The Info Treasure Trove

You’re in the middle of negotiations with a prospective client and your first impulse is to run to answer any and all of his phone calls.

But check that.

You may be better advised to let his call drift into your voice mail system.

Don’t get me wrong; you’re not playing hard to get, and you’re not looking to score inaccessibility points.

The reason is you want to receive a voice mail is to assess his seriousness, his neediness, his desperation, or his blasé detachment.

Voice mail is a channel into his soul, a record of his secret desires and intentions, and it is stunning how much you can learn from it.

But first, let’s review a very important principle propounded by sociologist, Erving Goffman. There are “expressions given” and “expressions given-off.”

The former are those messages that we deliberately send to another. For example, we might articulate our words fully, in an effort to say, I’m intelligent or I’m sharp, and therefore, you should find me a credible and believable source.

But there are the other messages, too: expressions given-off. These are the cues and clues that we give away, usually without knowing it. Our slightly frayed collars or worn shoes may send a statement to the eagle-eyed that we’re not as successful as we claim to be.

Over the phone, a breathless quality can denote impulsiveness or eagerness, or excitement about your offer, despite the fact that the words being used are less enthusiastic.

You may not catch these expressions given-off the first time. In fact, I guarantee that you’ll hear new things every time you listen, significant things, for at least the first five repetitions.

So, never jettison the message after hearing the content once, unless it is truly perfunctory. If you want to uncover the hidden meanings, go back to it, later

I suggest you store it and replay it two or three hours later, when you have the patience to really hear what’s there.

If you’re in business, seize every advantage that’s available, and this is one of them that will really pay off for you!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of 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.

When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a “thank you” email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You should follow-up every few months.

Offer rebates on selected items. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your web site, they
will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into three sales. This cannot be done on all
of your items of course, but if you are selling an eBook, or software it can double your sales.

Don’t forget to upsell your customers. When they’re at your order page, tell them about a few extra
related products you have for sale that they could just add it to their original order. Add on sales are a
must if you want to multiply your sales.

Having an affiliate program is another great way to explode your sales. When you sell a product, give
your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your
product. This will multiply the sale you just made. You can also sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your
products, and you could include an ad on, or with the product for other products you sell. You can also
make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product. You could cross promote
your product with other business products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other
products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the
package. This will attract them to buy more products from you. Send your customers a catalog of
add-on products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services,
attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra add-ons.

Don’t forget to offer gift certificates for your products. You’ll make sales from the purchase of the gift
certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad
printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see
your ad and order. Once someone buys your product and becomes your customer, you need to do
everything you can to keep them.

Ken Asselin is webmaster for the “Buds Best” series of
websites. His 40 plus years experience in retail marketing,
bring a fresh outlook to website development and promotion. You can visit his “Buds Business Guide” at: www.linguata.com or
www.downloadalanguage.com
for more.

http://www.budsbusinessguide.com

Manhattan is the mainstay of New York City and has become synonymous with the city as a whole. Manhattan itself is home to Grand Central Station, as well as a number of artistic and cultural centers. The Island of Manhattan can be roughly separated into Downtown, Midtown and Uptown areas, each of which include a number of outstanding points of interest.

Situated to the south of 14th Street, Downtown Manhattan is the site of the Financial District which runs along Wall Street, including the rebuilt World Trade Center and Battery Park, from which you can get to the Statue of Liberty by boat. Numerous well liked cultural areas downtown, including Greenwich Village Tribeca and Soho feature historic architecture, hip food and plenty of shopping. Another trendy target downtown is Manhattan, which runs along Canal Street.

Midtown is situated between 14th Street and Central Park, and includes a prominent arts scene. The center|core|axis|hub|heart} of arts life in the metropolis is the Theater District which encompasses Broadway, Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen, as well as the Radio City Music Hall. Midtown is a well-located place for out of town visitors to stay as there are lots of hotels in the district. Other well liked districts include Gramercy Flat Iron, a trendy residential district, as well as the fashion obsessed Chelsea District.

