display options in the local language and currency for visitors; provides automatic tax calculation, filing, and payment; has special pricing structure for content suppliers; editing, authoring and graphic design services; uses an On Demand Production Engine whereby CD/DVD products are manufactured upon purchase with zero inventory; offers automated order processing ... everything, from the time of purchase until shipping products, happens automatically and on time; multiple shipping methods and worldwide delivery; provides email notifications to customers with shipping confirmations and tracking numbers; and features automatic payment.

Another trend in online business is a new phenomenon called pretailing, which Garter says, "consists of the multi-channel shopping activities consumers do before they even visit a retailer's Web site or local store. Pretailing will increase in importance as consumers get access to more retail information and services on the Internet." (Source: Gartner Group, 28 February 2007)

And if you don't think that eCommerce is important enough to the global economy, according to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2006-2010, online advertising spend predictions will reach $26 billion by the year 2010.

Acutrack, Inc. enables customers to create, publish and deliver custom content for DVD and CD distribution worldwide. The company provides fast, high-quality CD and DVD production including video editing, DVD authoring, graphic design, photo realistic and silkscreen printing, and a variety of packaging, copy protection and fulfillment services.

Do you want more customers for your business? Internet marketing services by Professional Web Services today will help gain more sales and customers for tomorrow. Contact us for a marketing evaluation of your business B2B or B2C website.

Follow Up Sales And Marketing VIP Treatment

2007-11-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Sales and Marketing and paying attention to your clients goes a really long way.

The power, and danger, of your database

One of my clients is a land developer in an executive lake front community. The homes are $750,000 ' $1.5 Million dollar custom built beauties.

We were brought in to "be" their marketing department. To most outsiders, our firm looks like we are actually employees.

The reason we were brought in was their past marketing manager.

She got fired.

For a VERY good reason.

This was a person who acted as if the company was her own, and as if she was not accountable at all for marketing funds.

When I first started digging around, it was very evident that this person loved to spend the companies' money ' without any thought to results.

Ads being run in newspapers and magazines that DEFINITELY did not target the right demographics.

Radio spots being run on stations that 18 year old skateboarders listen to (how many of them do you think will buy a million dollar home?)

A website that looks pretty but is seriously lacking good quality content. The one VERY good thing they have on the site is a form to fill out for more information...but this is part of the big problem.

People were filling this form out ' and NEVER hearing back from anyone.

I tried to find all their databases.

"Data what?"

No one had a clue on where the databases were or even what they were.

After a month I managed to compile a list of ~ 2,000 interested prospects that had either been to the website and filled out the form attended an event phoned in or visited the information center or had expressed some form of interest at one point.

Remember ' these are people who have not heard a word back from the developer ' some of them filled the form out a year or more ago!

First thing I did was send an apology letter to everyone on the database. Imagine the shock the staff had when I told them we have to apologize for being so tardy (and downright dumb) about lack of follow up.

Then I invited them all to 2 parties coming up.

Then I sent an email as well ' giving more information and reasons to attend.

The first was a VIP party held on Wed night. It turned out fabulous! We had 80-100 people show up and were very happy to hear from us and see all the progress being made. We served them top quality wine, cheeses, and bread. We gave them leather bound information packages with a ton of content and information inside. We gave out prizes. We had a Harley on display alongside a 1967 Mustang.

We treated them special.

And they ate it up.

The problem though is the responses I got back from the email list.

People replied back saying they waited and waited ' but never heard back and ended up buying elsewhere. At least 10 of those responses (let's see now ' 10 people x $1,000,000 homes = $10,000,000 down the drain!).

People called me names ' some nasty.

Overall, people were very thankful.

Which leads me to the whole point of this article...

You MUST collect leads from interested party but even more important is you MUST follow up with them. If people express their interest ' the job is at least 50% done. Then it is in effective follow up to close the deal.

This company neglected this database ' and even worse, neglected these peoples trust.

It will be interesting to see what we can do with some effective follow up.

From what I have seen so far ' simple letters and emails will help sell million dollar home sales. Of course it will take more than just that ' but most people were very happy to get emails and print letters from us.

I will keep you updated on the progress of this project ' it is a fun one.

Remember, keep a database ' and follow up with them! Invite them to special events. Give them gifts. Treat them like gold. And follow up with them again, and again, and again.

