Get More Comments On Your Blog

I've been scratching my head on this one for a few weeks.

At the time of writing this post, I've had very few comments on my blog. I am not complaining, but sometimes its worth airing your problems, to explain what not to do, as well as what you might do. 

So on the basis that someone is going to comment on this, here is one stupid observation and some ideas.

My stupid mistake was not having a visible comment box (idiot). Now I've fixed that I might stand half a chance!! 

Here are some other ideas.

1. When someone makes a comment answer when you can

2. Ask for readers opinions and ideas

3. Offer something in return reciprocity

4. Every comment is a good comment, don't put people down

5. Thank people for their comments

6. Ask people for their examples of similar experiences

7. A bit of self-deprecation - like me pointing out, I made a basic error with the lack of a comment box

8. Have a rating system for your content (I am working on that one)

9. Regular interesting posts (Yes you can comment on that)

10.Moderate comments quickly

11. Ask for help

Tell you what................... why don't you add some of your own ideas to this list? Can you help me build a bigger list??

All comments welcome!!!  

Take Care,

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you have a referral system?

Apart from networking organisations that you may belong to like BNI? Do you have any other referral systems? Or do all your referrals come from word of mouth?


If you had four solid referral systems working in your business, what might happen to your sales? 10% -15% increases are easily possible.


Systems that allowed you to ask for referrals without feeling awkward that encouraged the giver of referrals to easily come up with them.


Sounds  great doesn't it. There is however  a problem why many companies and practices don't get any referral systems operating. 

Its not that they are not bought into the subject, there are a few reasons why referral systems don't get developed or they simply fail.


Many of the reasons are found in my implementation posts that I wrote some time ago.


The word is 'system' many companies simply don't create them properly, they don't test it, they don't train their people and they give up too soon.


Let me give you something from some training I provide on networking strategically.


Almost every small to medium sized businesses that I come into contact with, attend lots of different networking events in search of referrals. Have you ever sat back and asked yourself questions like these?


What do I really want to achieve from attending these networking events?


How does it fit into my marketing strategy and business plan?


What am I going to do before during and after the event to achieve my goals?

Who should I try to talk with?

How can I get to speak to these people?

How much time have I got for this?

What pitfalls should I avoid?

How am I going to get people to deal with me?

How can they help me?

How can I help them? (To motivate them to help me).

What kind of follow up system do I need to build the relationship? 


The purpose of asking these questions is to have a purpose to your networking, to develop a strategy that will tie into your overall business goals.


There are over 65 different referral strategies in our results driven marketing system.


Here are some things you can do; promotions cards, coupons certificates gifts or discounts, make referrals a condition of business.

Here's one I got from MTV and Virgin in Time Square. A simple coupon was presented to me in MTV offering a discount redeemable in the Virgin shop, how simple is that.


For my readers in the UK, in the East Midlands there is a training grant available which could be used to develop and implement two referral systems in your business. It maybe available in other areas as well, I would have to look into that.


For any of my overseas readers, happy to discuss creating referral systems for your business or practice as well. It can all be done via the telephone and the internet.  


Take Care


Regards


Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Add more value to your offer, don't get beaten up on price

If you are up against it on price, try to think of ways of making your product or service different.

Differentiation is relatively easy with services, but with products its more expensive. You can of course improve the services that surround a product to differentiate it. Examples could be; a longer warranty, faster service back up, a replacement product and so on.

This week one of my clients added two processes to their service offering that were not anymore expensive to deliver and they closed an order, 30% higher than their competitors, who were not offering the same level of service, provided by my client. 

People will pay more if they can see the value. 


When your offering is difficult to compare to your competition, your product/service will be less of a commodity, making price pressure easier to deal with.


Let me give you a practical example; years ago I owned a concrete company, now that's a commodity business! We were one of the the first companies to offer  2 metre capacity trucks. We did not charge surcharges for small loads like the bigger operators and our trucks could access areas where the big trucks could not go.


It was a nice little business that we sold to Tarmac in the late 1990's.


Within our Results Driven Marketing coaching system we have 31 different strategies to defend price.


