Business Development 2.0
Online Sales Tactics
Note to Self: The Path to the Promise Land
Apr 26th
I see with my own eyes how the average Joe – me – ended up at a video conferencing guru’s website (becoming a potential). What was the path? What was the decision making process? It is further evidence that participating does work.
Note to Self: The Path to the Promise Land from Scott Smeester on Vimeo.
Social Media Marketing 101: Blogging In Theory And Practice [5 reasons why you need to start blogging]
Apr 22nd
For social media users, blogging is the most important tool for creating relationships with your clients and customers.
Spread the good news of your business with blogging
1) Share who you are
With information readily available about you and your company, people naturally want to do their business with companies that have a face – the human element is returning to business. Blogging allows you a forum to share who you are with your audience. The most recognizable bloggers and social media experts all agree that blogging is about authenticity and promoting remarkable content.
For so long being professional has superseded being yourself in the business world, and now (with social media) individuals and businesses are being encouraged to let their authentic personality shine through. There is still the need to monitor the message being sent, but presenting your thoughts, beliefs, and values is an absolute must.
2) Give people a reason to come back
Keep up with your blog! Maintaining regularly generated new content gives readers an opportunity to come back. When readers come back, the relationship begins to develop; that relationship can turn into business. Posting (at least) three times per week encourages readers to “stay tuned” if they find your content to be accurate, credible, and helpful.
With tools like google reader, people can “subscribe” to your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed and get updates when new content is posted. This also means that you should definitely make a link on your web page to your RSS feed so that users can follow your great content.
3) Expand your digital real estate
Each blog post that you create adds another page to your digital network, and thus expands the potential sales net. The more opportunities people have actually find you, the more likely you are to naturally be found. As you create diverse content that illustrates your business, more traffic can find its way to your website.
Most blogging websites also offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) packages. When maximizing your blogs SEO, make sure to put in appropriate keywords to your website, business, and blog topic. Organic traffic through search engines is some of the BEST traffic that sites can get.
4) Maximize your credibility
Maintaining credibility can be as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. Credibility will come through showing your audience your expertise. If you know that you are one of the best resources of information available for people – let that knowledge shine on your blog. Create a schedule of topics that you want to write about based on your existing expertise and skill set.
5) Share your passion
The primary value of blogging is in the opportunity for you, the writer, to get excited. If you are discussing relevant topics to your business, shouldn’t you naturally get excited about your passions? Letting your passion shine through will push your credibility through the roof, because people get behind and support passion and excitement.
Blogging is a critical piece of the social media marketing puzzle. Now is the time to start if you haven’t already, and to recharge your blog if you have been working on it for a while.
Social media marketing leads to sales, and sales research and development is part of what Smeester & Associates does. Contact us for more information about how to recharge your business and increase revenue.
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Social Media Marketing 101: How Facebook Can Help You Make Money
Apr 12th
Facebook currently has over 400 million users worldwide and more than half of those users log in every single day. With this many people participating, why wouldn’t you try to market yourself and your company on it?
Using Facebook for business might be easier than most people think. As part of the social media revolution, it has been designed to be easy to use and to help expand your personal/professional network. Utilizing this resource can make a world of difference for your business with a little patience, a fresh approach, and the ability to shamelessly promote yourself and your business.
Why use Facebook?
Facebook allows you to communicate and interact with people that are interested in what your business has to say and offer. The social media power-house also provides the opportunity to communicate without the micro-blog (160 characters) limitations.
Three easy ways to utilize and leverage Facebook
1. Targeted marketing campaigns
- Using specified information about your company, products, and services, you can create a customized customized ad campaign that can reach thousands of people world wide.
- Facebook allows customers to target who sees their advertisements based on user profile information. This allows companies to focus an particular demographics relating to age, gender, marital status, interests, and more.
- Campaigns can be Pay Per Click (PPC) which only charges your company when a potential customer clicks on your advertisement.
- Campaigns can also be Pay Per Impression; this option charges up front based on how many times companies want their advertisement to be seen.
2. Facebook fan pages
- Fan pages expand the digital real estate and expand the opportunity for potential customers to find a particular business.
