Selling For Profit - Five Steps to Help You Focus on the Profitability of the Sale

1. Make Profit Important Get your people in line. All employees need to understand the rudiments of how they can behave profitably. Yes, you can behave profitably! Help all employees to have a regard for the costs they incur in their daily jobs. Share (in general terms) how much of the cost of running the business is represented in the cost of the product or service you are selling. Understand how easily this is given away due to inefficient behaviours, wastage, getting things wrong, letting customers down and so on. 2. Understand Costs As a business you need to know what to charge to cover all your costs and achieve your profitability targets. Whether you are charging for your time, a product or a service, you will need to know how to recoup all costs relating to making that product or service available and what profit margin will sustain your business. Check regularly what the costs of running your business are and your level of sales revenue. Then you can keep track of your viability as a business. It sounds simple and it is! Costs need to be in focus. 3. Define your Pricing Policy Define a process for managing the prices you charge. Many companies use an upper and lower limit as a guide for market pricing. Communicate clearly to your employees what their limits are and measure performance, rewarding good pricing management. It is too easy to let price slip when giving discounts and running promotions, so let employees know when they can stretch to their limits. Record your companies' adherence to pricing policy and take strong measures if you're letting good habits slip. 4. Find the right Price Position Find a position that sits well with your offer. Use the market as a guide in the first instance but intuitively you will know if your charges are about right for what you offer. You might consider the following three observations whilst deciding your price position: 1. Pricing is not going to differentiate your business. Service or quality will make you different, not price! 2. Prices, which to some look like good value, may look cheap to others. Not everyone likes cheap. 3. Try to be premium or low-cost; it's good to be one end of the scale rather than the middle. The centre ground can suggest no position at all! Find a price position and try it. If it doesn't work don't get stuck, look again and find another position that fits. 5. Understand your 'Hidden' Value Many products and services have become commodities and can become labeled with a price. Some businesses on the face of it do exactly what other businesses do. An accountant is an accountant after all. Not so! You may have to work hard to find differences but there will be some. Try hard to find these differences because you can charge for them! You may be bigger, smaller, faster or more experienced. You may wear the right kind of tie! Change your position to become the type of supplier they need. Your 'hidden' value is actually the ability to find what the client values most about your product or service. You will rarely need to be the cheapest if you can discover the 'hidden' value in your offer. KEITH PLACE DIRECTOROXFORD SALES CONSULTANTSHelping you to be better at selling - whatever you sell Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Keith_Place

Sales Managers Top 7 Mistakes

Managing a sales team effectively is difficult. Many sales managers find themselves promoted to the position directly from sales because of their outstanding individual sales performance. They often have no previous management experience and are given little training to develop leadership skills. In the absence of direction and development they're usually compelled to take control of their sales force rather than develop and lead it. Here is a list of the top 7 mistakes made by sales managers, and how to overcome them: Micromanaging. While delegation is an exceptional tool for experienced leaders, it is extremely difficult for inexperienced managers to grasp. In the absence of confidence and self-awareness they frequently attempt to control every facet of a salespersons work day. They often base these instructions on what worked well for them in their own sales careers without taking into account individual strengths, personalities, habits and learning styles. Instead of removing roadblocks they create them, making a salespersons job more difficult and less rewarding. Efficiency, effectiveness and moral all suffer as a result. Creating blanket policies. Issues that arise in management are often specific to an individual salesperson(s) rather than the team as a whole. Individual conversations take time however, and can be uncomfortable. Sales managers tend to avoid confrontation by issuing blanket policies and communications that negatively impact the entire team. The team doesn't understand the reason for the policy/communication and as a result, feels unjustly suppressed. Mean while the individual(s) that was the cause never has the benefit of a direct conversation enabling them to understand the root issue and participate in the discovery of a solution. Requiring excessive paperwork & reporting. Insisting that all team members produce exhaustive reports about their daily activities is both inefficient and ineffective. While call activity might be an important coaching opportunity for a new salesperson, it probably isn't a good use of time for your top performer(s). "What's good for one is good for all" is nonsense. Team members should be assessed on an individual basis and asked to report on information that can positively impact them. Make sure the information tracked is relevant and important to their success and give them access to any tools and technology that can increase the efficiency of their reporting. Allowing mediocrity. There are almost always people on a sales team that will never perform at a high level, regardless of how much training and technology is invested in them. Evaluate people fairly but if it's clear that they aren't going to cut it, get rid of them. Putting off the inevitable is not good for them or the company. Not providing enough 1-on-1 time. We all have different strengths, personalities, learning styles, and needs. For sales people to grow they need individual attention and help. Figure out a way to get time alone with every member of your team regularly and consistently. Review the information you intend to discuss a day in advance - this will help you do a better job of listening and discovering areas of need. It's no different than selling; if you don't understand their needs, you can't show them how you can be a benefit to them. Not spending enough time on the street. To really understand how a sales team is performing managers need to get out on the street with them. There isn't a coach in the world that shows up for practice but skips the game. The field is where we see theory put into practice, and it's where true coachable moments appear. Not listening. Telling team members how to perform better isn't the same as teaching them how. We have to listen to fully understand issues, roadblocks, and what the solutions might be. There is always something to learn, even for managers. Not giving credit. Sales managers too often assume that they have to prove their worth by demonstrating the effectiveness of their own efforts. The reality is that managements effectiveness is reflected in the performance of the team. Give credit where credit is do. Promote the successes of individuals and of the team. It boosts their confidence and moral, and shows that you are more concerned with the success of the company than with your own success. It's difficult to manage a sales team effectively, but by identifying common mistakes and working hard to correct them, over the course of time, sales managers will find themselves capable of elevating individuals and teams to a new level of success. I am a certified professional coach, management and sales trainer, using the science of personality traits and communication, strengths and learning styles to help organizations develop elite teams, and help individuals realize unparalleled success. For additional discussions and insights, please visit my blog at http://trevinwecks.com/blog. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trevin_Bensko-Wecks