You are criminally neglecting these people if you take their names and do nothing with them.

The sad part?

This client is much like 95% of the companies out there in existence today.

Which is why it doesn't take much to stand out from the crowd as people are sadly quite used to this kind of neglect?

Be the one that does pay attention.

And be the one who shows them that you DO care about their business.

PS ' If you are looking for investment properties or are looking for one of the best communities to live in ' let me know! In the first 24 months, the lots in this community have gone up 250% in value.

The one person who lives there now has tripled his money in less than 2 years! Calgary (where I live) is a SCREAMING hot real estate market right now ' average home prices are going up at 10% a month right now. And this is the ONLY natural lake front community being built ' or even available right now. Let me know if you want more information.

Troy White, The Marketing Results Mentor and Expert Copywriter helps clients achieve HUGE growth surges in their business in very short periods of time. If you're an entrepreneur in need of quick cash flow surges ' here is the quick-hit solution to put money in your bank.... The Wild West Wealth Summit! Make sure you visit http://www.WildWestWealth.com or sign up for the Free Cash Flow Surge Newsletter at http://www.CashFlowSurges.com

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How to Hire Great Sales People

2007-11-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hire Smart: Three Great Interview Questions to Hire Great Sales Staff

For small business owners, good sales staff is absolutely critical; they can make or break your business. Unfortunately, salespeople are also the most difficult employees to retain, precisely because of their business value. When hiring a new salesperson, many employers fall into the trap of using industry experience alone as the key hiring factor. But if the candidate left your competitor, what makes you so sure he'll like it any better at your company?

Many hiring mistakes could be avoided at the interview stage. By asking the right interview questions and by observing the candidate's selling skills during the interview, you can hire the right salesperson the first time.

The following three interview questions can help you avoid sales staff turnover.

Question #1: Why did you choose sales as a profession?

The answer to this question will help you weed out those who truly love selling from those who just happened to fall into sales as a profession.

Beware of answers like:

*Oh, I just kind of ended up in sales after college.

*Well, when I didn't get accepted into med school, I figured sales would be a good paying career

Look for positive responses, as in:

*I am money-motivated and enjoy the opportunity to earn sales commissions.

*I have always loved the challenge of influencing the decisions of others.

Question #2: If you were not in sales, what would your profession be?

This question will lead your candidate to reveal his true career goals. It is a much better question than the typical: Where do you see yourself in five years? After all, most candidates already have a canned answer to the five-year question, but it's doubtful they have been asked about their true ambitions. Their candid response will reveal much about their long-term fit with your business plans.

There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but as you listen decide if his career desires match up with your business objectives. An employee who harbors discontent in the back of his mind will never perform to his full potential.

Question #3: What part of the sales process do you like best?

Your candidate's answer to this will demonstrate two things to you: his knowledge of the selling process and whether his selling style fits your strategic objectives.

If your company's revenue is based on a long sales cycle, you will need a salesperson with patience and great prospect follow up. If your business model is based on high sales volume, you’ll want someone driven to "close the deal." If your sales strategy is based on building a new clientèle from scratch, you'll need a sales person who excels in prospecting for new business.

No matter the current size of your company, the sales function has the biggest impact on your revenue growth. Your company’s revenue will increase steadily over time with a reliable sales team. You owe it to your company’s future to choose your sales team with great care. In your next sales interview, ask the right questions and you'll be on your way to building a sales force that outsells your competition.

Deborah Walker, Small Business Coach helps entrepreneurs navigate the hiring maze with tips and suggestions on how to recruit, interview and hire the best employees. Her veteran experience as a former executive recruiter gives her the unique perspective to help you avoid the pitfalls of bad hiring decisions. Learn how Deborah can help your business at: www.RevenueQueen.com

To get the ultimate online salesman contact Professional Web Services for getting your B2C or B2B business found on the Web with Results Oriented Internet Marketing Services today.

Communication Strategies For Success

2007-11-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly... How to Talk with Prospective Clients.

We recently went to a sales presentation that was very educational in some very unusual ways. It wasn't the information from the presentation that was educational. How the person made her sales presentation was the educational part. Her personality and style of asking questions didn't do much for attracting clients. It in fact was down right repulsive at times. Something someone more conscientious doesn't want anything to do with. Let's look at the good, the bad and the ugly in some sales presentations.

