Keep the Sale

Keep The Sale - Does this sound familiar?

After dozens of phones calls and emails as well as several face-to-face meetings, you finally reach an agreement with a prospect who is intent on buying your service, product or solution.

"Whew! Another sale done," you think to yourself.

But, wait. Before you start counting your commission it is critical that you keep the sale. Just because a prospect has agreed to move forward it does not mean that the sale will move forward, especially if you sell a complex system or solution. Dozens of things can happen to derail your efforts.

Your key contact may change companies or positions. The person you are dealing with gets cold feet, loses interest, or decides to change vendors. The company may be acquired or sold. A competitor may approach your prospect with a better offer. There is no such thing as a guaranteed sale even if you are holding a signed contract. That means you need to ensure that you keep the sale. Here are several strategies you can incorporate into your business that will help you achieve this.

1. First, send some form of acknowledgement or thank-you. I know this sounds like an elementary concept but most sales people think of doing this. They take the sale and move on to the next prospect. However, if you send a thank-you card immediately after you confirm the sale, you differentiate yourself you're your competition. You can also use postcards. The key is to show your new customer that you value his or her business and thanking them is just one small gesture that demonstrates this.

2. The next thing to do is regularly update your new customer. Keep them informed about things like delivery or shipment status and installation dates and schedules. If you sell a highly customized product, make sure you advise them on the progress of the development of their product. Frequency of updates will depend on a few factors.

- What does your key decision-maker expect or want? If they are detail oriented person they will require more frequent updates than someone who is less detail-oriented. The easiest way to determine this is ask this question, "How often do you want me to send you updates?" A simple question but one that will give you tremendous insight into your customer's expectations.

- Another factor is the length of time that occurs between the time of your agreement and when your services will be rendered or your product will be delivered. The more time that elapses between these two, the more important it is for you to update your customer. For example, in my particular business, it is not uncommon for a company to book me for a keynote speech or training workshop up to a year in advance. During this time, I try to send them some form of update so they know I have not forgotten about their event.

3. Send them additional information of value. This includes articles, magazine and newspaper clippings, or other information that is relevant to their business. You could send them an article that mentions a strategic move one of their competitors is about to make or an article on a topic that relates to your key contact's interests. You may come across a newspaper article about their company-clip this article and send it your client. It does not matter if they have already read the article because your gesture shows that you are paying attention to their business. And most sales people do not do this. One word of caution. Do NOT send information about your product! This is not about you! It is about giving your new customer a reason to keep the sale with you.

4. Depending on the size of the sale, you could send a book that will help them with their business. There are a multitude of books on the market today, addressing virtually every business situation. If your client enjoys reading then it makes good business sense to send them a book that will help improve their results. I have sent books to my clients that focus on communication, leadership, sales, and customer service. Attach a brief note explaining why you sent this book.

5. Lastly, reinforce their buying decision. The easiest way to do this is to send them testimonials from satisfied customers. An even more effective approach is to ask one of your existing clients to call your new customer. People want reassurances that they have made a sound buying decision so just imagine the impact if they heard a voice mail message from one of your clients stating how satisfied they were with your product, service or solution.

These may sound like simple concepts. However, I can guarantee that very few sales people actually use them. Integrating these strategies into your routine will not only help you differentiate yourself from your competition, you will increase your odds of keeping every sale you make.

About the Author
Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling helps sales professionals and businesses discover new techniques to improve their sales and profits. For information on his programs contact him at 905-633-7750 or Kelley@RobertsonTrainingGroup.com.

Article Marketing Secrets and SEO Techniques

You won't find many article marketing secrets being given away online, because very few people properly understand the power of this internet marketing tool. It is more than simply a way of getting links back to your website, but a very powerful tool that if used properly can increase your sales to another level.

If you are provided with 'secrets' then they are well known by almost everybody. I will admit that even the 'secrets' I am about to divulge are not secrets at all, but well known article marketing techniques. However, what I will also say is that the three provided here are neither appreciated nor used by all of even those that profess to be marketing 'gurus'.

I know that because I have purchased many of their books and they don't suggest what I suggest: I know my systems work and can prove it through my website listings. However I must stop because I am becoming dangerously close to advertising, but I have done so as to indicate about the maximum you can do on article directories to advertise yourself: and that is your free tip. Do not advertise in your articles if they are intended for submission. Leave that for your 'author's resource box'.



The most common purpose for people writing articles and offering them to directories for publication is to get those all-important back links from the directories. However, just stand back a bit and think why the directories are in existence. It is not for your benefit. It is not to provide you with a free means of improving your Google PageRank, but they exist to make money. And why not? Otherwise there would be no point in anybody offering an article directory to all of these online writers.