The question to consider is; where can you be different?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Your Business Model

I was at a meeting today discussing a new business opportunity and discussed different aspects of the business model that was being proposed for a start up.

A key point was that two elements must exist for me to get involved. 


In fact these two points are important to any would be business owner or existing one for that matter. Regular repeat sales and the ability to scale the business up easily.


A final point was that the business would need to be attractive to purchasers in the future. The objective being build it and sell it.


Do these points exist  in your business model? If not what can you do about it?


A short post today check out tomorrows.


All comments welcome, what do you think are the important aspects of a business model?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Managing Your Sales Numbers

This post is relevant to anyone that uses the phone to follow up leads.

Unless you manage your activity, you won’t know how many calls you need to make a sale. 

The cornerstone of face to face selling is making enough calls.

There was a brilliant book written in the 1930’s by Frank Bettger “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling” In it he wrote this;

“You can’t collect the commission until you make the sale,

You can’t make the sale until you write the order,

You can’t write the order, until you have an interview

You can’t have an interview until you make a call.”

Frank was making cold calls, there's nothing wrong with cold calling apart from many people don't like doing it. There are plenty of ways of generating leads without cold calling. 

All of the lead generation that I advocate is direct response marketing. Where you are making an offer and asking for people to 'put their hand up' to show you they are interested. What that means is; they fill in the coupon, or go to the website, call the special number etc.

If people have given you their number and expressed an interest, you've got a legitimate reason to call, particularly if you have made it clear that someone will be calling them.

To achieve a certain level of volume in sales you need to create enough activity to hit your target. Kind of obvious that one, but why not take a look at yourself and ask yourself  the question. Am I doing enough to hit my  sales target?

Selling is a process which tends to follow a sequence, a typical sequence could be:

1. Sales Letter
2. Letter Follow Up Introduction Call
3. Presentation
4. Proposal
5. Order
6. Sale (The first invoice)

Consider your own sequence and determine how many letters, emails etc, are required to  and  to hit your annual target?’

Your answer will depend on the number of letters, emails, and follow up phone calls required to get an appointment and the number of appointments that turn into sales.

           

You could be getting plenty of appointments, but not enough sales. This would indicate that the improvement area is somewhere in the presentation and proposal stages.

  

The point is by monitoring your numbers, it tells you where you are successful and where you may need to improve an aspect of the process or your technique. Its the early warning system of a sales slump!

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth Part 2.

There has been quite a lot of interest in my original post, 'People The Biggest Barrier To Growth.'

The idea for that post came from a friend, who told me that he was employing people in his company, for the first time. Moving from 'one man band' to a man with people management responsibilities.

Which was when I remembered the research that I did, on what stopped SME's growing. People being the problem, that was singled out as the biggest barrier to growth.

Anyway my friend asked me, what was the best strategy in overcoming that problem?

This was my reply.

There is no one answer to that of course. In my experience it’s attracting and selecting the right candidates. For example, the selection process that I use on salespeople for clients, has a number of elements designed to sort out the 'wheat from the chaff.' That’s the starting point of getting it right.

Beyond that, it’s the right conditions, pay, commission, training, their role and responsibilities. being clear, along with performance expectations being set.

The quality of the product and service the company provides has to be right.

Good leadership and fair management, are essential. Creating an environment where there is a lack of office politics, which can destroy organisations is vital.

People being valued for their contribution, some kind of review process, to get two way feedback on progress.

There is more of course, but getting those right is a good start.

A good book on managing people is the one minute manager. I recommend it to all my clients that want to learn some practical methods of managing people. The big bonus of this book is that; the style its written in, makes it an enjoyable and easy read.

Day five of my 41 day blog challenge, all comments questions and observations welcome.


Take Care 




Regards


Mark 


P.S. Guest Blog writers welcome send me an email.




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

What is the link between Rudyard Kipling and Consultative Selling?

Let me explain the link.

One of the aspects of consultative selling is uncovering the problems of the prospect, finding out what the real problems are. 

Seeking to put a value on what the current position is for them  clarifying what your solutions would mean to them if they invested in them, its a particularly useful approach when selling business to business.