Improving Sales Force Effectiveness Using Six Sigma

Abstract For effective sales, companies need to differentiate how they allocate their limited sales resources among existing customers, customer service and new business development (prospects). When ranking Customers and Prospects, the common metric is usually either sales or profits. This paper will show how you can blend multiple desirable sales characteristics including Sales Growth, Close Rate, Payment History, Unit Volume, Repeat Business, along with Sales and Profit, to create an "Overall Performance Factor" for each Customer or Prospect. This Overall Performance Factor can easily be sorted to create an objective ranking of best to lowest performance in which you can prioritize and assign the appropriate sales resources to meet the company's objectives. Background Sales Process / Performance Improvement Project Customer Ranking - Shortcomings of the 80/20 Rule Multi-Measure Approach Needed Created a New Customer Ranking System This Property & Casualty Insurance company needed to evaluate their Sales Process. While they were profitable, earnings were flat for the last 3 years and their investors were punishing them with a low stock price. The analysis led to an evaluation of their Independent Sales Force. They sold insurance through independent agencies. These could be sole proprietors who sell one company's insurance products exclusively or larger multi-agent firms that sell multiple, and even competing lines. At the time of this project they had about 2400 independent insurance agencies. These agencies were their "business-to-business" customers. Ranking their independent agencies based on Sales (traditional method) quickly showed itself as being an incomplete view. They were concerned about multiple measures including Sales Growth, Consumer Retention and Profitability. The company needed to do great in all of these measures, plus Sales/Revenue, to meet the earnings growth expectations their investors were demanding. A Multi-Variable-Pareto calculation tool was used to develop a single customer (or independent agency) ranking. This tool used the principles of Pareto Analysis but allowed them to calculate an Overall Performance Indicator based on multiple performance factors. Multi-Variable Pareto Method Pareto Charts were developed in the late 1800's by an Italian Economist, Vilfredo Pareto. He used this analysis to determine that wealth was skewed to a small portion of the population. In his time, 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the families in Italy. From Vilfredo we derived the Pareto Principal or 80/20 rule. This is commonly used in sales, with 80% of sales generated by only 20% of customers. Pareto Analysis is a great business tool, but there is more to increasing profit than focusing on just sales, or even just profit. There are leading and lagging indicators of profit growth from the customer base. Measures The first step was to determine what measures defined great customers (or great independent agencies). A cross functional Six Sigma Sales team was formed representing Sales Executives, Sales Representatives, Marketing, Finance and Operations. The Insurance Company Six Sigma Sales Team defined great agencies as having: High Sales $ High Gross Profit % High Consumer Retention High Year-Over-Year Sales Growth By defining Sales Growth as important a measure as Sales $ they were signaling to their Account Executives that focusing on smaller but growing agencies was just as important as focusing on larger, low growth agencies. As you will see in the data below, many high-sales agencies had flat to declining sales. Forced Ranking Force Ranking mathematically equates these different measures for the overall calculation. This process simply makes the largest number equal to a 10. Then all other customers are proportioned with respect to the largest. This Factor is used in the Overall Performance calculation. Overall Performance Factor The Overall Performance Factor is a combination of each measure's factor. You can also weight each measure and use this to calculate the overall performance factor. The last step is to sort the customer list based on the Overall Performance Factor. Then you can make prioritization decisions about how to allocate Sales and Customer-Service time. Top Customers - Get them the most focus, time and service Average Customers - How can we move them up? Below Average Customers - Can use multiple strategies such as using an inside customer service rep versus field rep to service this customer, or remediate them Insurance Company - Customer (Independent Agency) Ranking (Note; the data below is an approximation of the 2400 agents) Agent - Revenue - GP% - Retention - Sales Growth - Ranking Factor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ustomer Differentiators The next step was to determine what characteristics statistically differentiated the best customers from all others. The team brainstormed all possible ways to segment customers. There were 72 different possible classifications. Three characteristics were common (based on statistical testing) amongst the best. These were: Did not already sell insurance Had a Business Plan Were in business for 5 - 10 years Results Instead of treating all customers equally, or rewarding sales agencies with high sales, but no growth, this company differentiated how they allocated sales resources to existing customers and prospects. Sales strategies were developed based on the ranking. Different ranks required different action plans to achieve improvement. Following the analysis, they recruited insurance agencies that were similar to the high performers, trained them to match the business techniques that were used by the high performers and provided marketing support that was most highly utilized by the high performers. Six months following the implementation of this project, this Insurance Company's earnings grew by over 26%. For more detailed information about this subject go to http://www.supplyvelocity.com/ for our white papers. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mitch_Millstein

What Can CRM Do For My Sales

Thanks to the large number of CRM software programs on the market today, most people have heard of CRM software. But many of those people have an incorrect or incomplete understanding of what CRM is capable of doing. This article will describe what CRM can do for your sales. After a brief overview of the concept of CRM, we'll identify some typical sales problems that CRM can solve. CRM became a buzzword in the 1990's. It referred to a technology-driven initiative to unify the efforts of a company's customer-facing departments. This new strategy would restructure these departments around the company's greatest asset - its customers! CRM would allow customer information from across the company to be available to any employee who happened to interact with the customer, enabling the sales team to sell more successfully, the marketing team to segment and market to customers more effectively, and the service team to provide more personal, more effective resolution to customer complaints or requests. Simply put, the technology available at the outset of CRM was insufficient to allow the concept to deliver on its promise. Today, however, the technology is available, and companies of every size and budget are realizing the benefits of CRM technology. Is your company one of them? Do you know what these benefits are? Why Do I Need CRM? Below are some typical problems that can be solved by implementing CRM.... "I want to improve the performance of my sales team this year." Well what do you mean, "improve?" How did you measure the performance of your sales team last year (meaning can you identify important metrics other than total revenue or number of sales)? Here are some specific questions you may ask yourself: o Can I identify the areas of performance in which my sales team did well, and those in which they underperformed? o Can I identify which of those areas has historically had the greatest impact on overall sales performance? o Which of those areas can be improved with the least investment of dollars, time, or training? o Which specific behaviors should I encourage to drive the performance increase I seek? For example, it may be that you had good lead generation and qualification numbers, but fell short in your more advanced sales stages. Or maybe your sales reps seemed to stall out in a certain part of your sale cycle, taking much longer than you would expect to achieve the objectives there and move into the next stage. There are many ways a sales team can underperform. But if you don't have a well-implemented CRM system, the odds are good that you can't accurately answer the questions that will help you improve. The truth is that measurable improvement can only come from measured results. Otherwise, your message to your sales team will continue to consist of frustrated admonitions to work harder or close better. "I think my sales team is doing a poor job of following up on the leads we receive, although I can't say for sure." There are two problems in this statement - the first is the suspicion that your valuable leads are falling through the cracks; the second is the fact that you can't measure the degree to which effective follow-up is occurring on the leads your team receives. CRM is designed to chain together a prospect's progress through the different stages of your sales efforts, from campaign to close. You can see exactly how many leads your sales team receives, and what actions are taken to pursue those leads. This information is available in high-level percentages and in detailed specifics about each lead. "I only know what's in the pipeline once a week - after spending hours calling my direct reports. By the time I'm done aggregating the data, things have probably changed anyway." It's hard to proactively manage your sales team in today's sales environment without knowing exactly how the pipeline for your team and for each rep looks. Identifying regions and reps that aren't performing well isn't possible without pipeline information. When this information is available real-time, you can use your valuable time for coaching and enabling your team rather than collecting their numbers. Opportunity management in CRM gives you and your sales reps and the ability to see what's in your pipeline in real-time. Information can be organized to show where each opportunity is in the sales stage, when it's expected to close, and what the rep expects it to be worth. Furthermore, if you know your sales process well enough to identify factors that indicate high chances of success or failure in an opportunity, certain opportunities can be flagged to help you take the necessary steps to close those deals or keep them from falling out of your pipeline. Over time and with enough accumulated pipeline data, you can begin to understand the probability related to pipeline values in different stages of your sales process. This understanding will help you forecast sales more accurately and identify the optimal pipeline numbers in each sales stage that will maximize pipeline through-put. "My sales reps don't execute the sales process properly. It's hard for me to identify the degree to which they're really following the process. It's also hard for me to mandate change in sales rep behavior." When CRM becomes the tool your sales team uses to manage the information relating to potential sales, it also becomes the medium through which you can mandate positive change. Your sales process can be integrated into the CRM system, allowing you to monitor the tasks and stages that each rep completes for each deal, or giving you high-level statistics to see the degree to which the sales process is being followed by your sales team as a whole. "My reps are not productive enough - they spend too much time doing things other than selling." CRM is designed to automate the tasks that take your reps away from selling. Whether it be · creating quotes or proposals · churning out follow-up communications · communicating internally with others involved in the sales process · saving or hunting for saved customer communications or the host of other tasks that cut into the time reps spend in front of potential customers, CRM can streamline or automate these tasks to free up more selling time for your sales team. "It takes too much time and effort for my reps to collaborate with other groups who could help in the sales process - we don't collaborate as much as we'd like to, and the collaboration we do engage in is inefficient." This is a CRM sweet spot. The whole concept of CRM is to allow information to flow across the enterprise in the instant it's created. Sales data will be made available to key players in your organization who can help move a sale to completion. This information flow can be automated, eliminating the need for manual communications. Tasks will be automatically created, both to remind your team members to complete assignments and to allow you to monitor and follow-up on tasks that aren't being completed. All of this drastically reduces the time your team needs to spend on the phone or sending emails to inform others of details relating to a sale. "My company's customer and prospect information is unreliable." Today is a great day to start reversing this trend. While you may or may not be able to improve the quality of the data you already have, you can certainly ensure that the customer data you create from now on will be complete and reliable. Good data keeping requires 2 things: a policy and a place. CRM gives you both. You define the policy by deciding what information is required for CRM records like accounts and contacts. Duplicate detection tools and other validation procedures defined by you can be created to ensure the purity and entirety of your customer data. And, of course, CRM is the place - the new center of all customer-facing information in your organization. by Andy Schultz Questions or comments? Invoc exists to help companies identify the ways CRM can contribute to measured, sustainable growth in sales, service, and marketing activities. Feel free to contact Invoc using the information below if you would like to explore the possibilities for CRM at your company. Invoc is a Microsoft Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. 713-240-3549 http://www.invoc.net info@invoc.net Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_B_Schultz

Sell More - Set Great Objectives For Meetings

A well planned and structured conversation leading to agreed outcomes is satisfying for both the buyer and the seller. Setting objectives for your next meeting can have a major impact on the outcome of any meeting. One of Stephen Covey's Highly Effective habits is "Begin with the end in mind". Exactly what is it you are trying to achieve at the meeting? Once you have thought about what you want to achieve then test the objective:- Is it reasonable? Based on past experience with selling this product/service to this and other clients. 'Chunking up' and 'chunking down' as useful ways to build up a vision or break down goals - you may know what you wish to achieve overall but need to create steps en route. These smaller steps may be the objective(s) for this particular meeting. Does the person you are seeing have the authority to make the decision/commitment you are seeking? If you don't know then find out before you meet. Not selling to power is a common mistake. Are you happy to educate people and just have comfortable conversations? Unless the people we engage with have the authority to make a decision (or are willing to help us get that authority), we will not make the sale. Why is it in their interest to make the commitment you will ask for? Put your client's need before your own. To you it may another sale to reach target, a way to raise funds, first sale for new idea or product. To your client of course it is a new way to work, a way to save money, make money, improve their life etc etc. ie people buy the benefit they will achieve. Empathy is very important. In their position would you buy what you propose? Why? Can you visualise them saying 'YES!' How will they say it - exclaim it as they decide the reason to buy? Happily agree with everything you say? Raise objections then agree after rationale debate? What is their 'proof strategy' (more about this later)? How will they feel when they say yes? This is a powerful technique to align your behaviour with the expected outcome. In future blogs we will discuss NLP, which I believe has a key role to play in selling to assist you to understand your buyer and modify your own behaviour if you choose. This approach delivers several benefits. It helps to drive the outcome that you want - and by definition will also help your customer since we will be selling a solution to their needs. It also helps to weed out the meetings that you don't have time for - ie if you cannot set a worthwhile objective perhaps you should re-set expectations or cancel the meeting. In summary, you can drive the objective setting of meetings to a large extent. Test your objectives beforehand and by using your sales skills ensure meetings are as productive as possible. By owning this process to the largest extent appropriate you can relieve your buyer of effort and enhance their productivity - s/he will thank you for it! http://www.softskillslimited.com/ http://www.theRobertJohnston.com/ I am the author. For over 25 years I have been very successful in selling and management. Working for some of the world's most well known companies such as IBM and Oracle. I'm based in the UK and now decided to follow my passion and set up a business delivering sales training. At my sites you can book on a course at a great offer price. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_W_Johnston