Large amounts of real estate controlled by Central Park, Upper Manhattan is home to the City Zoo, the Whitney Museum of Art and several museums all over the Upper East and West side. Additionally, the section is thesetting of Columbia University in Morningside Heights, the notable Harlem neighborhood and Washington Heights.

Every one of the Island’s irreplaceable areas maintain their own sense of history, as well as well liked selling points from top-notch arts to food. A jaunt to New York is not whole without a extensive tour of Manhattan’s best spots. There is an excellent reason that Manhattan has come to classify the public face of the city. Manhattan is one of the world’s premier cultural capitals and continues to set the standard in commercial and metropolitan trends.

In my day to day training of sales professionals, many who are mediocre at best and failing at worst continue to resist some simple testing and measuring tools for determining what they are doing that is working and what they are doing that is not working. The most common excuse I hear is that they don’t have time. However, when the most successful sales professionals in the world subscribe to testing and measuring, I have a lot
of difficulty accepting this lame excuse. Making the same mistakes over and over takes infinitely more time than determining what is working and what is not working and adjusting your activities accordingly.

I ran across this little gem this weekend. It really brought
into focus how most of us live our lives. The only problem is
that many of us are stuck in Chapters, 1,2, and 3, never reaching Chapters 4 and 5. It wasn’t very long ago that I could have written this myself. Through trial and error and some incredible mentors, I am now well past this scary scenario. I want you to join me!

Read this short, but powerful lesson and then take action!

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE CHAPTERS

Chapter 1.

I am on a road
There is a deep hole
I fall in
I am lost. desperate
It is not my fault
It takes an eternity to find a way out

Chapter 2.

I am on the same road
There is a deep hole
I pretend not to see it
I fall in again
I cannot believe I am in the same situation
But it is not my fault
It takes a long time to find a way out

Chapter 3.

I am on the same road
There is a deep hole
I see that it is there
I fall in again. It is habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault
I come out immediately

Chapter 4.

I am on the same road
There is a deep hole
I walk around it

Chapter 5.

I walk on another road
–Rinpoche

Wow. Have you been there? I have. That’s why I am
So passionate about helping others avoid these costly
mistakes.

What do YOU continue to do on daily basis that is
producing little or not results, other than frustration?

Certainly, we can all fill in the blank here:
Continuing to do what we have always done and
expecting a different result is the very definition of
_________________.

What skills or knowledge that if you learned or
mastered would produce a fantastic result in
your career or sales results?

What is holding you back from learning those
skills?

What is holding you back and preventing your from
moving forward and making a commitment to excellence?

Whatever it is, make a promise right now, this very minute
to move past it. Otherwise you wind up in the fill in the blank
paragraph earlier.

As we approach the beginning of a brand new year, we really need to pull out ALL the stops and get the results we want.

Listen. Learn. Take action.

Greg Beverly, CPA, MBA has more than 21 years experience working with sales and business professionals, helping them to achieve their professional and personal dreams of success. Visit his website at http://www.salessuccess.yougethelp.com for a free sales success ecourse.

No doubt, cigar smoking is a pleasure. Over the period, it is considered as the symbol of status of wealth and class. But, do you wonder from where this fashion of cigar smoking came into limelight and who started this? According to research, cigars have been around for over 1,000 years. It was started by the original native population of the islands in the Caribbean as well as the rest of Mesoamerica in as early as 900 AD. In fact, a ceramic vessel at a Mayan dig site in Uaxactun, Guatemala have been found, which was painted with the likeness of a man smoking a cigar that’s says the glowing past of cigars.

Later Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus had introduced the smoking to Europe. With two of his colleagues Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, Columbus had taken puffs of tobacco wrapped in maize husks, thus becoming the first European cigar smokers.

During 19th century, the popularity of cigars was on its heights. In fact, all the states of United States had a cigar factory. Cigars were more popular than cigarettes making almost everyone a smoker, or lived with one. Later, in the early part of the 20th century, cigar sales were at its peak. According to a report, the weight of tobacco sold in the United States alone in one year would equal the weight of the entire population of 10 states combined. Found everywhere in the united states, cigars were priced as per the size of the pocket of the general population as earlier Americans were not allowed to buy the Cuban cigars.

Online Cigars Market The passion of smoking cigars increased with the time. There has been a tremendous rise in the number of cigar smokers now in comparison of past years. Order whether an oscuro cigar, the black one or choose the claro, light brown cigar, make sure you get the right cigar to enjoy that unforgettable experience that lasts forever. By buying cigars online, you can also protect yourself from the duplicate cigars that are common these days. In fact, it also gives you the facility to get cigars at your doorsteps too, no matters you are the resident of any corner of the world.

Cigars are the ultimate experience of smoking. From last 1000 years, the fashion of cigar smoking is in practice and still alluring many aficionados to carry on this great passion.

For more information on buy cigars online visit http://www.selective-cigars.com

Sales information resource Just Sell, calls caring “sales love”. Here’s the meaning:

Sales love (’sAlz - luv): noun: 1: unselfish and loyal care for the good of a customer, prospect, reseller, and/or team member.

The only reason we are in business is to provide value to a group of people who care about the story we tell.

According to business guru Jay Abraham, in his book Getting Everything You Can out of Everything You Got, “A successful business starts not with just a great idea or product. Rather, it starts with the desire to provide a solution to another’s problem.”

Client means, “Under the protection of another.” Customer means, “One who purchases goods and services.”

Everyone who does business with you must be a client. Never serve people merely as customers. They are too important to you.

Falling in love with your client is where sales and marketing really begin.

* Care about your clients more than yourself.

* Love your clients; not your business.

* Always ensure complete client satisfaction, no matter what.

Take time to understand what the client REALLY needs and make recommendations that solve their immediate problem; even if it means less profit on the initial sale.

Follow up demonstrates you care.

To truly care, you must become an expert at follow up. That means you:

1. Check in by telephone or in person regularly. Not only after a sale, but ongoing, every month.

2. Become an information resource on the latest trends in your industry.

3. Follow up on all client phone calls, correspondence and emails quickly.

4. Provide personal communication and focused ideas that demonstrates you care enough to take the time to fully understand your client.

Follow the action steps below to add care to your marketing and sales arsenal. You’ll increase your closing ratios, top line revenues and referrals simultaneously.

Follow These Action Steps to Add Caring to Your Sales Effort

1. Understand the lifetime value of every client. On average, how long does a client keep doing business with you?

What is that business worth in dollars and cents on an annual basis?

2. What is the value you provide others? Practice articulating it until you become comfortable talking about value instead of features and benefits.

3. Study your client database. Make sure everyone has been personally touched (communicated with) this year.

If they haven’t, write a letter. Apologize for not staying in touch. Tell them you’ll call to check in. Stay with it until you make a connection. Show them you care.

4. Have a plan to follow up with every new client, starting today. Here’s an example:

* 24 to 48 hours after a sale, call to thank them. Make sure all your promises were kept.

* One week later, make sure your product or service is still performing as expected or better.

* One month later, check in for complete satisfaction again.

Stay in touch regularly. Make sure your valued client is overjoyed by their experience of doing business with you.

5. Help your fans (overjoyed clients) spread the word. Provide clients with articles written by you or other industry experts. Provide methods and instruction to help clients remember to spread the good news (your service and information) to people they know.

6. Respond to all client communications quickly. Respond to clients on the same day they communicate with you.

7. Continuously comb your database. Be aware of everyone in it. If you’re not sure about someone in your database, call them. Clarify their wants and needs. If they no longer fit, take them off of your list. Keeping a “clean” database ensures your clients are cared for consistently.

8. Every database entry has a follow up action scheduled or you remove them. No action = lack of care.

While it may seem like extra work, turning strangers into friends and friends into clients requires dedication.

Maintaining and expanding client relationships is the shortest path to extreme sales success.

© Copyright 2005, Bill Gluth, Develop Your Vision, All Rights Reserved.

Bill Gluth is the motivator of focused change. He is the first to specialize in teaching small business owners how to be extraordinary in a commodity driven world.

Since starting Develop Your Vision in 2001, Bill has helped business owners achieve balance, satisfaction and profit with freedom by understanding the unique “vision” that sets one business apart from their competition.

Bill teaches strategies that turn dreams and goals into accomplishments by successfully reaching tightly defined niche markets using inexpensive, creative, Human Touch ideas and methods.

To find out more about Bill Gluth, Develop Your Vision, visit his website at http://www.developyourvision.com or his Blog at http://www.billgluth.com

Life Coaching is a therapy that has become increasingly familiar over the last eight years. The term personal coaching first became accepted in the United States of America where, together with NLP aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, it became part of a new and improved terrific wave of truly proactive therapy models.

In many ways both Coaching and Neuro Linguistic Programming are an answer against certain variants of the Humanistic therapy movement, in particular Humanistic Counselling. A problem of the humanistic therapy approach is that it is greatly reactive and not highly proactive. Although this works great with some clients, with other people long periods of no exit in sight or low return for time and effort occur. Success coaching and NLP are both humanistic in stance, spending time on improving a person?s happiness rather than looking into the depths of childhood, like traditional therapy. Their emphasis is, however, deliberately proactive and used to make you happy.

Coaching is not about preaching to the customer what to do. This is a common misconception. Some performance coaches are legitimately successful in their business careers and then make the change to performance coaching, assuming that they will only be required to divulge their pearls of superb wise wisdom with the client. Sharing pearls of wisdom is more like mentoring a person in a specific environment. Performance coaching is instead about life as a whole. Find a Life Coach in London and make the change today.

No one can deny that sales closing techniques are absolutely vital in face-to-face selling. But often, people ask me if they can apply my powerful closing techniques to online marketing. My answer is an unequivocal, “Yes!”

Of course, there are some closing techniques that are more applicable to the Web than others — but I’ll show you magical closing secrets that can dramatically increase your web sales, and rapidly increase your online income. This works best on direct response websites - i.e., those that focus on getting an immediate response in the form of an order or lead.

Before we get started, I must emphasize that much of the sale is made in the presentation. The close is largely determined by how well you’ve presented the product to the prospect. Your objective, then, is to take the prospect smoothly past the point of closing, making it easy for him or her to come to a buying decision. You can accomplish this with the strategic use of questions.

The All-Important Opening Question

When you’re selling online, you don’t have the benefit of interacting with your prospect the way you would in face-to-face selling. Therefore, the first thing you say in your web copy has to be something that breaks preoccupation, grabs attention, and points to the result or benefit of the your product.

At any given moment, your prospect’s mind is preoccupied with dozens of things. Therefore, a well-crafted question will cause the prospect’s thinking to be directed to what you have to say.

Your opening question must be aimed at something that is relevant and important, and at something that your prospect needs or wants. What do sales managers, for instance, sit around and think about all day long? Increasing sales! Therefore, if your target market consists of sales managers, here’s an example of a question you can use as a headline or as the first part of your copy: “How would you like to see a method that would enable you to increase your sales by 20% to 30% over the next 12 months?”

When you ask such a question, the first thing that pops into the mind of the prospect should be, “What is it?” - whereupon you’ve captured his or her attention, and you can then begin to articulate how your product or service can solve the need posed by the question. ==================================================== Plan your opening question carefully. If your opening question fails to break your prospect’s preoccupation and grab his attention, he will click away before giving you the opportunity to present your product or service.

Questions That Keep Them Involved

Questions are equally vital during the presentation, i.e., in the body of your web copy, for clearly explaining how your product or service solves your prospect’s problem in an easy, fast, or cost- effective way. Therefore, install questions within your sales copy that capture attention. Keep your prospect involved, and keep his mind from wandering off in a different direction by using intriguing questions that grab his lapels and jerk him toward you. For the length of time that it takes a prospect to answer a question in his mind, you have his total attention. The prospect is drawn more and more into the sales process as your questioning proceeds. If your questions are logical, orderly and sequential, you can lead the prospect forward toward the inevitable conclusion to purchase your product or service.

Tip: Never say something if you can ask it instead! Think of how you can phrase your key selling points as questions. The person who asks questions has control!

Closing Questions that Presume the Sale

Just as questions are important at the beginning and the body of your web copy, they are even more vital at the end in gaining a commitment to action.

The key to asking a closing question is confident expectation. You must skillfully craft your question to convey that you confidently expect the prospect to say, “Yes” or to agree to the sale.

For example, you can pose the following question in your web copy: “When would you like to start using to multiply your profits?” In other words, you don’t ask if they want to buy your product, but when. This way, you’re asking for the sale expectantly, and the more confidently you expect to sell, the more likely it is that you will sell.

Tip: In crafting your closing question, include the benefit that your prospect will get from your product.

When you ask a compelling closing question, you diffuse the tension that normally creeps up on your prospect at the “moment of truth.” A prospect’s tension leads to the hesitance that kills so many sales - both online and offline.

To be truly persuasive in the selling process, learn to use questions judiciously throughout your web copy. Instead of trying to overwhelm your prospects with reasons and rationales for doing what you want them to do, ask strategic questions instead. When you take the time to plan the wording of your questions, your prospect will become more interested in your product — and consequently, you will make more sales.

Pay attention for the next few moments as I’ll reveal 4 tricks of the trade that’ll make your sales letters and ads more enticing. These 4 effective tricks are found in the art and science of persuasion. Called Parallel - Logic phrases, they can definitely give your copy a more magnetic appeal. As you use these phrases you’ll begin to notice your sales letters and ads taking on a new level of believability and effectiveness. What is a Parallel Logic phrase? Quite simply, a Parallel Logic phrase is a sentence that takes an unproven claim and ties it to a known fact. The following are 4 types of Parallel -Logic templates along with examples of how to use them. “Just as… So does… ” Example: Just as Penicillin was the breakthrough of the century, so too will ‘X’ become the latest breakthrough in fighting sickness and disease. Example: Just as Ted Hikes achieved an incredible profit of $45,000 in 90 days, using these investment strategies you’ll also have the potential to see incredible results like Ted’s. “If you… Then you’ll… ” Example: If you love watching war documentaries, then I know you’ll love “Confessions Of A Navy SEAL.” Example: If you hate paying outrageous money for ‘X’, then you’ll be excited to know you can save 10% with our Early Bird Program. “If they did… So can you.” Example: Over 60% of our seminar’s attendees go on to become rich in real estate. And if they can do it, so can you! Here’s why: Example: Let me tell you, if my sales force can accomplish extraordinary results like these, then so can yours! “The same (thing/item) as (person/organization) uses.”

Example: This is the same exact pair of sunglasses as worn by Tiger Woods.

Example: This is the same material used by the United States Army.

As you can see from the examples above, creating copy with Parallel - Logic templates is a snap. Simply take some time to practice writing statements utilizing these Parallel - Logic templates; the more you work at it, the better you’ll get. Soon, with a little practice, you’ll be able to smoothly weave them throughout your copy to create enticing sales letters and ads that get results.

When you watch a scary movie you get scared and your body tenses up. When you watch a sad movie you feel sad and even cry sometimes. When you watch a funny movie you get happy and even laugh. As you can see, your subconscious mind can’t tell what’s real and what’s fantasy.

You can create mental movies when people read your ad copy. Mental movies can change people’s emotions and some of their physical actions. You can alter their emotions and physical actions with words alone. Your words need to explain and describe what they see, hear, feel, smell and taste so it triggers their imagination.

Most people don’t realize that simple words can trigger mental scenes or movies. If you see the word “daughter” and you don’t have a daughter you may just think it’s somebody’s kid. If you have a daughter, you will probably picture your own daughter. Do you see what I’m saying? You need to really think about what each and every word means to your target audience.

Any kind of visual can also create mental movies in peoples minds. It could be graphics, pictures, art work, web site designs, etc. One simple picture can trigger hundreds of different emotions, feelings, moods, physical actions and visualizations. A single visual can create a mind movie that could be worth a thousand words.

If you see a picture or even the word snake you may twinge or look away if you have a phobia of snakes. On the other hand, if you love the taste of snake meat you may actually salivate.

In conclusion, you really need to think about what effect each and every word/visual will have on your target audience. It could be the difference between making or losing a sale.