Aug

Have you been listening to the news and feeling the emotions around you? Maybe, like other sales and business professionals, you have started thinking about ways to cut costs. Decreasing the dollars spent on marketing is often one of the strategies considered. Is this really the wisest choice?

I research a lot. Sometimes 1960's toys laugh at myself for being an information junkie. I read everything; newsletters, newspapers, books and magazines. Lately, I have noticed two differing thoughts. Some businesses are focusing on the outcome, staying the course and continuing to implement marketing activities and develop the client relationships critical to building and maintaining sales momentum. They may also be proactively Hopalong Cassidy it up to cast the net wider and bring in more prospects to fill their pipeline. Other businesses are reactivley cutting back on marketing activities in an effort to lower costs.

The activities within Tales from the Crypt marketing plan are designed to play out over the course of time, keeping your business top of mind within your target market, generating leads and list buildingfor your sales pipeline. If you implemented activities last month when you thought the economic times were stable but not this month when you may think they are not, you are tampering with that consistency and therefore the flow within your pipeline.

Another factor is the length of your sales cycle. When times get tougher your sales cycle may be lengthening by an extra 30 - 90 days and your marketing strategy may change slightly to take into account this extra time. However long your sales cycle may be, you need to stay in contact with your target market for the duration. I recommend to my clients, who are looking to maximize their follow through, to stay the course, maintaining the current level of marketing activities and also proactively implement more ideas rather than be reactively implement less.

Now is the time to change the game and do more with what you already have.

Help your prospects and customers choose your business by adding more value. Look for ways to demonstrate this added value and ways to let your target market hear about it.

Below are several ideas you could implement to demonstrate added value.

• Highlight your great service with success stories. Do not just say you have great service, go one step further and demonstrate by gathering testimonials that showcase your service. Why keep it a secret. Interview your current happy customers. When you write the resulting story talk about the longevity of your business and the mutual benefits of the partnership you have with customers. If you can, demonstrate your positive impact on your client*s business with statistics or example of specific problems solved.

• Identify good, better, best solutions and why the chosen solution worked for that client*s problem.

• Look for client businesses within your target market that are doing well. Find out what they are doing to drive sales. Gather information about what they are doing through spotlight interviews or surveys. Use the information to The Flash a story to send to your target market about how your industry adds value.
• The process of collecting the above information could lead to joint ventures and cross promotions within your existing customer base or bring to light opportunities for new ways to support clients with your current products.
• Reward your customers with a gift card at various sales volumes. Always nice to thank customers who give you a testimonial or an order. People not only love to receive a free gift but they love to pick a Generic Viagra No one returns a gift they choose for themselves.
• Run a sales promotion for your team and reward sales volume and testimonials collected. Gift cards are great and very useful for holiday season and special occasions. Added bonus, they fit easily into an envelope and you can include your business card!
• Highlight the cost of the lost opportunity if your customer does not use your product or service. Contrast this with an example from the above testimonials.
• Go back and dig out those business cards from the last trade show or networking event that you may have lost in a folder.
• Plan to build a system that keeps warm leads in your sales pipeline long enough to develop from prospects to clients.

"The world will stand aside to let the people who are focused through." - Unknown

Plan to implement these ideas - or similar ones from your marketing plan - even ifyou are without the time, knowledge or expertise on staff to move forward.

Cheryl Scoffield, Sales Support Specialist, builds sales funnel systems for sales and business professionals who are bogged down by the details of lead generation and follow through.

Keep your business top of mind and sustain sales momentum throughout the year by keeping prospects in your sales and marketing funnel long enough to turn them from warm to HOT!

Email: Cheryl at Executive Sales Support.com for info on Gift Cards

Each year, someone does a study about why businesses McFarlane action figures customers. It's no mystery to us, but for the record:

One percent will die.
Three percent will move away.
Five percent will be lured away Spider-Man others.
Nine percent will leave simply because astronauts found a better price.
Fourteen percent will leave because of unresolved complaints.
Sixty-eight percent leave because of Poor Service, Discourteous Treatment or Indifference.

Now you know.

Many people mistakenly believe that a return to the good, old-fashioned days of customer service is what's needed. We like tradition, mind you, and simple courtesy will work wonders in any communication.

Yet modern offices and businesses require an integrated approach to be successful. Combining new sales and presentation information methods with never-out-of-fashion honesty and ethical business practices is the way to go.

Look for ways to help those whose desks are piled high instead of berating them for snapping at a customer who placed one thing too many on their plate. People are not, by nature, indifferent--well, 1954 Dan-Dee baseball cards are not. Nor are people inclined to deliver poor service or be discourteous.

Most of us want to help others; we just need the opportunity to develop the customer service skill sets that offer a better way to communicate what our company does in a clear, concise, easy--and fast way. Look for new ways to launch customer service campaigns and new methods to deliver a finely-honed message. Get buy-in from those delivering the service atomic disintegrator constructing the message to ensure a comfortable fit. The result will be courteous service--delivered by happy people.

BrowningLaFrankie 2009

For more information see href="browninglafrankie.com">browninglafrankie.com

Darrell L. Browning is a principal and founder of BrowningLaFrankie, LLC, a Philadelphia-based company specializing in helping companies manage crisis situations, train leaders in media and presentation skills and facilitate strategic change through leadership coaching and organizational development workshops. BrowningLaFrankie are trainers-of-choice for The Wharton School MBA Program at the University of Pennsylvania.