Increase Your Sales… September 11, 2008
Posted by Virtual Assistant in Digital Coaching, Fun Stuff, Interent Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Productivity Coaching, Virtual Services, Web Marketing, entrepreneur, small business, solo professional, solopreneur.Tags: customer thinking, customer thoughts, customers, free report, henry pellerin, increase sales, Marketing, sales, sales success, selling, success, vantaedge
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In the Mind of the Customer
Have you ever wished you could understand how your customers think? After all, how much easier would it be to generate business and how much more value could you provide to your customers?
Henry Pellerin, has graciously provided some great, eye-opening information about learning how to understand your customers and build effective long-term relationships with your customers.
In case you don’t know Henry, he is the President of VantaEDGETM where he helps companies dramatically improve their sales. What is interesting about Henry is that he is not some sales guru that is untouchable. In fact, quite the opposite, he actually gets out in the trenches. He feels that is the best way to truly be able to understand and develop programs that help people.
When you visit this website you will see a f*ree video that describes some statistics on what customers, business owners, and buyers are saying about you.
There is also a free report that provides a few valuable tips to help you understand your customers and build long-term relationships so you can:
- be more effective at sales and business development – more sales with less effort.
- understand customers better – to have customer relationships that pay and last a life-time
- see the importance of selling value instead of competing on price – understanding how to effectively communicate value
I think you will find this information very valuable.
Oh and I almost forgot to mention that Henry also put together some case studies of sales professionals, business owners, and coaches that explain the details on how they have used this information to increase their business.
Who Is Your Website Audience? July 25, 2008
Posted by Virtual Assistant in Digital Coaching, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Productivity Coaching, Virtual Services, Web Marketing, entrepreneur, small business, solo professional, solopreneur, web design.Tags: web design, website, website audience, website visitors
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Understanding the type of people who visit your site is a very important task because you can use that information to enhance your site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning visitors that come back again and again for more.
What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience have? A layman might linger around a general site on gardening, but a professional botanist might turn his nose at the very same site. Similarly, a regular person will leave a site filled with astronomy abstracts but a well educated university graduate will find that site interesting.
Take your audience’s emotional state into consideration when building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and comes across your site, you will want to make sure you offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product to him second. In this way, the visitor will put his trust in you for offering the solution to his problems and is more likely to buy your product when you offer it to him after that.
When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for information served without any icing on the cake? For example, introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black text against white background page will definitely turn prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site’s general theme.
Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to market a product to your audience.
Auto Responder Two Step! March 5, 2008
Posted by Virtual Assistant in Digital Coaching, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Productivity Coaching, Web Marketing, small business.Tags: auto responder, emarketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Web Marketing
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What would happen if you combined both of these powerful ideas? A nifty and thrifty two-step.
Try this two-step tip:
1. Collect leads with your auto responder. Ask for mailing addresses and telephone numbers, too, for additional ways to follow up with each person. When you download the e-mail digest of everyone’s e-mail addresses and other information from those who requested additional information from your auto responder, follow up multiple ways. Send postcards. Call. Mail sales letters and other promotional pieces.
2. Publish a price list of all the products and services that you offer in an insert, direct marketing package and / or .pdf to be made available via auto responder. You could also include order forms, product descriptions, and other sales material. Then send to the people in #1 above with monthly updates, announcements of new sales and products / services, and a request for referrals. So why not improve your closing ratio and reach out even further at the same time? Just do the two-step!
Should you hire a web designer? February 18, 2008
Posted by Virtual Assistant in Digital Coaching, Marketing, Web Marketing, small business, web design.Tags: internet brochures, internet design, small business, web designers, website
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A lot of business owners start with no money. They have to do everything themselves — the preparation of a product, the development of a marketing strategy, the actual building of a website to cater to their product’s marketing needs. As their business expands over time, they will find that their simple “homemade” site might not be enough to cover everything, and they will have to take a day or two away to simply dedicate that to the website expansion.
Sounds familiar? Chances are, you’re someone who started everything with no money too, so you’re pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a designer than just finishing up a job that you don’t want to do.
When you hire a web designer to do your job for you, you are doing more than just handing over the “dirty job” to someone else. In fact, by paying a little money, you can let the designer worry about the little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come haunting when you’re halfway through the job. That way, you will be more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business strategy.
On the other hand, the designers you hire are professionals so they are good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design jobs to them, you won’t have to worry when problems surface because you can always get them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the problem and fix it faster than you probably will be able to.
Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what you can achieve because the designers have been doing it longer than you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good!
So, remember to not just work your business, but grow your business too!