The Good... Realize that is it really isn't about you. It's entirely about the person sitting in front of you that you would like to sell your service or product to. Put your ego and agenda aside. Yes, you really want to make some money and close the sale. What is important is you are providing the solutions to their problems and challenges.

You must become the answer to the riddle that they have in their lives. Something so compelling that you're the expert in solving. By trying to force something down someone's throat that you think they need will only make them want to get away from you, no matter how spectacular you think your service is. I know many people say "the product sells itself" and that can be true. It is also true that "a pushy sales presenter can mess up an easy sale too".

The Bad... If you don't have a strong belief in what you are offering, how can anyone else? It's important to really believe in your product or service. Let them use their imagination about what it will feel like to use your service. Paint a picture for them of what life will be like with you helping them. Describe how different their life will be and what a difference you service will make to their lives six months from now. Many times just by helping take your prospective client through this little exercise you have made their purchase decision so much easier. And don't be alarmed if they suddenly get very quiet at this point. They may be using their imagination and be in a slight trance as they are seeing in their mind what the future may be with the help of your service or product. Let them have this time to think.

The Ugly... Playing the "Yes" game can get ugly pretty fast. That's the game when a sales person keeps trying to get you to say yes or commit to small things so they can get you into a pattern of behavior. The hope is by getting you to do this that when it comes time for the big closing you will easily say yes to whatever they offer. The game works to a certain extent until the prospective client finds out what you're up to and then the end of the game comes quickly with the sales person as the big loser.

One of the best ways to make a sales presentation with integrity is to ask really good questions. This is how you can find out what their challenges are that you have the answer to. It is also important to remember that this is not an interrogation. To continually quiz and push someone for answers to your questions can push people away. By keeping the conversation light and upbeat, they will get to know you and see your value.

Remember the 80-20 rule. Let your client do 80 percent of the talking while you do 20 percent. By letting them talk about themselves, you can then discover what their challenges are. They will tell you what they need and want. The questions and conversations that you have with people are very important. When you let people talk about themselves, they will appreciate and trust you even more.

© 2007 Pro Power Services, Inc

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

D.J. and Sherri Frost are Healing Arts Business Growth Specialists helping holistic practitioners grow their businesses. To get their FREE eCourse: 7 Critical Skills to Attract More Money, More Clients and a Soul-Satisfying Lifestyle, visit their site at www.ProPowerNow.com

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered; please send a copy of your reprint to info@ProPowerNow.com

For the Internet marketing and website business solution contact Professional Web Services today.

Deal or No Deal? How To Close Sales When Prospects Call

2007-11-16T20:07:00.000-08:00

Deal Or No Deal

Small business owners know that the most important function of the telephone is to bring customers to you, begging for your service or product offering. So when the phone rings with a prospective customer on the other end, do you know how to transform an interested caller into a buying customer? Here are three phone sales tips to help you close more sales.

1. Find the need

Don't assume that everyone interested in your product or service buys for the same reason. Before you attempt to sell the prospect on how great your product or service is, ask a few qualifying questions to uncover his buying motivations.

For example:

"Will you be using this in your home office or your workplace?"

"How many copies per day does your office normally need?

"What is it about your current copier you are not satisfied with?"

Once you ask a few probing questions, listen for the problems, challenges, or frustrations that your prospect is facing. Your caller is not looking for you to sell him something—he's looking for you to solve his problems. Once you know his problem, you'll be able to sell the benefits of your product or service based on what he needs.

2. Magnify the need

Most people buy for emotional reasons. When you magnify the need, you tap into his emotional buying motives and create an urgency to purchase. A few questions or statements might be:

"Do you have a backup plan if your copier fails right before a key client presentation?"

"I see how those continual paper jams could hold up copying projects for hours."

"I'll bet that was an embarrassing situation, not being able to make a copy for a client because your machine was down."

By creating the perception that your product is critical to his success, you are much more likely to win the sale.

3. Answer objections

Objections are the reasons that prevent your prospect from saying, "So, do you take Visa or MasterCard?" If you don't find out the objections, you can't answer them—and your prospect will call your competitor instead. To find out his objections, ask a few questions like:

"What key concerns do you have that prevent you from making your decision?"

"How can I help you decide if this is the right product for you?"