How These Four Sales Management Tips Can Reverse the 20-80 Productivity Rule For Your Sales Team

The 20/80 rule (Pareto's Principle) abounds in life and in business. This is a pretty scary statistic as noted by Tom Stein in a posting at the AllBusiness website specific to sales. In his article, he provided five (5) steps to build a powerful and effective sales team where the goal to increase sales is realized. Now what would happen if the sales management could move some of those under performing salespersons in the 80% bucket into the 20% bucket without losing the productivity of the currently performing to over performing individuals? For this to happens requires these steps to be taken: First, referring to Tom Collins in Good to Great, it is critical to have the right sales people in the right seats in the right bus. When you understand their decision making styles to their talents (strengths) you can not only achieve great performance appraisals, but have a cohesive team where all members are rowing with the same energy toward exactly the same target. In other words, you have removed the slackers from your team and have helped the under performing to work smarter and not harder. Second, integrating a proven goal achievement process that unites the following: Personal goals Organizational goals Metrics Alignment to other departments The use of the same tool (goal worksheet) ensures sales goals are achieved as well as improves overall communication. Such improvements only strengthen another inherent weakness facing more organizations and that is consistent execution of strategic goals and initiatives. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Many individuals fail to achieve their own personal goals so how they achieve organizational ones? Third, reviewing the overall organization is necessary as well. The sales department does not work in isolation. Other functions and departments of the firm must all work together. Unfortunately, sometimes the inability to increase sales is just as much about internal obstacles such as structure, processes, rewards and other employees as it is about the individual performance of each salesperson. Sometimes it may also help to take a proven organizational assessment aligned to accepted criteria such as Baldrige. Fourth, results based, not competency based, sales training is also required. This approach to developing the skill sets of your sales team leverages everyone's talents. (See Tip #1). When a competency based approach is used, the strengths of individual team members are devalued because a now accepted competency has been created. This also creates an essentially "more hope to" false philosophy which again is not the best performance approach. When organizations invest the time to truly develop their sales teams including providing effective sales training, assessing for decision making styles and talents and incorporating a proven goal achievement process, then they can move away from the 20/80 principle. This action would increase overall productivity and realize the goal to increase sales. Now doesn't that make more sense? Free sales skills assessment by Results Sales Coach Leanne Hoagland-Smith who helps with sales coaching, leadership to sales management development. Schedule your free strategy session at 219.759.5601 Central Time. Are you Captain Wing It or Captain Focus It when it comes to your business and sales behaviors? Learn how to work smarter not harder by having a simple written sales action plan. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leanne_Hoagland-Smith

LinkedIn Discussion For Sales Managers - What Do You Do When HR Can't Find the Hunters You Need?

I recently posted this question on LinkedIn: Sales Managers: What do you do when your HR group isn't able to identify the hunters you need? With the incredible costs due to unfilled positions (customers going with the competition, RFPs not completed and generally missed sales opportunities), what do you (the sales manager) do to help HR see the need to use an outside source? I have 2 managers right now with open jobs, no real candidates in the pipeline and HR says that they want to fill the job internally. I got some really great answers from sales managers, business owners, recruiters, and HR people from around the country, and I thought the gist of the discussion was worth posting here for you. The general consensus seems to be that HR departments are difficult to work with on a candidate search because (1) there are often corporate politics coming into play, (2) HR doesn't have the expertise to handle finding specialized sales professionals, and (3) HR doesn't understand the true cost of a vacant position (and might not be all that interested). Especially if HR is working with a limited budget, they're not going to be interested in using an outside recruiting source-because they don't grasp the true cost of a vacant position to the company as a whole. So, they should stick to the onboarding portion of bringing in a new candidate. More than a few say that sales managers should just bypass HR entirely-because sales and marketing departments are much more equipped to recruit than HR departments, much more versed in what it is that they need in a new sales rep, and should already have an extensive network of sales reps to mine for their needs. (In some cases, these were also their arguments for not using a third-party recruiter.) Most importantly, if the sales manager is going to be held responsible for making the numbers, he or she shouldn't have to rely on another department to that extent for their team's success. My position is, of course, that sales managers make much more productive use of their time by working with the team they have in place to make the sales, and leaving the candidate search to a recruiter. The more money a manager generates in a normal cycle, the more it costs to use that time finding a new sales rep. And if recruiting isn't your business, you're almost never going to have access to the kind of candidate pool a recruiter has, no matter how extensive your professional network is-which means you'll be missing out on some very high-caliber talent. If the sales manager (or the HR department) has to run ads to find talent, that becomes a costly gamble which can easily bring you no results from your efforts. A good recruiting team saves time and money, while increasing productivity and sales force effectiveness. Peggy McKee is the CEO of PHC Consulting, an executive search firm that specializes in finding top sales, sales management, technical support and marketing talent for the medical and healthcare industries. We specialize in laboratory, medical device, healthcare IT, health care and hospital administration, and health care supply. Our clients include companies that are on the Fortune 5, 50, and 500 list, as well as Fortune 100 Fastest-Growing companies. Our clients' call points are the pharmacy, hospital administration, laboratory (both clinical and research), and the physician or surgeon. Our clients say that we provide the most pre-screened, pre-qualified candidates and talent that they receive. They love our follow-up, and they love the fact that we listen to what they truly need, and identify and exceed their goals in the candidate search. Our candidates say that we listen to what they are looking for in a career--that we help them find the best positions that are truly a long-term fit, and that we help make a stressful job search a little easier. See our website at http://www.phcconsulting.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peggy_McKee

Why the Sales Process Never Stops

The other week, a client expressed an unfortunate but too frequent complaint about certain salespeople: "Salespeople tell you whatever they think you want to hear to close a sale. But once you've signed off and the tech people come in to fulfill it, they say you can't have the product as promised! Their justification, if you can call it that: 'Well that's salespeople. They'll tell you anything.'" We often hear stories such as this. But there's also a universal truth for any company that operates this way: they're doomed to lose customers and fail. As a customer, why would you ever give your business to them again? Companies like this fall into the trap of believing that the business sales process stops with the first order. In reality of course, it doesn't. Nor does it stop with the fulfillment of that order. Nor does it stop with the next order, or the fulfillment of that. The selling process, in fact, never stops. And it's businesses that understand and embrace this that are the most enduringly successful. These businesses understand that the sales process is about building a relationship that extends far beyond the sales person. Every person in the organization is in fact part of this process; the very reason their job exists is to solve customer problems and fulfill customer needs. In essence the salesperson has point duty on behalf of every member of the company. You may ask: How do other people in the organization, like customer service, engineering, finance or technical support, sell? In the narrowest sense of the word, maybe they don't. But they do communicate with customers in many different ways, because at its heart effective selling is nothing more than effective communication. So every contact with a customer has implications either on the next potential order or what they'll tell others about their experience with your organization. And it will make or break you as a business because the facts are it's far more profitable to retain customers you already have than it is to get new ones. Happy customers are one of your best assets, so you need to look after them. Which is why every person in your business should participate in some form of a sales training program. They need to understand how to sell so they can appreciate why effective 'communication' with customers is critical to business success, and the role they play in that sales process. But none of this absolves your salespeople of responsibility! In fact, the most responsibility still lies with them, because selling isn't only making a promise, but delivering on it. If they can't work in tandem with others in your business to ensure that this happens, then the sales process ceases to be effective and you've lost a customer. Andy represents The Fortune Group, which provides leadership development, sales training and change management solutions for management, sales and business teams. Integrated programs combine customised workshops with in house coaching tutorials to reinforce and accelerate the learning process. Visit us at http://www.fortunegroup.com.au Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy_G_Klein

Some Interesting Comments About Sales As A Profession

In the UK there are 766,000 sales people and 545,000 marketers, yet of Britain's 300 HND or degree level business courses only three have sales modules, whereas more than two hundred have marketing modules. Maybe this is why: "Sales is neither understood nor accepted by many" Two other facts: I did a scan of the curriculum of 15 MBA courses, and not one of them mentioned sales, lots on strategic marketing though: The only official recognition for the selling profession is "The Diploma in Sales" available through a number of specialist marketing bodies and a few business schools around the world. Here are a few more interesting thoughts. Pick up the business news of any news paper and find an article on sales. Page through a business magazine and find an article on sales. When did you last see a heading "Sales force drives Acme plc to 25% growth", or "Competitive sales wins give Acme plc increased market share"? The top and bottom of it is you don't! It seems that reported business success is down to strategy or cost control or new products. Of course there is truth in these but when did you last get a call from strategy trying to sell you something. Cost control is finite, there are still only 100p to a pound and those new products generally speaking don't sell them selves. As selling is the real wealth creator why is it not understood or publicised? I have a simple view of this. It is a view that reflects our British nature. Basically sales people are disliked. People do not like being sold to, the ultimate insult is likening someone to a double glazing sales person. Of all the white collar professions the easiest one to measure is sales. A sales person has a target, if they make it they are great and if they don't they are fired. A bit black and white but closer to the truth than many would care to admit. Have you ever wondered why the Jobs section of the Daily Telegraph (sorry to promote this broadsheet, but they do have a sales column) has so many sales director vacancies? Companies no longer recruit sales people rather they call them Account Managers or Business Development Managers. The truth of the matter is that most sales people are insecure, which is not surprising really, and that the profession is under recognised and undervalued. Addressing these two issues is fundamental to achieving a successful sales force and a successful company. Money and sales trips are only part of the answer, the real answer lies in saying "Thank You" when a big order comes in, or praising the sales force rather than beating it up when things are not going well. Achievement is a sales person's biggest motivator and that is what really needs to be understood. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Chiswick

What Do Customers Want Now?

