Sales & Marketing Consultant, Bestselling Author & Business Motivational Speaker

As marketing and sales professionals, it is important to go back and review the tips that help build a solid foundation that promotes success. Many sales tips and advice regarding how to be an excellent sales professional are tried and true. Many of these tips are things we already know or have perfected. Even if we think we have perfected the basics, it’s always important to go back and have a refresher course. Let’s take a look at a few sales tips that have worked for you in the past, and that will continue to work for you in the future.

Presentation
Does your presentation, sometimes called your deck, show your product/service at its very best? You need to practice and even memorize what you are selling. Be prepared at any given moment to shift to the specific selling point that will woo the person you are talking with. Does your presentation have a natural flow? This all comes with time. The worst thing in the world is to sound rehearsed. Your belief in your product is what will close every sale.

Sales Is An Art
There is always room for improvement. As a sales professional, you must continually learn and adapt. Subscribe to blogs and news outlets that deal with your area of expertise and that relay information about your target demographic. Reading and staying up to date on your field will always serve you. Information is never a bad thing.

Clear Communication
Your clientele will evolve and you need to evolve as well. Know what is trending, learn how to speak to different types of personalities and remember that you need to be able to answer any and all questions. If you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to, make sure that you communicate to your customer that you will find the answer to their question. Honesty is key. You can always throw humor into the mix. Being sincere will always be appreciated by your potential customers.

As sales professionals, it is so important to continually strengthen your foundation. Go back to the basics. Take the time to remember why you are so passionate about the product or service that you are selling. Every individual that you engage with may not end up being your direct customer, but they will refer you and remember that you were sincere. In the end, you can always be better. Set aside a few hours each week to work on your professional development. This will serve you well.

Happy Marketing!
Sean
(Image Creative Commons)
Sean McPheat
Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert – Motivational Speaker

Marketing strategy and execution can be two of the most exhausting elements for just about every businessperson. With the endless ways that your business can be marketed, it becomes even more difficult to know which outlets are truly worth your time, energy and money. How many of us have ended up spending 80% of our time marketing our business and 20% of our time actually doing the real work? When we get caught up in the quicksand pit of marketing, it is extremely important to take time for one simple thing. You need to revisit  your “why”.

Know Your Why
Why did you start your business endeavor? Even the most seasoned business owners often forget what their initial motivation was. Did you want to be financially successful? Did you want to produce the best product in your niche field? Regardless of what your ultimate “why” is, you must revisit the foundation that you put in place when you first began your business. When we take time to remember why we are working so hard and what it is we are working for, this fuels our motivation to continue down our current path. Likewise, we can also see which marketing tactics we are using that don’t serve our ultimate purpose. Revisiting our “why” puts our current division of time and labor into a very real perspective.

Keep Your Eye On The Goal
Marketing and businesses are very similar to sports. When we play sports, we keep our eye on the goal at all times. Even when our backs are turned away, we still know where the goal is located. The same theory works for your business. You have revisited your “why”, now it’s time to make that goal large as life. Keeping an eye on your goal allows you to push forward with making sound business decisions. It also allows you to keep your head up, which is necessary for success.

Make A Map
You have your “why”. You have your eye on your goal. What’s the next step? Just like any other journey, you need a map. A map will keep you on course, allow you to see everything that surrounds you and tracks how far you have come. I would suggest researching project management software. Using project management software allows you to track your on-going projects. It also allows you to keep a historical of your past projects. This feature is great for looking at your business as a whole, just like a map, to see where you were, what you have accomplished and where you are heading.

Every business owner feels the weight of being pulled in too many directions. We can’t determine what efforts are worthwhile and which efforts are a waste of time until we step back and look at our initial goal. This is the perspective all business owners must visit on a regular basis.

Thanks!
Sean

Sean McPheat
Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

This blog is about marketing, and today we’re going to talk about the most fundamental aspect of marketing – how to sell. As a business owner, you undoubtedly know quite a lot about how to sell, and have likely been selling something, in one form or another, for much of your working life. However, it never hurts to revisit the basic, and maybe you’ll pick up something extra that you missed along the way.

In short, the keys to effective selling are knowledge and effort. If that sounds overly simplistic, allow me to explain a bit further.

Know Yourself, Know Your Customer, and Know your Competitor

The first step to successful sales is having a full range of knowledge, about your own company and product, as well as about your customer’s needs, and your competitor’s company and his products.

Every single time that you talk to a customer, you should start the day by researching their company. Strive to never give the same sales pitch to two different customers. Research each customer individually, and look for ways that a relationship with your company can bring them a unique benefit.

When customers are confronted by a salesperson who truly knows what they’re talking about, and who truly understand both their own company and the wider industry, they are automatically less defensive, and much more likely to walk away from the conversation one step closer to making a purchase.

Put in the Effort

Even more important than sales knowledge and techniques is putting in the full effort required to close a deal or make a sale. Never treat a customer like someone who you can do without; every time you make a sales pitch, you should tell yourself that there is no failure – that the company is on the line and you absolutely have to make this sale.

This is doubly important if you’re no longer directly involved in the sales aspect of your business, and you rely on others to do it for you. In your hiring and training processes, ensure that motivation is your primary goal. Never hire someone for sales based on their knowledge of the industry, however encyclopedic it may be. The determining factor in the success of a salesperson is their motivation level, and ensuring that they’re going out every day, meeting with clients, and taking the risks required to make sales.

These may seem like fundamental issues, but it is the fundamentals that make sales, and making sales makes companies.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

Unless your business deals with a newly invented product, or you’re truly a business revolutionary and you’re operating in a marketplace by yourself, chances are that you have competitors in your industry. Depending on your industry niche, they may be direct competitors, who offer an identical or similar product, or they may be indirect competitors, who offer a different product but offer it to the same group of potential clients as you do.

One of the hallmarks of a great business person is how they respond to competition, how they rise above the challenges presented by it, and how they make their business stronger and more competitive in the long run.

Know your Enemy

When a new competitor enters your marketplace, the first step is research. Look at what they’re doing, and how they’re trying to take your customers. In any case, the key is to explain why your product is better, not what your competitor’s product is worse. Bad-mouthing your competitors makes you sound childish, and puts you on the defensive. Instead, just explain why you have the best solution on the market.

Just as important is knowing what your competitors are doing – what services are they providing, where are they advertising, how are they trying to reach your customers, and where do your own marketing efforts overlap with theirs. By understanding exactly what the competition is doing, you stand a much better chance of outmaneuvering them and putting yourself into the most profitable piece of the market.

Keeping your Customers

The key to preventing your competitor’s making inroads into your customer base is by building and maintaining relationships with all of your customers. Of course, this is something that you should do all the time, but is especially important when a new competitor is courting your customers.

Customer relationships are built on two pillars – loyalty and incentives. Loyalty is getting to know your customer, and getting them to like and respect both your business and your product. Loyalty can be analogized to the way you might feel about your favorite restaurant – you keep going back because you know what you’re going to get, and you like it.

However, when you’re confronted with serious competition, your relationships need to go beyond this. It also needs to make financial sense for your customers to stay with you. Provide your loyal customers with incentives – free products, free upgrades, anything to make them know that you appreciate their continued business.

Rise above the Competition

The last thing you want to do when confronted with competition is fight them directly. This will only make you look bad, and cut into your profit margins. The key to beating the competition is rising above the competition. Focus on your unique selling point – what makes your product better than everything else on the market – and stick to it.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker