12 Sales & Marketing Tips

12 SALES AND MARKETING TIPS - TO MAKE THIS YOUR BEST YEAR EVER!
A Guide by Jim Connolly
Below are a series of 12 sales and marketing tips you can use, starting right now, to help you achieve your best results ever!

Let’s go…

1. It’s 2008 - Throw that old marketing guide in the bin
If you want to avoid wasting stacks of money and missing countless sales opportunities this year, throw your old marketing guides and audio programs in the recycling bin! You need to know what works in 2008; a time where your potential clients screen sales calls using voice-mail – BUT - where you can reach a million potential clients for just pennies.

2. Don’t mistake movement for progress
I have worked with thousands of businesspeople and found something amazing! The owners of underperforming businesses almost always work just as hard, and sometimes even harder, than the owners of successful ones! At first glance, this doesn’t seem to make sense – until you dig a little deeper and realise that the reason their hard work is getting them nowhere, is that they mistake MOVEMENT for PROGRESS.

In other words, they work hard and put in an insane number of hours, doing the wrong things!

They think that the harder they work, the more successful they will be; as if rowing a boat with all your strength in the wrong direction, will still magically get you to the right destination! If you find yourself looking back at a busy day or busy week and saying to yourself; “I have been really busy – but I don’t seem to have ‘done’ anything!”

THIS IS A BIG FLASHING WARNING SIGN!!!!!

STOP what you have been doing and choose a better strategy right away!

3. Tell your clients & future clients you care
You really care about your clients and their businesses, so let them (and future clients) know you care; by telling them! Very few businesses actually state in their marketing that they care about the wellbeing of their clients businesses; yet it’s EXACTLY what a future client wants and needs to hear from you!

4. Get connected
One of the biggest myths in business is that you must have a large network if you want to succeed. The reality is that the size of your network is not what’s important. It’s the influence of the people within your network that counts!

IF MY NETWORK has 1000 people BUT they lack influence, it will have a commercial value of close to zero.

IF YOUR NETWORK has just 30 people BUT they have real influence, it will have a massive commercial value to you!

This year, stop wasting your time swapping business cards at local networking events, (they really are a total waste of time!), and start deliberately targeting the 30 most influential people in your marketplace. That's the network you and your business need!

5. Study your junk mail
Some of the sales letters or special offers you receive in the post or via your inbox prompt you to open them; whilst others don’t. Now, isn’t that interesting? Well, it should be, because if you open someone’s sales letter or marketing email - guess what? You have just learnt, (for free), a proven way to get people to respond to YOUR sales letters or marketing emails!

You can make your advertising more powerful by adopting the same method. Collect all the ads that caused you to take action; to call a company, place an order or request more information, and ask your friends to do the same. Then, examine these ads and look at what it was that motivated the reader to take action. Now, you can try a similar approach in your own advertising, (with your own unique twist of course), knowing it works!

6. Take your website seriously
FACT: Almost everyone now ‘checks out’ a potential service provider on the Internet before they decide to do business with them! Over the coming year, the people YOU market your services to will do exactly the same!

Your website is unique in one very important respect: it has the power to kill or to skyrocket the response-rates from ALL your OTHER marketing activities! Thus, the quality and content of your website MUST encourage people to trust you and see you in a professional light. If, for example, you send a mailshot make no mistake; the majority of people that were interested in your letter will visit your website BEFORE deciding to contact you!

If your marketing has failed to generate the response rates you hoped for - remember, the people who 'were' going to contact you visited your website first. What message did it give them?

7. Match your fees to your promises!
You cannot promise the marketplace a high quality service and yet charge a bargain-basement fee! If you do, you will send people a mixed-message and it will lose you business every time. Everyone knows that quality never comes cheap – that if something looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true!

This year, make your products or services as valuable to the marketplace as possible and then charge accordingly.

8. Handle calls more effectively & win more business
One of the areas where small and medium-sized companies invest the least (and lose stacks of business as a result), is telephone training. No matter how good your marketing is, if calls are not dealt with correctly, it will dramatically reduce the number of sales you make! Invest in a good audio program or training course and start seeing immediate, measurable improvements.

Telephone training will not only help you win more business, it will help you retain more business too!

9. Stop pursuing sales and start attracting them
Why do some businesspeople write articles, appear on TV and radio and speak at events; all for free? The answer is that by increasing their profile with the above activities, they massively increase their sales and profits!

10. Learn what potential clients are comparing you with
It’s impossible to effectively sell or market your services unless you have researched your competitors. You need to know what offers, guarantees, prices or fees you are selling against, in order to make YOUR offering the most attractive to potential clients.

In my experience, businesses often THINK that the service they offer to potential clients is superb, when in reality, it’s 'very average'; when compared to what their competitors are offering. Find out what you're up against and THEN BEAT IT by adding massive value!

11. Develop an Introducer network
Develop a valuable network of Introducers; people who go into the marketplace and win you business through their recommendation. There's a FREE 22 minute audio program that explains how to set up your own network at www.jimconnolly.com

12. Do something NOW!
Make a positive impression on as many people as you can RIGHT NOW! Forward this free guide to your clients and contacts and show them that you care about THEIR success!

To your success,
Jim Connolly
www.jimconnolly.com