As the Great Recession continues to abate, there are signals that companies are finally shrugging off the siege mentality of 2009 and cautiously looking ahead for opportunities to cultivate markets with new products and services. According to a McKinsey global survey, executives are looking for external funding and actively returning to planning medium and long term initiatives. This is in stark contrast to the "cut and cover" tactics of the past two years. What do these hopeful signs mean for sales teams working with these companies? One implication is that it is also time for sales teams to switch gears. Calling on customers can be more rewarding and productive for everyone if sales teams are in touch with what customers want from them as they plan for growth. So, what exactly do customers want from the sales relationship as signs of growth return? A recent study conducted for an industrial distributor provides some answers. Distributors and dealers were asked to rate what was important to them in the buying process and the frequency with which they saw sales teams demonstrating sales actions that delivered value. The results from 410 respondents paint a picture of customers looking for both basic efficiencies in getting things done as well as stimulating ideas and creativity. On the other hand, the data also reveals that many customers in the sample felt that a significant percentage of sales teams weren't delivering value beyond product and service transactions. When asked to rate what was important to them in the sales relationship, a set of sales actions which had a theme of "getting things done" percolated to the top of the list. The highest rated of these reflected taking steps within the vendor company to fulfill customer requests, solving problems effectively, making sure the customer were getting the benefits of the product or service, and knowing enough about the customer's business to understand their needs. Straight talk about the products and services and how different they were from the competition was also highly important. The customers seem to be saying that what is important to them, first and foremost, is a sales process that matches a need to the right product or service and gets it efficiently delivered and installed. This is a more or less transactional set of expectations that view the sales process as an ends to a means. Why is that so important to customers? One possibility is that this narrow focus serves a hunkered-down economy where expectations are lowered across the board to completing basic functions. Also, it could be that customers don't expect much more than that from sales teams. Have sales teams literally trained customers to view them as "order-takers" that old nemesis label? There is additional data to suspect that might be the case. When customers were asked how frequently these "get it done" sales actions were demonstrated, most of these were highly rated. That is, sales teams were responding to the transaction urgency of customers by performing sales actions that do, in fact, get it done. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that it appears sales people are doing the obvious, the relatively easy and not much more for customers. Other important sales actions are seen less frequently; this is a red flag for sales teams, especially now. While still rated relatively important, this set of sales actions reflect a more consultative selling approach. What customers see less than the transactional skills-in some cases significantly less-are sales actions that revolve around offering unique and fresh ideas and advice, finding other resources, creating alternative approaches to problems, providing business advice, and exploring the future. These and other similar consultative sales actions require more skill, more sophisticated knowledge and business acumen, and perhaps most important, an attitude about the sales team's role as customer ally. The data suggest that at least half or more of the sales teams in the sample infrequently demonstrate these kinds of consultative sales actions. Bear in mind, these were still viewed as important to customers, only slightly less so than the "get it done" oriented sales actions. The risk for sales teams, especially in this fragile market environment, is to be absent from the planning table when those mid- and longer-range plans mentioned earlier are being contemplated and the opportunity to influence decisions passes by. If that is the case, the challenge for sales teams is to re-brand themselves as resources, not just vendors. If sales teams can position themselves as sources of advice and ideas, act as liaison to experts and valuable resources that are connected to industry networks and stimulate thinking about not only product application ideas, but future business solutions, then their immediate value and the value of the sales process goes up astronomically. Do sales people know they need to improve on these more idea-, resource- and network-oriented aspects of the sales process? In three separate studies, a total of 99 sales people were asked to rate themselves on the importance of sales actions to customers and whether they rated themselves as "Do It Well" or "Need To Improve" on each. Ironically, the highest Need To Improve scores provided by these self-ratings were given to many of the same sales actions that reflected a consulting orientation. So, sales people know there is room for growing into a bigger role. What can sales management do to close this gap? Sales people have to be both excellent facilitators, ensuring customer get what they need, but at the same time, they have to offer more than just a delivery service, providing additional value to the customer and differentiating both themselves and their products. There are three routes to the re-branding process. First, training has to go beyond pitching, questioning, objection-handling, product knowledge, and order-fulfillment activities. Specifically, sales teams need industry-oriented education where sales people are taught to think like customers, understand a customer's business priorities and concerns, and evaluate decisions from the other side of the table. Next, sales coaches have to step up to a critical development role. They have to be focused on developing customer-focused business skills in the sales team. Sales meetings can include customer application stories, cost justification models, product configuration examples that demonstrate how solutions can be more tailored to customer needs, and discussion of problems that actual customers are facing in their businesses. The task is to get sales teams to think through all these like a customer, sorting through what fits and what doesn't. Consistently practiced over the long haul, this customer focus will become a sales priority for all sales teams, not just a pocket of engaged sales people who have learned the importance of this point of view. Finally, sales and marketing must work together to create materials and processes that can be built into and delivered through the sales team. While not every sales person will be quick to learn and apply analytic skills, he or she can learn to use an analytic checklist or deliver industry news, present documented application stories and provide access to technical experts and resources. The combined focus of both sales and marketing on enriching the sales experience can be vital in giving ongoing value to customers in ideas, education and connections to industry networks. If the sales team finds itself stuck in the role of facilitator of deliveries and order fulfillment, then it is only providing a portion of what customers want. What customers also want now are sales people to help them engage with the problems and challenges of growing their businesses out of the Great Recession. Michael D. Maginn has been working with and studying selling for over 25 years. He has interviewed hundreds of sales people in many different lines of business in developing custom sales training programs, always searching for the behaviors that define high performers. As Vice President, Research and Development for The Forum Corporation, he completed one of a number of landmark sales competency studies and subsequent best-selling sales programs. Since then, as the president of Singularity Group, Hamilton, MA., he has worked with many sales organizations in defining how the sales process can add value to the customer's experience. He is the designer of C-Lens Index, a sales assessment tool which gathers data on the customer's view of the sales process as well as the author of 5 Skills of Master Salespeople, available from Amazon.com.For more information:http://www.singularitymanagerzine.comhttp://www.c-lensindex.blogspot.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_D._Maginn

