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4 Marketing Myths Threaten Your Sales
These 4 marketing myths can cause you to lose sales if you base your marketing decisions on them. But the related marketing tips I included with each myth will boost your sales if you act on them instead. Myth 1: If this was true, only businesses that charge cheap prices would exist. Some people buy where they get the cheapest price. But most people are more interested in getting value for their money than in getting a bargain. Tip: Look for some low-cost ways you can enhance the perceived value of your product or service. Then test raising your price. Don't be surprised if both your sales and your profit margin go up. Myth 2: v Offering Your Customers Many Options Will Boost Your Sales Presenting your customers with options usually reduces your sales. Here's why... When confronted with several options, most customers have difficulty making a clear decision. They often react by procrastinating - and never making a decision. When this happens, you lose a sale you already had. Tip: Try to limit your customer's decision making to either "Yes. I'll buy." or "No. I won't buy". Don't risk losing them by including "which one" decisions. Myth 3: That's what YOU think. Most of them don't think they need it ...and most aren't ready to spend their money for it. The hazard of this myth is that it causes many marketers to believe they can succeed without doing much marketing or selling. They think their product or service is so special that it should automatically generate hordes of paying customers. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen that way. Building a successful business is hard work - most of it devoted to finding customers. Even if most people can use your product or service, you still need a marketing strategy to reach them and a persuasive sales message to close sales. Tip: Look for narrowly defined niche markets where your product or service solves a unique need of the customers. Focus your marketing on them instead of trying to reach a broadly defined general market. You'll generate more sales and enjoy a better return on your advertising expense. Myth 4: This sounds logical but it's not true. Never abandon advertising that's working. I know many businesses that have been using the same advertising for years and they're still growing. Here's why... The goal of most advertising is to attract new customers. Once someone becomes a customer, they won't respond to that advertising again. But you can use different (and cheaper) advertising to generate additional sales from them. But there's still a large population of non-customers who did not respond to your regular advertising. Most have not seen it yet ...and those who have usually need to see it numerous times before they will respond. Don't abandon advertising that's working - but keep trying to improve it. And regularly test new things to see how they work for you. If you never make any changes in your advertising, your sales will eventually decline. Tip: You can automatically keep your advertising up to date by allocating 80 percent of your budget to proven promotions and 20 percent to testing new things. When something new works better than your proven promotions, move it to the 80 percent group and start testing something else in the 20 percent category. Don't believe these 4 marketing myths. They're not true. Marketing based on them will cause you to lose sales. Instead, apply the related marketing tips I included after each myth to boost your sales. Copyright 2004 Bob Leduc http://BobLeduc.com Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards... and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV
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Careers and Employment Beyond the Golden Rule There are several types and sub types of people in the world. Getting to understand the differences will help you connect with other people. This is taught in sales 101, because the need to connect with the people to make the sale. Promoting Your Private Label at Industry Trade Shows So everyone thought you were crazy when you announced 6 months ago that you were quitting your "real job" in hopes of chasing starting your own Private Label Clothing Line. Your house is a disaster, blank shirts and line sheets everywhere, your living room has been transformed into a makeshift production lab. You've bled and sweat, investing every last of ounce of time, effort and inevitably?your life savings. At last, you are first sample line is complete and your line sheets are nothing short of spectacular. Congratulations! But wait?better take a deep breath as the real work has only begun. What next? Sales Coaching... Fact or Fiction? The old adage in selling has always been, "Find out what they want, then, give it to them." The fundamentals of selling are clearly that elemental. The application thereof, however, continues to be the litmus test that quickly separates the skilled from the rest. How Many Salespeople Should I Hire? One of the most asked questions I get is how many sales people does it take to get the revenue numbers needed. Personally, I believe in large sales forces because in highly competitive situations the largest army wins. That doesn't mean, however, that you can go out and hire 100 sales people if all you can possibly sell this year is a million dollars if everything goes right. So how do you decide how large a staff you need? The Achilles Heel of Management Coaching While heading home at day's end, you begin reflecting on a coaching meeting you had earlier that day with an employee, Chris. You hope that, this time, you finally succeeded in getting her to understand the importance of spending less time in disruptive socializing in the office and more time elevating her performance. If not, you feel that your only remaining alternatives are to give her a poor performance evaluation or demotion or may even fire her. You're reluctant to do either of the first two things because you know these would disrupt the positive work relationship you've had with Chris. And you don't really want to fire her. On the other hand, you are running out of patience; this is the fourth time you've said something to Chris about the situation. Admittedly, the first few times, your comments may have missed the mark because you gave her only some casual feedback. But about a month ago, you held a formal coaching meeting with Chris, in which you discussed the situation in depth and came away thinking that she understood the need to change her behavior. In fact, she did change. But after a week or so, she was back to her old behavior. Book of Lists Marketing for Pressure Washing Companies The American Business Journals produces a Book of Lists each year in their many markets, it is wise for pressure washing companies to use this book of lists to find new clientele. The book of lists, lists the top companies in size in all industry sectors. Since pressure washing companies clean almost anything, it behooves them to use the book to selectively target the top companies to do business with. Overcoming Sales Objections for Small Business Networks Do you need help overcoming sales objections? Do you sell computer networks, or other IT-related products and services to small businesses? This article provides tips and hints so you can be overcoming the most common sales objections heard when selling networks to small business prospects, customers, and clients. How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance -- Part 2 Another key reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon subjective information. Think about it: What are resumes? They are an individual's subjective portrayal of their capabilities and experiences. The Hardest Job Of A Trade Show You've heard this before: There were four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. The Differences Between A Commercial Collections Agency & Lawyer If your letter writing and phone calls have all failed to resolve a debt issue, it is time to call in a professional - a commercial collection agency or a lawyer specializing in commercial debt collection. To Increase Your Sales and Revenue Make Sure To Add Value What are you and your company's services and products worth to customers? What is the value you and your company bring to your customers? When working with customers and organizations, it is important to distinguish the difference between worth and value and to set a baseline value for the contributions you bring to the table. To illustrate, following is a simple example based on a company that provides training to other companies: How to Sharpen Your Sales Message with Do-it-Yourself Focus Groups - Small Business Power Tools You've probably heard of focus groups. It's a tool that the big guys use to quickly test a new product or service or to get fast feedback from potential customers. Focus groups do not provide real, actionable information but are great for what I call "clue hunting." For example, I once sat through a series of focus groups on a new camera-related product. After three focus groups, we were able to pretty well conclude there wouldn't be much of a market for this particular product, and the idea was dropped. The three focus groups probably cost this advertiser around $5000 vs. the hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have been wasted had they put the product into manufacturing. Sales Pipeline Forecasting Is There A Better Way? To put it mildly most companies sales forecasting just isn't delivering, a staggering 90% of the deals do not close as forecasted even when the close probability is 75% or over. Even more astonishing is that 54% of forecasted deals are lost to competitors or to a no decision. Set Yourself up for Trade Show Success Of the many mistakes small business owners make, a big one is participating in trade shows and business expos without a strategy for turning those marketing opportunities into sales. Here are five tips to get you started. How We Build a 90% Failure Rate into the Sales Process I recently began doing training in the banking industry. Across the board, successful bankers close between 2% and 6% of the prospects they call on, starting from their first prospecting call. Sales Marketing: 12 Sneaky Tricks To Help You Outsell Your Competition Business can be like war sometimes. Building Trust For Lifetime Success Trust. Hiring--A Vital Key In Sales Management Success Recently, I was asked to spend some time on the telephone, coaching a client's administrative assistant on how to check out an employment candidate's references. After each in-person or telephone conference, I complete a brief written report going over the information discussed. The information that I gave this worker was so vital to the company's overall sales management success that I felt impelled to share the report in my periodic client e-mailings, feeling that it might be of value to others that I serve. The information is so vital to the management process, I decided to reproduce it here as well. Sex, Drugs, & Rock-n-Roll: Trade Show Traps and Tips Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll 7 Tips for Testing Your Sales and Marketing One marketing technique may work wonders for someone, but that doesn't guarantee that it will do the same for you. The only way to really know what works for YOUR products and YOUR target audience is to experiment. Testing and experimentation are crucial to increasing your profits.
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