Be sure to answer his objections based on what you know about his buying motivation, his need. Additionally, try answering his objections with a question that will lead to a buying decision. For instance:

His objection:

"I'm no good with technology. I hate to invest in a new copier just to have problems with it that I can't figure out how to fix."

Your Question:

"Would you like a free 12-month service agreement with your new copier?"

4. Close the deal

It's amazing how many small business owners don't make the sale because they fail to ask closing questions. Closing questions are designed to bring the prospect to a place of decision or a call to action.

Ideally, you'll want to ask closing questions through out the sales process that produce small "yeses" like:

"Would information on product reliability be of value to your decision?"

"Are you interested in a program that will save you both time and money?"

"Is timely delivery an important issue for your business?"

Once your prospect gets used to saying "yes," it will be more natural to say the all important YES at the end. Listen for buying signals from your prospect and be ready with many ways to ask for the sale. For example:

"If I could guarantee delivery by the end of the week, are you ready to move forward with the purchase today?"

"If that price quote is acceptable to you, shall I ship it today?"

"I can schedule your project for next week, but I'll need your credit card information to hold your project start date. I can take that information now if you are ready."

Good salesmanship requires practice, practice, practice. Think through all possible objections to your service or product. Write out possible responses and questions that lead to buying decisions. If you put the time in to think your sales process through, you'll feel more confident when a prospect calls you. The more confident you are with your sales process, the more sales you'll close.

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Deborah Walker is a Small Business Coach specializing in sales training and revenue growth strategies. Her career-long expertise as a successful small business owner provides insight to the do's and don'ts of building a sustainable revenue stream. Click to learn more at http://www.RevenueQueen.com

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For help with you business website and to make it a better salesman for your company, contact Professional Web Services for the Internet marketing business solution.

And The Word Is The

2007-01-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

Ever Wonder What The Most Common Used English Words Are?

The winner is the word THE

I did a comparison from the various lists of common English word usages. You can see three of the most popular lists and compare the words for The Top 100 Most Common Used English Words.

Click on the WordCount link at the top of the third list and there is a really cool looking and user active program for determining the popularity of any of the 86,800 words in that database for the English language. Explore their website and you will find another program, QueryCount, that tracks what words have been typed into WordCount from most to least.

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Apple Takes Bite Out Of Computer

2007-01-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs Announced The iPhone And The Removal Of Computer From Apple Computer, Inc.

Consumer Electronics Show

Apple Inc., is the new official new name for formally Apple Computer, Inc. Steve Jobs in a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show talked about the reason for the name change as Apple is more than Computers.

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Creative sales, marketing, and advertising for your B2B or B2C business on the Internet.

Services Of Professional Web Services

2007-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing Services

The term Internet marketing covers a wide array of online activities designed to improve the market reach of companies, websites, brands, and even individuals with the idea of promoting a particular company or person in relation to a particular professional industry. Attorneys, Doctors, Dentists, Realtors, and other professions are promoted and their brand image is expanded online. The reach can be global or local depending on the particular target markets. B2B and B2C companies can be effectively marketed using various online tools and services.

Another description from the online Wikipedia encyclopedia is as follows. Internet marketing is the use of the Internet to advertise and sell goods and services. Internet Marketing includes pay per click advertising, banner ads, e-mail marketing, interactive advertising, search engine marketing (including search engine optimization), blog marketing, and article marketing.

Professional Web Services, covers the spectrum of Internet, Online, and Web Marketing. For a brief overview, take a look at our professional Internet marketing services page.

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Products Pages With Information

2007-01-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing For Both B2B Buyers Side And B2C Consumers Side

Providing information with the products your business sells is absolutely required today. Both B2B buyers (purchasing managers) and consumers want to know the details about a product being sold by any business before they will make a purchase. This sounds simple enough, but having a picture along with the product information can be instrumental in making the sale. Consider how easily consumers can navigate away from any B2C website in search of the competition with more detailed information.

If you want to cover both the search engines and new visitors then there must be a good balance between the illustration and the words being used in the captions or the on page text. Videos can also be very helpful in the product display pages. Not only can a video show actual operation of various equipment, products, and even software programs, it can also be used to introduce your company or yourself to the world. The sales and marketing aspect of this can not be overlooked. This can become a very powerful Internet marketing force for any business today.

Professional Web Services, Internet Marketing Services, Sales And Marketing Services, and Online Advertising Strategies.

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Creative sales, marketing, and advertising for your B2B or B2C business on the Internet.

About Professional Internet Marketing Agents

2007-01-10T06:12:00.000-08:00

Professional Web Services, Inc. came into existence because of a belief that companies are not being properly marketed, advertised, or promoted with proper web site development strategies to reach their targeted audiences.

Both B2B and B2C companies need to take advantage of the power of the various Internet marketing tools available. Many of the tools are sitting, just waiting to be utilized for free, both for the large corporations and small business. Things like blogs, rss feeds, email marketing, and online advertising are just but a few of the many strategic marketing items that can help promote a company on the Web.

Yes, it will take substantial Internet marketing efforts and know-how using the right marketing agents.

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Home Is Where The Heart Is

2007-01-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

What Are You Going To Say On Your Home Page?

Well, that depends on a number of factors. Is your BtoB or BtoC company a well known brand? If the company is well known, then chances are it is not necessary to spell your business out in detail on this first page of your website. However, if the business is not a fortune 500 company, like 95% of the companies in the world, then you better have a good sales, marketing, and advertising plan layout, with the home page being key.

You must include the major keywords of your business in the website, and the prime real estate is the home page. Internet marketing is about promoting a company online. Utilizing all aspects of the Web for sales, marketing, and advertising your B2B or B2C business online is vital from both the search engine standpoint, as well as having new visitors be able to read the key points about your B2C or B2B business online.

For example: Professional Web Services provides a wealth of information related to Internet Marketing. We better be saying something about Internet marketing on our home page. As a company develops into a well known brand, then it can afford to drop some of the verbiage on the home page for the main website. But, until a company is recognized with that kind of brand awareness, then spelling out what your company does is most important, given the search variables being used today.

Some experts will try to say that having a small home page like Google, is the way to go. That is like comparing apples to oranges. Look at Apple Inc., formally Apple Computer Inc. Their website varies greatly from time to time. Sometimes they have one certain item, like the iPhone, that they want to focus on. Other times they have their whole collection of products being displayed on the home page of the website. Yahoo likewise has a wide collection of information on their home page. It would not make much marketing and advertising sense for them to reduce the information from their front page. After all, they started out as a website portal, and even though they have search, they are still considered a website portal with tons of information for consumers.

Professional Web Services, Internet Marketing Services Sales And Marketing Services

Professional Web Services, professional web sites to set your brand apart.

Creative sales, marketing, and advertising for your B2B or B2C business on the Internet.

Something New Something Old

2007-01-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

What To Do When You Need More Pages In A Blog

Adding a menu system can be just the ticket for navigating between pages on the blog. Create specific postings for each of the headings and create a link to that page in the menu system.

Jim

Professional Web Services, provides Internet marketing services and sales and marketing to improve your bottom line online results.

Professional Web Services, professional web sites to set your brand apart online in the search engine results pages.

Creative sales, marketing, and advertising for your B2B or B2C business on the Internet.

Give Your Salesman Good Tools

2006-05-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

The Salesman's B2B And B2C Marketing Tools
By: James A. Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

Making a Good Sales Man — Woman
Most B2B or B2C companies have salesmen or saleswomen working for them. Not all companies supply good tools for making them successful. Many companies hire sales people and expect them to go out and get orders without proper training in the equipment, software, processes, or products. Even if the training takes place, many companies forget the power that the Internet provides for businesses willing to spend some time and money to help their sales people do a better job.

The main Internet tool that I am talking about is the company's website. Let's say for the moment that you have trained your sales people in the products or services provided by your company. Now that same sales person needs to make sales calls to various organizations. Sometimes those sales calls are in-person, on the phone, or many times in emails. Nine times out of ten a follow-up e-mail is sent out to the engineer, buyer, or consumer in order to give contact information, provide answers to additional follow up questions, or simply to send a thank you for the time spent with them.

The importance of the e-mail is often overlooked in what can be accomplished through this important tool. Emails are a prime area to provide additional information in the form of a signature block. Signature blocks can be much more than just your name, address, and business phone number. This is where you can have a link to your website, with some other pertinent information related to your business Brand. It is one thing to have the link to the website in the form of the URL, i.e. www.pwebs.net but expanding this information to say something about your business can make a much larger sales impact.