Growing Your Business Profits

Grow your business profits using dollars you have already spent on inventory! Today is a great time to revisit the idea of bartering! With organized barter more automated and efficient, it is a terrific time to take advantage of the increased buying and spending power in addition to the cost savings to operate your business. Many retail stores are closing their doors due to the lack of business and cash flow. Most retail stores believe that by slashing their prices they will cause more customers and traffic to the store. This might be true for that moment, but isn€™t the real objective to gain NEW customers and LOYAL customers? If a store has the inventory and capacity to increase sales without it affecting their hard cost of doing business, barter is a win/win situation. Barter customers bring other cash customers when they talk about the experience. While barter can drive new customers to your store, the new customers can tell their friends and family about their experience and you can gain cash business at the same time you are moving that inventory or filling excess capacity. Example: A business or retail store owns inventory and it is moving slower then expected or needed. Meanwhile the business owner has some immediate business needs that are critical to their business. If the business owner can market their inventory through an online barter website and attract new customers to purchase some of the items for full retail using barter credits, the business owner can then purchase the items for the business using that revenue rather than spending new money! Some examples might be new store signage or printing and advertising! The idea situation is the use the new barter revenue to advertise and bring in additional cash paying customers. Don€™t forget that your new barter clients will be loyal to you and also help promote your business as long as they continue to feel like valued customers and receive excellent value and service from your staff! Barter clients should be a welcome addition to your business and treated as friends. Remember they are also business owners and understand why you are bartering and want to help you grow and prosper in your business also. Cost of Barter: You might wonder what joining a barter organization might cost and also the fees associated with bartering. The fees to join or membership costs vary from each trade exchange. Most exchanges charge anywhere from $195.00 €" $495.00 and up as a membership application fee and monthly fees range from 0-$20.00 per month. Trade service fees on transactions vary from 10% trade or 5%- 8% cash on each transaction. The thing to remember is that you are paying only a transaction fee on what you purchase or sell. In addition consider that many times you can apply for a line of barter credit and spend into the system before you even make your first barter sale! Your local trade broker will also assist you by bringing you new customers to pay the trade credit line back! What credit card company or bank will do all that for you? In fact a great trade exchange will establish a barter budget for you to follow so that you aren€™t taking too many trade credits above what you will be spending in the system. In the barter economy your products and services are more important than your credit score. You can use your inventory to secure a barter loan and make improvements to your business! Consider how leveraging money you have already spent into advertising or maintenance or other ongoing expenses like printing, or landscaping, repairs or equipment maintenance or even purchasing new equipment can add additional profit and cutting costs to your bottom line. Consider how leveraging money you have already spent into advertising or maintenance or other ongoing expenses. Increase sales and profits with money you already spent! Whether you are a service related business or retail store you can benefit by increasing your customer base by up to 10 €" 15% and reducing overhead costs by spending that new found revenue back into your business and YES even consider giving yourself a raise in barter revenue to spend on personal needs. Turn that downtime or excess inventory into what you need or want for yourself and your business. I encourage any business that has a vanishing commodity such as advertising space, hotel rooms, empty seats or room in a cafe or restaurant to use barter to capture that potential lost revenue and turn it into future purchases and increased sales! Need more information on how Bartering can add to your bottom line profits? Ask The Barter Coach! Kathleen (Kathy) Smart is the President and CEO of SmarterIdeas Inc. http://smarterideas.com, and one of the founding principals with the International Business Academies Limited, http://ibalnet.com, an Atlanta Georgia based LLC Kathleen has had over 26 years of experience in helping business owners succeed. Kathleen hosts her own internet based radio programs where she interviews local business owners and individuals who can bring inspiration, information and education to entrepreneurs and business owners. Over the past year she has interviewed, teacher of the year, Ron Clark, Blue Man Group and many others. Her show is designed and dedicated to educate and inform entrepreneurs and business owners with information that can give them the tools that can help them turn that corner in their life or business. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathleen_Smart

How to Price a Product to Make a Profit

If you own a small business, then you can understand how frustration a pricing strategy can get. It appears as though all of your customers are just bouncing from business to business, fishing for the lowest price over everything else. However, if you join in on this race to the bottom, your profits will suffer more than you can imagine. Read on to find out how you can price a product to make a really large profit. Here are 5 steps that you can take to really turn your product pricing strategy around and make your business more profitable than it ever was before: Step 1 - Stop racing your competition to the bottom of bankruptcy. In the history of business, discounters have never lasted very long, because there will always be someone that can do it cheaper and faster than you can. Step 2 - Stop paying so much attention to your competition. Instead focus on providing a huge amount of value for your customers that goes way beyond the price of the item that you are selling. Step 3 - Raise your prices. Someone has to be the most expensive, right? Why not you? Of course you have to use the value in order to justify the increase in prices. People do not pay high prices for fun, they pay high prices for what they get in return (status, high value, scarcity, excellent customer service 24hrs a day, etc.) Step 4 - Use emotional-based selling. never focus on the price. Focus on the customer and what they are feeling. If you can engage the customer's emotions when they are making a purchase decision, you can pull down the skeptical barriers to the sale. Remember that people buy on emotion and later rationalise the sale with logic. Step 5 - Never focus on price buyers. These are your WORST customers. The price buyer only represents about 20% (unless you are in the business of deep-discounts). Focus on the other 80% of your customers instead. These are the people that are more worried about the buying EXPERIENCE than the price. They are also concerned with value, quality, customer service, rewards perks, and many other things that keep them coming back. None of these are related to price. Of course you cannot charge absolutely any price that you wish. Your market will have to justify if the price is acceptable, but by adding a huge pile of value and selling with emotions, you can make a lot more profit than the next person in the same industry. Joshua Black is the developer of the Ultimate Pricing Report, a whole new approach to price strategy for your small business. Download the report here: http://www.product-pricing-strategy.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Black

Increase Business With Existing Customers

Most small companies have limited resources of personnel and time. Salespeople go where their pockets take them, owners are spread out doing a gamut of things and customer service is trained to take and turn over calls quickly. So how do you get more business from companies you are currently doing business with? The whole focus should be on sales and not just how salespeople are doing but how to generate more business. The second should be on incentives and sharing the wealth with staff. No one would hesitate to pay a plumber top dollar for his services but these same people won't go for spit to expand their businesses by sharing the wealth with the people who are lining their pockets in the first place. I have seen it so often. Small companies will hire one of their loser relatives and pay them instead of the real achievers on their staff. Let's say you have worked with your staff and have things in place that the incentives will allow them to get more business. Painstakingly as is sounds repeated phone calls must be made to existing companies to screen them for potential new business. Try doing this in the off months when your customers may not be as busy and might welcome the opportunity to talk. Here are some other ways: 1. Don't just send out new items or literature without highlighting the contents of the envelopes, such as, Enclosed Literature Requested or offer a time incentive to purchase. 2. Streamline the enclosed information to be easily read and digested in a matter of minutes. 3. Make sure key companies are assigned to your sales' staff so they can develop more business and have customer service work with sales with training on when to turn the call over to sales. 4. Have sales search the Internet and check out every customers' websites to see the items they carry. Then call the customer stating you have seen such and such on their website and did you know we offer this? Most customers don't have the time to find out what YOU sell. YOU have to tell them. 5. Offer a bundle package if the customer starts to buy other items not previously bought from you. 6. Make sure your mailers have more pictures than words. 7. Do a test mailing with a survey. 8. Add to your mailing that a $50 coupon offer is enclosed if your online survey is completed or some other offer. 9. When talking to customers ask the right questions to maximize your information gathering and not waste their time. What you want is to keep getting information out to your customer so they don't have to research what you do. Then make sure that they know you can offer same or similar services/products that they are getting from your competition. Remember, generally, no one gives all their business to one vendor but what you are trying to do is get the lion's share. Even if you don't now, some reason might be don't have or aren't able to offer what the other guy at this time but this might be indication of where to grow your own business when expanding. Knowledge might be power but information helps you decide where to spend your time and money. Instead of trying to always get new business try getting more from the customers you have. Guess what they will be glad you did! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charlotte_Sorrentino

