April 19th, 2010
Just like your spring wardrobe, you may not have spent a lot of money on giving your business a new look but with a new shade of lipstick you are attractive and in style. You studied trends and shopped wisely while continuing to invest in your image.
If we look back to September 11th, one of the most dramatic events in our recent history, we will discovered companies that continued to invest in themselves reaped the rewards of increased business. They stayed in front of their customers and demonstrated their true belief in our country and in their business. Their investment softened the long term effects of the economic downturn and created success.
Recently, some business owners got spoiled with rapid growth and high dollar receipts. They did not spend time training employees on cross selling, customer service or enhancing their technical skills. Educated and happy employee are less stressed, more effective and motivated to support their companies.
Look to your Customer Service Department. Your customer service staff receives and delivers valuable information to your customers every single day. Why not teach them to sell and keep them motivated to act as sale representatives. Incoming calls are much easier to convert into a sale than a cold call. Invite your customer service representives to marketing and sales meetings to develop their sales skills. When the phones are not ringing, discuss call trends. What are your customers saying? Are they suggesting new products or services. When customers have a complaint what are customer services representatives doing to change the customers mind about your company? What seems to motivate your customers to call in? What incentive do you offer your customers to continue to do business with you?
Cutting back on your marketing budget and overallimage will not only get tongues wagging, it will not provide you withcontinued exposure. If you move to a cheaper location you will be less visible and the your existing customers will get the impression that you may be edging closer to going out of business. Your employees must believe that you firmly believe in your business and are striving for success. The more positive your customer’s and employee’s experience is withyour company, the more word of mouth marketing you will receive. As our economy begins to become more positive you will find yourself ahead of the competition.
Lipstick Tips:
- What is new in your industry?
- What seems to be working for your competitors and those in complementary industries?
- Who can you collaborate with to create a non-competitive canpaign?
- Do you have an interesting story?
- Is your website easy and fun to use?
- Do your employees survey their customers?
- Do your employees really know about your products and services?
- When was your last positive all hands meeting?
- Do you have a customer and employee incentive program?
- Have you considered moving to a better location taking advantage of lower rent?
- Have you taken advantage of a marketing interns?
- Do you reach out to your community? Do you host open houses and fun events?
- Do you post interesting and informative blogs each week?
- Do you research current and effective keywords?
Put some lipstick on your business and go out there and make them take notice!
Tags: awards, blood donation incentives, customer incentives, motivate employees, point rewards
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April 7th, 2010
How do some seem to walk into a room and draw the attention of everyone? They seem to easily communicate and don’t have to work at getting the attention of those in power. Charismatic people often do this naturally but many others have learned the fine art of charisma. If you take a moment to exam those in Hollywood there are actors and actress that can flash a smile or appear in a scene and draw every one’s eyes to them. These individuals are usually not the most beautiful or handsome and are not from glamorous beginnings. Charisma can be described as a charming personality that draws others to them. These individuals are socially attractive and magnetic. They have a terrific ability to communicate both verbally and non-verbally.
Your incentive to enhance your charisma is not about having more friends it is about making the right connections, drawing opportunities easily towards you and increasing your marketability. Those with charisma find themselves working less and receiving more.
1) Exude confidence and a great attitude when you walk into the room. Walk confidently and smile, keep your eyes moving across the room when you walk into it. Move throughout the the room and introduce yourself. Many admire people who have the confidence to break the ice first.
2) Before you attend a networking mixer, find out what kind of companies will be represented. Do your homework so that you can speak about light and interesting topics about their business. Your reward, will be you will learn a lot and meet great people.
3) When you meet people listen more than you speak. Take interest in the other person by asking questions to learn more about them.
4 ) Be aware of body language. Is the person you are speaking with becoming bored? What is your body language coinciding with your verbal communication?
5 ) Be truly passionate. When you are excited you exude it, when you are angry others know it and when you are happy you are contagious!
6) Be genuine, people don’t like those they don’t get a feeling for or can’t seem to know where you might stand.
7) Be polite and pleasant. Treat everyone with respect.
8) Empower people by helping them feel important and more confident.
9) Laugh and have fun.
10) After meeting someone shake hands and look them in the eyes to say it was nice meeting them.
Stand out from the crowd using the head/heart connection. Tap into yourself and others physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. The reward is an enrich business and personal life.
Tags: employee rewards, reward, reward programs, rewards
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April 7th, 2010
In this article, I will address the importance of choosing a positive attitude if you’ve chosen sales as a career. Notice I used the word “choosing” rather than the word “having” as it relates to attitude, to make the point that a positive attitude is a choice and not something that is beyond your control. The quote about attitude by Charles Swindoll sums it up nicely: “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” What a powerful statement. It puts the ownership and responsibility of how we react to the world on us. This may feel like an awful lot of responsibility, but at the same time, it gives us control over our own circumstances and therefore offers a feeling of empowerment to make a difference in our own lives.
Attitude is a key element for anyone who has chosen sales as a career. If you are a sales professional, you know that having a positive attitude makes a world of difference in your success. In a profession that is conducive to rejection, you must have a positive attitude to be able to deal with the sometimes negative circumstances that occur simply as a result of being a salesperson.
How many times have you lost a sale and then immediately began thinking about what you could have done differently to win the business? The telling factor in your long-term success as a sales professional is your ability to learn from each “lost deal” and correct those mistakes the next time, which is all part of choosing a positive attitude.