For an example of something that could be said about our business is:

Professional Web Services, Inc. provides Internet Marketing Services, Online Advertising Strategies, and Web Branding Solutions for your business on the Internet. Expand your market reach today. Contact Professional Web Services.

Now, let's look at that same example and create a few hyperlinks in it.

Professional Web Services, Inc. provides Internet Marketing Services, online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions for your business on the Internet. Expand your market reach online today. Contact Professional Web Services.

This same text with the built in hyperlinks makes it easy for a customer to go directly to various landing pages from within the email to the website. Imagine the sales impact that this type of marketing has on the customer. It is simple and elegant; along with a form of online advertisement about the B2B or B2C company. After all, the customer is reading your e-mail, which means they are already online. It is a simple click to go to your website.

Now, for those businesses that have multiple product lines or different services for various industries it would be a good idea to have more than one signature block along with good landing pages for each industry. This is where a company's website is important as a sales tool for the sales person. In fact, many times it is the sales people that have insight into what information the customers are looking for. Get the feedback from sales to develop good landing pages. This takes effort on both the sales people, management, and the person responsible for the website. It requires strategic communications between all three groups to help create the best information possible.

Once the pages are created, sales and marketing can utilize this in more ways then one. Back to the e-mails for a moment. Do not assume that your sales person knows how to create keyword hyperlinks. Most email applications have what is referred to as the link button. Typically the way this works is a person writes the text and then highlights the text that they wish to make into a hyperlink. Once the text is highlighted then click on the link button to enter the URL address of the page you wish to make the landing page. If you have the website open, simply go to the page that you would like a customer to go to and then click on the address bar at the top and copy it using the copy button or on a PC, right-click copy from the mouse, or in the Apple Mac world; shortcuts, menu button, or a two button mouse can also be used the same way. Then go back to the email and paste it into the address link field. Now you have created an email link to the landing page. They should also include the hyperlinks in the body of the email. Reading the information in context while being able to click the link is an excellent way for the prospect or customer to get to your key landing page in the website.

Encourage sales to utilize the pages of the website for any type of e-mail communications. The reason is, many people will hold on to those emails for a long time. Even if a customer is not interested in the product or service right now, they could be interested in the future. It would simply be a matter of them opening the email and going directly to the page of the website.

This all comes down to having the pages in the website to support your sales people. Without the proper information available to a salesman online, it is less likely that a current prospect will become a future customer. Ultimately that is what sales is all about. Developing prospects and converting them into paying customers.

24 x 7 x 365 Salesman

With Professional Web Services, Inc. Ultimate Salesman we can help bring in prospects to your business. Let us show you how to put the right tools in the hands of your sales people and develop a website with some creative Internet marketing style that can be used as a 24 x 7 x 365 sales, marketing, and advertising business tool. Contact Professional Web Services today to start providing mores sales, referrals, and leads for your B2B or B2C business tomorrow.

Contact Your Salesman

2006-05-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

Consider having a Formmail placed in your website for contacting your salesman.

Formmails can be great but there are other times having an email address placed into the page itself is helpful for someone to contact you. However, having your email published in the web page without doing a few things first, is not always the best practice from a website design standpoint. Email harvesting robots, which roam the Internet, collect email addresses that are published on all pages, and then you not what happens after that. Tons of email to that address!

There are a few JavaScript tricks for preventing the harvesting of emails (see: Email Protection) and still allow it to be published on a website. However, as a website becomes more popular and has more traffic, people see the addresses online, even if you are using JavaScripts, and then manually type in your email address or click on it, and send you all kinds of offers that you really don't want.

No matter which direction you go with Email or Formail, as you can see, if you click the link below, a formmail can be just the ticket for your business-to-business or business-to-consumer website.

Find out how we can help make your website a 24x7, ultimate salesman. Be sure to ask for your free Internet marketing website evaluation, when you contact us today.

You've found the right marketing business solution with Professional Web Services today.

Promotional Marketing And Advertising

2006-02-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

Creating Maximum Exposure
By: James A. Warholic

Promoting a multimillion dollar a year company in a local or global community involves taking into consideration a number of different aspects from both the traditional and non-traditional forms of media publicity exposure.

Brand First And Foremost

Given the fact that brand exposure and brand recognition are critical to the success of a business it is one of the most important aspects of promoting a company. Much has been developed by strategic marketing firms that really have a great understanding of promoting a client's brand in the local or global community through radio, television, news articles, publications, newspaper advertising, etc. etc. However, many of these large and very successful marketing companies that represent their clients' branded images through customer service or public relations strategies, lack an understanding of the Internet.

Many strategic marketing firms take a somewhat of a glib Web attitude toward developing a good brand reach and recognition through the clients' websites. This can be seen even in some promotional marketing firms in the way they promote their own websites.

No One Can Be An Expert at Everything

International Promotional Marketing And Advertising firms today have come out of a pre Search Engine mold. That is to say, they know some of the best promotional marketing practices and have solid advertising backgrounds to promote their clients, but have not developed that into an effective Internet marketing and Online advertising area, or search engine expertise. The sales, marketing, and advertising mold is based on what worked in television, radio, and newspaper advertising.

Advertising on the television was done with the premise of gaining the attention of the viewer. Radio advertising had similar ideas of making sure the message would get remembered through music jingles, key sayings, or other creative forms of sound attention remembering ads. Newspaper advertising is done with repetition in mind. Selecting the right ad size, what it says, and the placement and page selection for effective communication and persuasion are just a few of the items to consider. See Fishing For Customers

Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, Email Marketing

The Internet marketing, online advertising, and email marketing are not your traditional forms of media exposure. They do not follow the exact same keys to success that are established by sales and marketing superstars. Each of these three Internet related categories, (Internet marketing, Online advertising, and Email marketing) are unique in the approach toward successfully implementing them into an effective promotional strategy.

Considerations of the ever changing technology, from search engine algorithms, new visual and auditory website schemes for effective communication, and the habits and pulse of the target audience are important when developing a successful Internet strategy for promoting your company online. Not understanding any one of these areas can severely limit your online exposure.

The Search Engine Example

Take for example a company creating a Flash Intro to their website. The sales and marketing people thought a nice looking moving advertisement would look wonderful to a prospect. However, they did not consider that a potential prospect might never find them online because the Flash Intro caused a blockage from the Search Engine Robot's world. To top that off, the name of the company is being copied by others online and their competitors' websites are showing up in the search results instead of their own.

As always, there is more than meets the eye. For more information about what is needed for your website visit ours; filled with helpful information for Internet marketing, online advertising, and web branding. Start making a search engine marketing impact today.

Professional Web Services, Inc.

Global Sales And Marketing

2006-02-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

In today's market place simply having a website Online is not enough to achieve higher Internet sales volume.

In order to achieve more Online sales requires a commitment of time and finances, toward a complete Internet marketing system involving sales and marketing personnel, website designers, IT departments, content managers, and upper management. Upper management from the President on down, needs to have an understanding of the customer base and how to properly target the website to that customer base. It will take collaboration from every single level of support. Presidents, CEOs and other corporate executives will need to have a more thorough understanding of the Internet and the technology available to promote their company online.

Companies will have to become educated on the understanding of how Search Engines function, ethical business practices in SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and a much more thorough understanding of why certain websites will need to be more visually graphic and others will need to be more text informative from a search marketing perspective.

Brand Image and Brand Awareness Will also Continue to Play a large Internet Factor on Website Development

Ethics and Internet ethics will be an important key to businesses online. The brand perception of the public about a company's ethical or nonethical business practices will be of greater importance as time goes on. Just take a look at the latest hidden keyword business practices that BMW was doing on their website along with thousands of other websites that got removed from the Google Search index back in 2004 when an unethical SEO company performed massive redirects for their clients' websites and created doorway pages filled with spam. All of these factors can significantly hurt a company's sales. Read this story.

As Web technology changes and improves, the website personnel will have to adapt strategically to new challenges and stay fresh from a B2B or B2C standpoint to create the largest marketing and advertising impact. How well companies do this will reflect in their online sales and the bottom-line.

Ultimately the goal of any B2B or B2C company is to have the website as an online sales extension of your company. Sales and Marketing then can use the website as one of their sales tools for lead capture, secure eCommerce shopping carts for order taking, and eBusiness customer relationship management built in.

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Contact Professional Web Services today for your 24 x 7 x 365 B2B and B2C business solution.