You don't pay to have your articles published on the directories, so what is their purpose? How do these people make money? Two ways in fact: the first is by means of Adsense. If you do a search for an article on a specific topic, you will certainly find one because articles have been written on every topic on the planet. On the same page you will find Adsense ads. The reason for this is obvious and also psychological.

It is because most articles are not worth reading, and visitors generally have a quick look at them before leaving the directory site to seek proper information on their topic or niche. That is when they are liable to click on the Adsense ads and make money for the directory owner. That is added to the second way they make money which is from payment for speeding up the listing of the articles. You've seen the thing: get listed in several weeks or pay a few dollars for an instant listing. Like most other serious marketers, I pay.

Whichever means they use, article directories realize that it is to their advantage to get high search engine listings for as many articles as possible. They then have their sites visited by as many people as possible, and also have writers use them. That provides them with more visitors to click the Adsense ads and also as an inducement to other budding authors who might pay for listings. I don't pay for a listing in a site that never has my articles in Google.

Here are three secrets or tips, that you can use in your own article marketing campaigns:

Secret #1 is that if you write the article on a topic related to the content of a page on your website, then the directory (and by that I mean the owner, but let's call it 'the directory' for simplicity) will do all the SEO work and get your article listed so as to get as many visitors as possible. That earns them money. What that means to you is that you get free SEO done on your article.

Why do you think that your articles have to be of a minimum length and of a certain standard? To be listed by search engines, especially Google, that's why. You can use this information to your advantage, but your articles must be at least 500 words. Your resource URL must be one related to the article, and if you make it your blog, that is even better. Place links on your blog to all your other relevant online ventures.

Secret #2 is not really a secret as a submission technique. When you have finished writing your article save it and submit it as a text file. Most people write using Microsoft word, or some other word processing software that uses their own formating code embedded in the article. You don't see it, but the search engines do and it could harm the listing of the directory web page containing your article.

Secret #3 is that many sites offer two or three links in the author's resource. That allows you not only to present links to two or three pages on your website, but also that these links need not all be from the same site. You could provide a link to a page relating to the article (as you always should), one to one of your other websites or Squidoo lens, and a third to your blog URL. Never ignore these possibilities. Open up your mind.

There are several more article marketing secrets that I could give you but that would render this article far too long. You might also require some elementary HTML instruction to provide you with a working knowledge: HTML, or hyptertext mark-up language, is not really a computer language but a means of linking text to files, and it can also be used to format text, graphics and tables on websites and any other medium that can read HTML and transfer it to the intended visual formating.

However, the above secrets are sufficient allow you to use them as SEO techniques that will improve your chances of a high search engine listing. Learn them and use them, and even if you think that they seem fairly elementary I bet my bottom dollar that nobody is using all of them in their article marketing campaigns, because most people are still thinking in mono as far as article marketing is concerned and have to reach the analogue stereo age let alone digital.

Get modern and look farther than you can see, or the internet kids will soon gobble you up for breakfast! Yesterday's techniques are today's tomorrow.

About the Author
If you are interested in more of Pete's article marketing secrets, and some of the best are to come, then visit his Squidoo lens at SEOcious or perhaps his blog at My SEO Blog where you will find more about his personal SEO philosophy. Pete suggests them in the above order for some reason. Me? I don't care! I just want more ice cream.

Business Owner: Does Your Website Need Help?

by Rodney Ringler

Does Your Website Need Help?

There are a lot of small business owners that we talk to that are not happy with the results of the website that they paid a design company to build for them, or the traffic they paid an internet marketer to generate. They complain that the site is plain or is hard to update or that is has received little traffic or generated the few sales.

Development

The blame lies with the small business as much as the web site design company. When small businesses hire web site companies they tell the designers basically what they want but leave most of the decisions up to the designer. This is a mistake. Building a website is very similar to building a house. When building a house you pick out the house plan not the builder. You decide the colors of the walls, the type of siding, color of the shingles, what carpet, which cabinets, and so on. But with a website people leave this all up to the designer.

If you are going to have a website built then you need to take responsibility for a lot of the design and most of the content. The first thing to do is develop a set of goals for your website. Is it going to be used to generate new business or a place to direct existing customers? These types of questions will determine what kind of website is best for your needs.

Then you need to develop a list of functionality and information that you want the website to contain. Also, note what information will need updating and which will be static and will never change. It is important to have an easy way to change information that is changed often. There are to many outdated websites on the internet already.