It’s amazing how far a positive attitude can take you in the world of sales. Attitude is a huge part of what makes up your reputation, and often one of the first things people will notice when meeting you for the first time. It’s easy to have a positive attitude when things are going well; the difficulty comes in remaining positive when things don’t go the way you’d hoped.
Because attitude is a mind-set that reveals itself in behaviors, often acting positive even when you don’t feel positive will change the way you feel over time, which means you can change your attitude if you so desire.
Finally, to put a positive spin on the sometimes negative or losing circumstances that occur in sales, just think to yourself, “Yeah, losing stinks, but if it didn’t happen every once in a while, I wouldn’t appreciate winning!” or, as Jimmy Dean once said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sales to always reach my destination.” OK, OK, his quote used the word sails, not sales, but you get the point.
Tags: motivate, positive attitude
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April 6th, 2010
Most people are interested, but they are not committed. Commitment means you are willing to do “whatever it takes” to make it. For you and your business, it’s no different. You must understand one simple principle: Successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. If you want to be successful at anything, you can’t dabble at it. You’ve got to make a commitment and then follow through with it. You’ve got to put some time, effort, energy and passion into it.
“Character is the ability to follow through on a goal, dream or commitment long after the excitement of the moment is gone.”
I challenge you to make these five commitments today. They are:
- Stretch yourself. Stretching means you raise your own personal bar while raising your standards. Stretching takes discipline. Discipline means saying “no” to some things. You may have to say “no” to the time stealers, the dream stealers. To stretch to the next level, you may have to say “no” to the golf games or late nights. You may even have to say “no” to techno. Technology is great, but too much of it can steal your time, your energy and even your dreams. This means turning off the TV, the e-mails, the Internet and cell phones today so you can say “yes” to your future, “yes” to your dreams and “yes” to the next level of success.
Go for excellence. There’s a big difference between having an excellent game and having game excellence. The superstars are always striving for game excellence, they have a constant improvement attitude and they are competing with themselves to get better.
- Take personal responsibility for your life. This means taking charge of your future. It means stepping up every aspect of your life and demanding more of yourself than others expect. When you take charge of your life, there will be no blaming, no excuses and no rationalizations. You become the type of person who finds the reasons things will work instead of looking for the reasons they won’t.
- Be flexible. Flexibility gives you the ultimate power. Successful people know there is no such thing as all or nothing and everything is not always black and white. Everybody is different and every situation is different. Remember that life is a process and the individuals who are flexible and open to new ideas have an advantage over those who are closed-minded.
- Be a team player. This means knowing your role. Team players are willing to put the team’s objectives ahead of their own personal objectives. This means working with others for the good of the whole. Team players edify and build up those who are around them. They help create a team synergy by becoming part of the solution instead of the problem.
- Follow through. To succeed at any level, you have got to follow through by taking massive action each and every day. This means putting forth the energy and effort to make it happen. It means being the type of person who just goes out and does it. … Nike has a famous saying: “Just do it!”
If you will make these five commitments, they will change your life.
Tags: reward for success
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April 2nd, 2010
This past week it was reported that the top 5 auto makers experienced an increase in sales largely because of attractive buyer incentives marketed in part through viral marketing. These incentives were so successful at GM that they are now adding 900 to 1,000 auto workers working a third shift. Incentives included low interest rates and special deals for returning customers.
The past two years restaurants, amusement parks, retailers and auto makers have retain or increased business by using incentive marketing. Either two for one admittance into amusement parks, restaurant coupons or special interest rates. Combined with viral marketing posting advertising special discounts and other incentives is more powerful than ever. Viral communication excites and drive people to run through the streets in Santa suits or come to grand openings with no other advertising except for an announcement posted on Twitter. Imagine how well your business will do posting a viral message along with an incentive to buy a discoun t-shirt today or other item in your store today.
Viral Marketing Tips:
- Set a goal about what you want to achieve and dream big!
- What type of emotion are trying to trigger?
- Think about what excites and leave the sales pitch in the background because otherwise it is a big turn off.
- Communicate that there is more fun to come with another future event.
- Allow sharing of information or specials deals and downloads.
- Pump up your viral event with announcements on social networks before, during and after.
Another idea is to post your special coupon, gift card or merchandise giveaway for an afternoon or morning only. You can bet if they miss it they will keep their eyes open next time and jum on it. Recently, Starbuck’s posted a free pastry with purchase on Facebook that could be shared with friends. Although the special offer ended by 10:30 that morning, it was immediately shared with thousands within minutes.
After two years of economic challenge buyers will now always be conditioned to look for added value for their money. To stay in business and grow you must demonstrate interest in your customers all the time. Like any valued relationship in your life, it is important to show that you care. What better way to say you care then doing so on no special day just for the mere reason of saying you really care. Your customers will be so impressed by a just because offer and it will make more of an impact than the typical holiday discount to drive at the end of the year. After all you will be out there on any given Thursday or Friday just because without the crowds out there during the Christmas holiday getting more attention.
It’s easy to get lazy and use the same marketing techniques year after year. You stop saying thank you or saying or “I value you” because your customers may no longer ordering appetizers and bottles of wine with dinner. It doesn’t take a lot to make a little more effort to be considerate and appreciative, but it’s easy to forget how important it is. Remember when you opened your business and were so happy to make any sale that you kept your first $1.00? Your invest of time and money spent on incentives will let your customers know you care and you will soon find you will receive more in return!
Tags: blood donation incentives, corporate incentives, customer incentives, incentive programs
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