The link is is from the poem  'I KEEP six honest serving men.'

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

What and Why and When and How and Where and Who are the consultants questions.

You will never be stuck in a sales situation when you use them. 

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

More On Sales Objections

There are a number of techniques that you can use to deal with sales objections.


Provided that a sales lead, is a qualified lead, its possible to sell to anyone. That assumes that you are selling something worth buying of course!


A qualified lead is a decision maker, who can afford what you are offering and can buy within a reasonable timescale.


It helps, if you think of objections as being unanswered questions.


There are several techniques you can use to handle them.


When I work with companies in the area of sales training, I ask them prior to the course to write down all their common objections. We work together at creating responses for them during the training.


There is however a different approach to having stock answers to objections. 


That being pre-empting the objections.


The idea is to bring up the objections yourself in the sales conversation.


For example, if you were selling cars and the particular make, had a bad resale value because  of a quality problem with a particular car, that had tainted the brand.


You might say; ''one of the problems you can have in the future with any car is a poor resale value, even when the sales price and the deal on your own car is favourable, you can loose money when you trade the car in. 


To stop this happening we've got a contract purchase option that guarantees the price of your car, when you trade it in, say in three years time.''


This has dealt with the potential objection before it was raised.


Its also worth mentioning that it has been known for prospects to tell lies or just avoid the truth and don't even raise the real objection! They can give you a false objection or an excuse to leave, which is why raising them yourself, does help deal with these unanswered questions.


I could go on there are a number of other techniques that you can use. 


I'm happy to deal with any comments on the subject.


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you bring your presentations to life?

Some people take laptop's to make presentations to the their prospects, personally I used printed pages from 
a PowerPoint presentation.

There are a few reasons for doing this, the first being communication.  A leading university concluded that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication. 


By having photographs, samples, graphs etc. It helps support what you are saying verbally and improves communication. Which if I recall is defined as sending and receiving information.

In terms of believability it also helps when your visuals have independent information from reliable and reputable sources.  The reason I use printed pages rather than a presentation on a laptop is; I can close the book and move on, if my prospect understands the point that I've made and they want to ask me some more questions.


 If you don't use visuals, why not develop some and try them out, to see how they can help you support your sales presentation.


I would be interested in hearing about what you take to presentations, what works and what doesn't.  


Take Care.


Regards



Mark 


P.S. If you want to be a guest blog writer on this blog let me know.


A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success


Mark Wheatley associates is a business development company that specialise in low risk sales and marketing helping medium sized businesses and professional practices grow through coaching training and consulting services. Based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK. www.wheatleyassociates.org Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Does yours stand out? Image from Glastonbury

Anyone for tapas?

 I took this photo at Glastonbury last month.

Its a very large flamenco dancer promoting the sale of tapas.

It certainly got my attention.

The question is; could you buy or make something a little wacky like this, that you could use? Something along similar lines to get your business to stand out?

It does not substitute for signage and clearly space is an issue, but for a retail or restaurant business with a little room outside, well its a possibility!

If you have seen anything similar send me your photo's and I'll put them on the blog giving you a mention of course. 

All comments welcome.

Take Care 


Regards Mark


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth

You could turn this statement around and say good people are a key catalyst of growth.

The statement comes from the research that I undertook when I did my MBA.


The dissertation was examining barriers to growth in small to medium sized companies  and does the Internet Internationalise businesses faster. This was back in 1998 when the Internet was still 'young' so we all know the answer to the second part of the question now.


What I wasn't expecting though was the response to the wider question of what's stops small businesses growing. It wasn't cash flow or marketing it was people.

Every managing director more or less said the same thing; getting and keeping the right people was the biggest thing that was stopping them growing their businesses.


People that have the right attitude, skills and motivations these were their observations.


What are yours? What's stopping you I would be interested to hear your comments.


If you don't want to admit it publicly as a comment below send me an email and I will publish the results without revealing your identity in a future post.


So what's holding you back what's stopping you from growing at the rate of growth that you would like?


Take Care


Regards


Mark

P.S. I am still interested in more guest writers




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved