Archive for Sales Hall
January 22, 2010 at 1:53 am · Filed under Living With Networks, Sales, Sales Hall
Standing out at a Job Faire can make a difference in your career search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a Silicon Valley Career Fair in January, 10 companies as showing up, and a major job search company has 82 job faires scheduled for 2010 across the US.
How do you get to the real interviews at a Career Faire? The contention can be significant, but you can help yourself stand out from the gang with early planning. At AA-Careers, we have a simple 6-step process to prepare. Planning to go? Here’s how to prepare:
First, investigate the companies that are going and pick your targets. Use the web to research the organizations that are there ahead of time. Go to their sites and see if they have their jobs listed. Pick a moderate number to target, and get ready to spend an hour or more researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 10 in a day, and 3-5 is a much more reasonable target. For each company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and contacts you know. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You should end up with a page or two of research for each company/job.
Second, if there are job openings on the web, read them to see what the organization is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the prerequisites of the job. Make the terminology match. If the hiring organization calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring company.
Third, create a ‘mini sales pitch’ for each potential company/position combination. Write down a sixty second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a key candidate for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the company at the job kiosk.
Fourth, modify your resume for each job type. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re targeting. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the achievements and skills that most clearly match the job requirements. Especially at a Career Faire, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be obvious to see that you’re a match based on your resume.
Fifth, rehearse your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each position - bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a intelligibly labeled folder. Keep them in a light briefcase or folio.
Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress nicely and be well groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any eau de cologne or fragrance meagerly, if at all.
Remember to smile, and good hunting!
December 26, 2009 at 6:34 am · Filed under Living With Networks, Sales, Sales Hall
A modern job search campaign is by nature fairly involved. While the net has offered a variety of new channels, it also creates increased competition for choice jobs and potential challenges for job hunters.
Job search needs to be thought of as a highly personal, highly directed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an ad. Your extended network is your inside source for information and job leads.
So where does the web fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got more than 650 responses in a week. For a single opening. That’s increased competition.
Had a strong person contacted us before we ran the posting, they could have secured the position prior to running in to all that competition. How? By knowing someone at our company who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone knew of the job for at least 13 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?
Be sure to check your cover letter and resume carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily taken out with a fast triage process. How? The same way any employer would. By eliminating resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By rejecting prospects whose cover letters gave us reasons not to engage them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating prospects whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by passing over job hunters who didn’t bother to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.
So the good news is that job sites give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those jobs are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well thought out resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing – so you don’t stumble at a critical point.
Another downside to be aware of is how quickly you can be looked up on the net. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some personal web pages that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to swing our thinking about who to hire.
AA-Careers provides a broad set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.
Be careful out there, and good hunting!
September 24, 2009 at 9:17 am · Filed under Net Commerce, Online Marketing, Sales, Sales Hall
This type of marketing resembles an auction house. You feature the merchandise on your web pages and for all your effort, you will get a cut from every transaction. There’s much less work, few operating costs, it sells 24/7, and what’s even better, it’s relatively easy to pick up. The first step you need to take is to determine exactly which area most suits your interests. To achieve this, determine what specific solutions to a given problem a particular group of individuals are expecting, and then which solutions are available to assist them. An easy method of achieving this task is to find unique extremely drilled down words and phrases; there are fewer internet searches for these in general, but they will convert far more. To obtain these lucrative words and phrases, it is recommended that you use applications such as Micro Niche Finder. Data collected by Micro Niche Finder or similar computer programs and software packages gives you related keywords in a comprehensive list format allowing you to have a great placing in an internet search and generate tons of traffic.
Micro Niche Finder will also let you know detailed figures on the words and phrases, the exact number of other sites using the particular word or phrase, and how successful those websites are. Ultimately, the information returned will help you find the right domain, assist you in putting together your internet site, and even draw your attention to the best merchandise for you to sell. Building a website is next; but there are still fundamental things to do. Having the best placing on web based search engines needs the fine-tuning of your web site. Products like SEO Elite should make this easier. Competing sites are examined by SEO Elite information which then provides suggestions to increase search results.
With software such as SEO Elite, data provided by the application advises you where to look for links, the most lucrative keywords, and even an extensive listing of article submission internet sites to refer to. Briefly, Seo Elite information is the same sort of information that an SEO professional might offer. Once you have discovered which market segment you’d like to focus on, plan your product ads, and your internet site is ready to go, it is time to get your web site up in the search results. The profits will roll in on regular basis and you will question why you ever struggled to make enough money!
July 21, 2009 at 12:07 am · Filed under Net Commerce, Sales, Sales Hall
In essence affliliate marketing is very much like a consignment store. You feature the various items goods and services on your web pages and in return, every last lead brings in money. There’s less work, few operating costs, it works twenty-four hours a day, and it’s easy to learn. At the start, you must make a choice as to what products or area you’d like to work in. A good way to do this is, find out what specific solutions to a problem a unique customer profile is going through, and determine a way to deal with those problems. One of the most efficient means to determine this is to find unique sets of highly targeted longtail keywords and phrases; there are fewer searches for these generally, however many more of these result in a sale.
These profitable keywords can be discovered by using Micro Niche Finder. Data generated by this software or other applications or services results in a list of associated words and phrases allowing you to earn a headstart in the rankings on an internet search.
Additional data is also accessible by Micro Niche Finder, such as how many searches every word or phrase gets, exactly how many different web sites who use those keywords, even competitor information. Ultimately, Micro Niche Finder information can help find desirable domains, assist you in putting together your site, and point out the best sales opportunities. Construction of a website is next; but there are still crucial things to do. Having the best ranking on the search engines needs the optimization of your web site. Products such as SEO Elite should make this easy. This computer program automatically analyzes competing internet sites and will provide you with advice on what you should do in order to get top place in the search engine listings. With applications such as SEO Elite, info supplied by the program advises you on links, what words to focus on, and information on where and how to submit articles. Succinctly, the data created are much like to the information that an SEO professional would give. When you find your target marketplace, have your product ads, and your internet site is finished, then you are ready to positively refine your search engine rankings. Your profits will roll in regularly and question why you did not try this type of marketing earlier!
April 28, 2008 at 6:34 pm · Filed under Sales Hall
Do you remember the commercial where the sales manager handed
out airline tickets because the sales staff was loosing touch
with their customers? That impactful commercial typifies the
fear many corporate executives have when approaching the natural
extension of e-business. I believe high tech equals high touch.
Here are some essential concerns to keep in mind when
approaching e-business. These questions can help you focus your
electronic growth so that you will humanize your e-business
strategies.
1.)Today, how do you communicate on a daily with your customers?
Look at your current business model and consider how you take
orders. By building an online order taking process, you can
offer your customers the best of both worlds with traditional
and online ordering. This online extension of order taking will
save your customers time and create good will toward your
company. Technology can extend order taking by linking with your
existing inventory control and accounting systems therefore
streamlining your processes. The streamlining will reduce your
customers’ paperwork and cost per transaction as well as making
it easier to interact with your company.
2.)What are the repeat questions your customers ask? A simple,
focused web presence can head off those repetitive questions
from potential customers. Yes, your are right in that you can
turn face-to-face questions into a sale. You need to remember
today’s customers are using email and the Internet to scout
potential vendors. Today buyers do their research before picking
up the telephone. Online FAQ’s will provide the background they
are seeking so they are more informed when they contact you.
This gives your sales associates an advantage. They can turn
that potential call into a personal, human interaction if sales
associates do not have to repeat FAQ’s.
3.)How many of your customers are online and actively using
e-mail? Ignore your customers and they will go away. This common
phrase is a lesson in how not treat your customers. A recent
study by Jupiter communications revealed that 42 percent of
companies tested didn’t respond to relevant email inquiries and
took more than five days. If your customers are using email (and
they are) then you must be ready to respond. Consider your
business model. Who responds to customer inquiry? How will you
handle email requests? How will they be delivered? Should you
outsource? How will you track? Can you capture email for future
marketing purposes?
4.)Is your product developed to customers’ specifications with
periodic approval? A majority of business on the Internet is
conducted within an Extranet. This is a closed environment
protected from general Internet traffic designed for
communication with buyers. If your company is in frequent
contact with the customer asking for approval at various points
of product development, then an Extranet must be a
consideration. You can design a system that allows your customer
to view the product and give check off approval. They can view
architectural designs, CAD drawings, photographs, detailed
specifications, or work-in-progress. The added, and personalized
bonus, is that your customer can do this at their convenience.
You can call or visit but the time during that visit is spent
working on the customer relationship - not order specifications.
5.)Do you cross sell or up sell when taking an order? New
designs in web interfaces can deliver with the same selling
dynamic. You can suggest other products during a customer
search. New software even allows you to save the search. You can
capture your prospects email and categorize it for future
marketing efforts. For a truly personalized touch, follow up
inquiries with a telephone call - or personalized email. You can
ask your customers if they would like this feature - taking
service to all time high.
6.)Let your customers know you are online. If you build it, they
will not come. The old thought that if ‘I go online, new
customers will come running’ is false. You need to employ new
and traditional methods of marketing in order to let potential
customers that you are online. A recent online company sent a
simple postcard announcing their new online service - within
three days of the mailing, they noticed a 65% increase in
traffic. You may not see this type of increase but you need to
consider all avenues of marketing to notify customers of your
new service.
Moving into e-business should not replace traditional methods of
selling. Approach the process as an extension of your current
model and look for additional opportunities to communicate to
your customer. Finally, keep your customers in mind when you
develop your model. As we said in the beginning, keep that
concern in front and you will develop a profitable, humanized
e-business.
April 14, 2008 at 4:01 am · Filed under Sales Hall
Here it is again the end of the relaxing summer. Here comes the bills for school, back to school accessories, the count down to the holiday gifts and the searching out of that perfect holiday getaway. The common theme is Money and plenty of it. There was a time when any business just needed a sign outside their door and poof, people came in to buy from you. Twenty or thirty years ago it was unheard of for a lawyer, doctor, dentist and accountant to advertise for business. These were safe professions. Get into grad school and you were set for a comfortable life. Those days are over! Welcome to the cold hard life of the twenty first century.
Yes there is competition these days in every field but the successful people are those who don’t sit back and get complacent. What this means today is that you must reward your present customers and give them a reason to stay with you and also entice new customers to give you a try. The first problem is dealing with your existing customers. Never take a customer for granted. A long with great service people appreciate when you let them know they are special and not just a number. Salespeople used to take customers out to lunch. Outside of a handful of people, most people I know have incorporated their lunch hour into their standard working hours. If you do take a lunch, chances are it is a quick one and you’re back to the office or doing some personal errands. How then do you thank your existing customers. The market for promotional products has exploded in the last 15 years. Buying buyers today is not acceptable, what is acceptable is giving them branded gifts or moderate token gifts at periodic times like holiday periods or product launches.
If you want to get into the game, you must come up with clever give away which is useful to the recepient and which doesn’t scream your compnay name to the point that they won’t use it. The most repeat impact you can have is with coffee mugs or calendars. Even with computer programs a lot of people still like to have a nice agenda where they can write important names, that won’t be wiped out with a computer virus. There are literally close to one million different items available. On my company web site you can browse over 700,000 items. My web address is www.solutionsink4u.com. How about giving out a thank you gift for long time patronage. Think of something personal they might like and have the packaging branded, either with a label or custom bag or box. Today the biggest companies, The Gap, Sharper Image, Coach, Movado, Mont Blanc, American Apparel, Bella, Cutter and Buck, Cross, and Nike are all in the promotional product industry. Hotels have gotten in the act giving their better clients umbrellas when it’s raining and customized chocolates on their bed before they retire. Going the extra mile really does help you retain your customer. Everybody must be competitive but you don’t have to be the cheapest. People remember the nice touches.
The second use is to attract new customers. Here you have the conventional way of advertising, newspapers, magazines, flyers, direct mail and cold calling. These are effective but tend to be expensive and the return rate you get for your investment tends to be low. A mass mailer with a response rate of 1.5% is considered a success. Consider for a moment that 98.5% of the people ignored your message. For the large companies it’s built into their advertising budgets. Tricks for medium and small business are to target smaller more defined prospects and spend more per prospect. The overall cost of your campaign will be much smaller and the response rate can be as high as 10 to 15%. An effective way to peak interest is to offer a specific discount to some or to come up with a contest with a prize where no purchase is neccessary. Contests are fun, people always like to win something and win or lose they tend to remember your company’s name or message associated with the contest. Today there are exciting ways to hold a contest on the web. People like the annonimity, have the freedon to register on their timetable and tend to see all the other stuff you have on your web site. Create your website in a way like an IKEA store, where the customer must see all your product before they can leave.
Other ways to capture this defined prospect market is to have give aways at industry conventions. The captive market are your ideal customers . Firstly give aways bring people to your booth and secondly nice give aways are retained in their possession for a long time, reinforcing your company name. There are products today to meet any budget and are well worth the investment. if you land 1 or 2 good customers because of the promotional product it tends to pay for itself, ten fold at least.
If these ides make sense, but you still are unsure of what to do next, give me a call at 514-337-2238 or visit us on our web site at www.solutionsink4u.com, yes we have a contest on our web page. We practice what we preach. Best of luck with your magic wand.
Steven Schneidman
Steven Schneidman has a B.A. in Psychology and an M.B.A., he has worked as a finance professor and at a major Canadian Bank. He has owned and owns 2 successful printing and promotional product companies.
April 4, 2008 at 11:00 pm · Filed under Sales Hall
There are lots of ways to open sales calls, and I detail many of them in my books, such as Reach Out & Sell Someone®.
But I’ve discovered one of them, the “inactive account” approach, is flawed.
Here’s what I mean.
You look at your database and you see lots of accounts that you haven’t talked to in a long time. Gee, you think, they must be upset with us, or minimally, they’ve taken their business elsewhere.
This seems logical, doesn’t it?
So, you rehearse what you’re going to say when you call.
“Golly, Frank, we haven’t heard from you in quite some time. Is there anything wrong?”
It’s not a terrible opener, and you might get a replyexactly the negativity you’re expecting to hear.
But in lots of customers’ minds, they don’t classify themselves as inactive, at all. This is what I’ve found after doing several outbound telemarketing campaigns aimed at these “shadow clients.”
So, if THEY don’t think there’s anything wrong, why plant the seed that there is!
Now, I recommend using the “Thank You Approach.”
“Hello, Frank, this is Gary Goodman with Customersatisfaction.com, and I’m just calling to thank you for all of the business we’ve done together; I appreciate it!”
If they have heartburn, believe me, you’ll hear it in their voices. If not, you’ve just set a great tone for catching up with them and handling any reorders they may have.
In the middle of one outbound telemarketing campaign, the light came on for me, and I switched from the inactive account opener to thank-you opener.
And the results were nothing less than amazing. With the former, we hunt for problems. Using the latter, we’re upbeat, and ready to do more business.
Big difference.
Try it!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com
March 31, 2008 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Sales Hall
Dad, you raised me to have integrity, be honest and help people. You raised four boys, a Marine, fireman and truck driver. I’m the one you wanted to become a doctor or lawyer. Well, I reached higher to become a salesperson and I know you are proud.
Although this is more like a letter than it is an article it reflects the unspoken pride of every professional salesperson. I am proud to be called a salesperson who adopts the high standards and ethics required to be a success in this business. I am further pleased that my daughter has become a student of sales and adopts the high standard in selling ethics.
Why is it that parents never raise their children to become salespeople? You won’t find costumes for a salesperson on Halloween. What you will find is other super hero outfits for cowboys, firemen, military, police, doctors and nurses. Perhaps it is because most parents don’t understand the high calling of becoming a problem solving salesperson.
Sales - the Admirable Profession
If salespeople stopped selling, the economy would come to a complete stop and disaster across the world would occur. You can’t say that about most other professions. Sales professionals who adopt high standards always rise to the top of their game. The true sales professional works with clients to identify problems that can be corrected with a product or service. Sales people are not order takers and most of them don’t work in a retail environment. Salespeople are better listeners than they are talkers because they care about how and where they will help their clients.
A professional salesperson seeks first to understand problems before they provide a solution. The professional won’t close on a deal unless they know it is the right solution and in the best interest of the client. The sale professional follows a sales process that consistently insures they will make the right recommendation. Salespeople are rewarded for their service and are the reason salespeople are consistently the highest paid in a company.
If you are in sales, I hope you adopt the high standards of this profession and practice your craft with high ethics and integrity. Make your parents proud and don’t be afraid to raise outstanding salespeople.
Steve Martinez implements sales management strategies with a focus on automating sales for printing organizations. Selling Magic teaches businesses how to automate and customize ACT or Outlook with the best practices of sales management while integrating email marketing and technology for greater profits. http://www.sellingmagic.com