- Creating a fan page allows people in your network, current customers/clients, and more to connect with your company. Utilizing fan pages also allows communication and direct interaction with those that are “fans” of your company.
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- A fan page functions like an individual user profile, and provides the creator/administrator(s) access to monitor and control the information and communication on the page itself.
- Communicating through “status updates” allows quick basic information to be quickly disseminated to all of the company’s “fans.”
- Fan pages offer another opportunity to list the company’s contact information, hours of operation, products, services, upcoming events, and more.
- Facebook fan pages also offer a clear opportunity to “review” a company, which allows customers, clients, and related people to provide a rating about their experience.
3. Facebook groups
- The average Facebook user is a member of 13 groups. Groups offer more possible opportunities to communicate, network, increase credibility, and expand participation in social media
- Facebook offers thousands of “groups” regarding a seemingly limitless amount of topics.
- Finding the “right” kind of group will require some creative searching, but once users have found legitimate groups that create remarkable and useful information, the professional opportunities can grow exponentially.
- If there isn’t the ‘right” group for what you are trying to promote, you can create one! Creating a group allows you to moderate and control the subject matter being discussed.
- Groups are a great ways to develop networking possibilities as well as events and opportunities in the real world.
Getting involved in social media is becoming increasingly more necessary for businesses, and Facebook is definitely one of the best opportunities for most businesses today. Facebook demographics are constantly changing and growing, and it is no longer only used by college-aged young adults, in fact the highest percent of users (29%) is aged 35-54. Now is the best time to grow and develop your digital identity, and Facebook is a great opportunity to do just that.
Smeester & Associates offers services to maximize professional Facebook identities. Contact Us for more information.
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Hiring Sales People – Why Place SO Much Value On Industry Experience?
Mar 23rd
Companies looking to expand their sales force often consider “industry experience” as a must-have for their candidates;
a smart business would quickly eliminate this practice, and place more value on the quality of the salesperson and their history in selling.
A great salesperson is great regardless of the industry! Any savvy professional in sales should agree that performance history, adaptability, comfort, confidence, and passion are infinitely more valuable qualities and skills than years of experience in any particular niche. Making sure that your next sales hire can demonstrate sales core competencies leaves them open and available to focus their energy on learning about your company, business, and products. A person who already understands the science of sales and the ability to relate with your potential clients will definitely be trainable in your particular market, and educating that person will be incalculably less expensive than hiring another sales dud who already has spent 10 years in your field.
Industry Experience is not nearly as valuable as salesmanship and a proven history of sales.
In the ever-changing world that we live in, it would be wise to focus on those that already know today’s sales/marketing scene, and have the know-how to continuously evolve with the market around them. Finding sales stars can make any business grow tremendously, and a real sales all-star will always shine no matter what they are selling. Next time you are looking to grow your sales force, don’t limit yourself to people who have been in your field of business.
Ultimately, it should be infinitely more cost effective and fun to train somebody in your market, products, and services, than teaching them about selling. You absolutely can hire great salespeople, and the first step is changing your approach. The science of sales is proven to work, so leave the selling to the sales force and make yourself more available to continue making the best business you can.
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Social Media Marketing 101: Don’t Get Caught Up In Just Selling
Mar 19th
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is an incredibly powerful tool, but so many businesses stepping in to this world get too immersed in the SELLING aspect and lose track of the SOCIAL aspect.
Stay on target with Social Media Marketing
The internet has become the next “great conversation” of history; millions of people every day log in to a number of sites to read, post, respond, and develop new digital communities. Recent studies indicate that nearly 60% of Americans engage in social media (Facebook, Twitter, linkedin, etc.), which makes Social Media Marketing a wonderful opportunity to get your business’ message out to an incredible amount of people for very little (if any) cost to you. However, too many new businesses step into this digital world with the intent to only sell, and don’t seem to know that in this arena PARTICIPATION leads to sales. Only 25% of social media users (roughly 46.3 million Americans) “want to be sold to”, which leaves the remaining 75% of users looking to simply engage and participate.