Next, scout other websites on the internet until you find one that has the look you like or some functionality that would be good for your site to have. Or several that you like parts of. Being able to show a website designer an example of what you have in mind makes it very easy for them to meet your needs.

This is the easy part so far. You have enough info to give your designer a list of functionality and some example websites that look like what you have in mind. Now you have to decide what color schemes you want, what kind of font. The colors and font of a website set its tone. Is it professional or casual? Is it serious or fun? These might seem like trivial details but they matter. No matter how good the designer you need to direct them. You don’t need the exact font, but tell them weather you want a professional or casual font; Soothing or bright colors. All of this extra work will help you be more satisfied with the end product.

Traffic
Next comes traffic. This is usually the job of an internet marketer but most web companies offer both services. We often hear complaints by people who launch an internet business and then do not receive the traffic they expect.

First of all, submitting your website to the hundreds of search engines will not produce a lot of traffic. It is a small part of an overall internet marketing campaign. Also, this is a service that is provided free by most web hosts and you should not be spending money on it. This merely helps get your website listed in the various search engines. To receive traffic you need to gain enough strength so that when a searcher searches on a keyword relevant to you that your website shows up. This takes time and effort and will not be achieve by simply submitting your website. [Editor's note: there are plenty of SEO articles on SR which can help you with just that]

A lot of websites are used as a tool for its organization to spread information or as a brochure for a small business to direct its customers. These kind of sites are not looking to generate traffic and do not need an internet marketing strategy. But if you are running an ecommerce site or a website to generate sales leads for your business then you need an internet marketing plan.

This plan will consist of several parts a search engine strategy for both organic listings and paid listings, a grassroots plan to generate traffic by writing articles, posting in forums, and in general becoming an online expert for you niche. And an online advertising plan for banner ads.

Long term, establishing yourself as the online expert in a field and developing a strong search engine ranking for the keywords relevant to your business is very important. This will allow you to generate traffic without spending advertising dollars. Early you will need to advertise to generate visitors and revenue but over time your advertising dollars should decrease. This should be the long term objective of all internet businesses.

To achieve this you will need a comprehensive plan, and the discipline to stick with it when no one is visiting your website. It is hard to outsource some parts of an internet marketing campaign to an Internet marketing company because you are the expert. It is hard for an internet marketing company to produce your level of expertise in your business. Internet marketing companies are excellent for managing ad campaigns, creating banner graphics, and teaching you search engine optimization and grassroots marketing. In search engine optimization and grassroots internet marketing a lot of the work is producing content(articles, guides, tutorials, etc.) in your niche and becoming known at expert sites in your area and forum boards that you are an expert in this niche and a place to go. You cannot outsource this expertise. You can hire someone to teach you how to do it but you need to do it.

To get satisfaction out of your website and have it generate the traffic and new business that you want, you need to take ownership and be involved in the design, content, and internet marketing. You can have a web company build the site but you need to drive the design and functionality. You can also have an internet marketing company setup a marketing plan and teach you the basics of search engine optimization, but you need to become the online expert in your niche and produce as much quality content for that niche as you can.

Building Small Business Issue: Networking

By Dan Evans

Point Of Interest
1 Does a small business need Gigabit Ethernet?

Small companies can get big networking for little money these days. Wired, wireless, and Internet connection speeds come faster and cheaper than ever.

It makes good sense for you to pay a little extra to purchase Gigabit Ethernet rather than Fast Ethernet switches. Smaller companies will find Web-managed switches from companies such as Belkin, D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear for around $10 per port. Even small companies are moving around bigger and bigger files (video, graphics, and more), and Gigabit will really help also when you are performing over-the-network backups.

For wireless, 802.11g is the standard, but the time has come to consider draft 802.11n products, which offer five to ten times the performance and better coverage in a building. You'll find the routers and access points available for $100 to $150 from the same companies, and many new laptops have the option of including a draft 802.11n ExpressCard or PC Card. Make sure you run a secure wireless network by choosing WPA2 rather than the less-secure WEP option.

Using DSL or a cable modem typically provides enough bandwidth for most small businesses. Today's prices are impressively modest, but you might want to explore replacing the standard modem that comes with your service with product that supports VPNs for remote access. Ask your carrier about upgrade options.

Finally, although Wi-Fi can be found in many airports and cafés, mobile broadband provides connectivity almost anywhere you are. For $100 to $150 for the card and about $60 per month with preexisting voice service from AT&T or Verizon, you won't have to hunt around for a Wi-Fi hot spot.