The expectation now is that you, as a business, interact with the scene and not just post frequently about your products and your services. Develop a personality on the web, share your thoughts, promote interesting other people, and sell yourself. Even if you have the absolute BEST product and service in the industry right now, YOU still have to sell it and most consumers are more likely to buy from a person they can relate to. The opportunity will arise for you to sell as long you stay involved with potential customers.
Mikal Belicove, an author and Social Media Adviser, has stated, “It’s called Social Media, not Social SELLING.” Remembering that media is a crucial part of the whole equation will aid you greatly as you begin and continue your company’s growth in Social Media Marketing. Above all, the expanding realm of using social media as a sales tool is about developing a RELATIONSHIP and sharing your voice with a vast amount of potential new customers.
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Plug Your Website’s Sales Leaks
Feb 24th
Fix inefficiencies in how you handle and follow up with visitors once they do get to your site.
Many people pay a lot and work real hard on getting visitors to their website, but miss opportunities to close more business once the visitor is in the sales funnel.
It is easy to increase the number of visitors to your your website by spending more on advertising, using social media, etc. to create more traffic. However, many websites are missing a great opportunity to simply increase the conversion rate from those visitors they already have coming.
A website that I’ve been working with since 1997, PlanetUrine.com, is a niche business that helps pet owners with the very common problem of their pets urinating in the home. They sell and ship a lot products to help pet owners train their pets who have this problem, as well as help them rid their home of stains and odors as a result of this behavior (don’t laugh – if you have a pet, chances are you need their help). They have over 700 visitors per day coming to the site, and one of the lead capture systems is designed to allow pet owners to ask a question of a specialist about a problem their pet is having (Ask a Specialist). The form gets a lot of questions every day and helps customers make the decision to buy. However, when I was reviewing this system in depth it revealed holes that may be losing more sales than it’s gaining. Following are four areas that are contributing to some major inefficiencies:
- A semi-automated process
At the end of everyday, a person reviews and replies to each question. Yes, they are using templates so the messages don’t have to be written over and over, but somebody still has to take a 1/2 hour to an hour to reply to everybody. How much money has been spent over the years on this process that could be completely automated? - Only one message
They close a lot of sales for this particular lead capture system, however it is done with only one message. What about the person who didn’t read the first email, or the person who got busy after reading the first message and forgot about them? Industry best practices generally says it takes up to 5 messages to close the deal so I believe my client has been missing out on a lot of sales. - Only one ‘bucket’
The lead capture form inevitably attracts pet owners to ask questions for problems that my client does not sell with his niche products, but think about it; these are pet owners that have a problem of some sort. Why not sign up with an affiliate and refer these people and capitalize on that visit? Cost recovery in action! - A bit antiquated
The messages have always been well written and personal, however they were all plain text. Most people have HTML email now and studies have shown that nice graphics, and especially images – in this case people with their pets – really enhances the warmth of the messages and increases conversions.
The great opportunity is that there are a number of lead capture and sales systems like the aforementioned that have gone untouched for several years. For all involved – my client for more sales, me for more consulting work, and most important the visitor for their enhanced experience – we have an opportunity to make improvements and leverage new technologies to take PlanetUrine.com to a new level.
Base Salaries – Tie it to Activity
Mar 31st
I hope you don’t think a base salary for salespeople is merely a kind act on your part to help your new hire through until they hit stride. And as altruistic as you are, I hope that it isn’t merely a way to alleviate your concern that your new hire would have no motivation at all without some sort of salary. Good points. However, so many CEO’s waste the opportunity to use a base salary as a way to gain momentum for their new hire.
By now I hope you know your metrics – you know, how many dials to contact, contacts to appointment, appointments to close, etc. For a new sales hire, the most important thing you should be concerned about for the first 90 days is activity – i.e. how many dials, or door knocks, or networking events, etc. And because you’re paying a base salary, you need to leverage your kind act and tie it to their activity. You need to make it perfectly clear, up front, that their base salary is tied to a certain level of activity. 90% of your activity = 90% of base. Any problems?
Use the base salary for all it’s worth! Eventually your new hire will run into sales. And because you’re tracking the activity (see “You’re using Track-It sheets, right?!“), you’ll start to see patterns where they need improvement and the areas where they can be trained.