4 Essentials to Business Success

Attracting Prospects, Converting to Customers, Leveraging for referrals and Retaining as clients. Attracting prospects. Attracting Prospects is vitally important to the life blood of any business success. Whatever means you use to attract prospects, don't be boring and like everyone else. Be creative, bold, unique and exciting. What makes you business different and more appealing than your competition in the market place? When you answer this quesion you have the beginning of a great marketing campaign. The number one way of attracting new prospects is "word of mouth" from your present happy, satisfied and loyal customers. This is why the most important thing you you do in your business is to make sure your employees, your product and service are excellent. The Stew Leonards Grocery Store in Norwalk Ct has a sign etched in stone that reads, OUR POLICY Rule #1. The customer is always right. Rule # 2. When the customer is wrong, refer to Rule # 1. His employees are well trained, have a positive attitude, helpful and live by this rule. Go to his web site and see how he started and what taking care of customers can do for your business. Some ways of attracting prospects: Today you have to have a good Web Site. Targeted Direct Mail for your business and web site. Targeted E-mail campaigns. Newspaper, Magazine advertising. Radio and TV advertising. Coupons. Good Signage. Networking groups as well as internet social networking. Cold calling and it can be fun if done in the right frame of mind. Always, always and always capture and build a data base of your prospects, customers, clients or patients contact information including e-mail address. Converting - Prospects to Customers is the art helping them buy. Jeffery Gitomer, speaker and author of many books on sales says, and I agree, "People Hate to be Sold but Love to Buy". Sign up for his free ezine at gitomer.com. Most business owners don't like this part of the business, but this is so important to your success and you have to be constantly converting prospects to Customers ( Clients or Patients). Train all your employees in sales and excellent customer service. A great example of this is the Apple store. You can go into any Apple store and everyone is helpful, friendly, with up energy. They don't try to sell you anything but you want to buy. If you and your employees are helpful, friendly, have a yes attitude and believe in your product or service then this shouldn't be that difficult. When you think about it everything we do requires some form of persuasion, whether it's trying to persuade someone to your point of view, your suppliers/vendors for better terms or the Banker for a line of credit. Learn the art of persuasion or fail, so get good at it. And it begins with a great attitude. Leveraging - Customers for referrals. Once you have converted the prospect then the next step is to make sure your customers get what you promised when you persuaded them to buy or use your services. If their experience with you business is as good or better than you promised and you go the extra mile to make sure they are blown away, then they will be delighted to recommend your business to others. Don't shy away from asking customers for referrals even testimonials. Here is where the art of persuasion is important to your business again. Retaining - Customers, Clients or Patients. Stay in touch with them. "Out of sight, out of mind". Develop a survey form and send out or put in every package to find out how you did in their eyes. Give some incentive for them to return the survey. This is so important to the success of your business that it is amazing how few businesses do it. You will be surprised how many customers will returned them. Always call and thank them. If they had a great experience and tell you about it, you have the makings of a testimonial or referral. This is a good time to ask if you can use their comments in your marketing material. If the experience was bad then you have an opportunity to correct the problem, apologize, tell them how you corrected the problem and how much you appreciate their business. You might want to make an adjustment in their purchase or next order. Bill Glass is a Certified Business and Personal Development Coach and a Commercial Real Estate Consultant He was a manager with UPS, owned two very successful businesses and served three terms as an elected public official. He can be reached at bill@consultbillglass.com / http://www.small-business-resource.com/ Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Bill_F_Glass

7 Simple Tips to Create Success Within the Sales and Marketing Industries

It doesn't matter what the marketing or sales opportunity that you're in is, there are always a few things that remain constant in order to achieve success. In this article I would like to talk a about 7 tips to creating success within the marketing or sales industries; actually these tips can be used by anyone involved with business. Here are 7 simple tips to creating success within the sales and marketing industries: 1. Be Punctual There is nothing worse than someone that is always late; it's rude and unprofessional. If you're supposed to call or meet someone at a certain time then you've got to be punctual. Showing up on time shows that you're professional and you respect other peoples time. No one will ever take you serious if you're constantly showing up late. 2. Warm Up the Client The best way to warm up a client is to become their friend. In a way I would rather have people view me as their friend than just some sales person or business man. When you're able to find some common ground with a person you'll have a much easier time transitioning into you your business. 3. Knowledge You've got to know your product and business inside and out. Remember that people aren't just buying a product they're buying you; the second they see that you don't know what you're talking they'll decide right then and there that they don't want to do business with you. 4. Adapting To Your Buyer Every one of your buyers or clients will be different from the other. You can't say or do the same thing over and over; you've got to adapt to your buyer and make them feel comfortable and relaxed. 5. Trust Building a trust bridge between you and your client is one of the most important things you can do. This can be done by accomplishing the things that I've mentioned so far. Once you've established that trust you don't want to do anything that could ruin it. 6. Have a Plan Don't be one of those business men or women that think they can "wing" their presentation. Have a well thought and organized plan and you'll see that your presentation will go much smoother. 7. Closing If you do all the things that I've mentioned above then closing will be easy. The key to closing a sale is make sure your clients understand why they need whatever it is that you're selling. Once they feel the need for your product or service closing the sale will be the easiest thing you've ever done. I've been trained and mentored by some of the best online marketers on the web today. Our team is one of the best in the business. I would love to help you make a change in your life, and help you learn how to make money online. Take a look at http://www.todaysbiz.org/ and make a change in your life today! Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Michael_Sanofsky

Wireless Credit Cards Processors - A Unique Service to Attract Customers

Recent advancements in the global business world have created a breakthrough revolution in the modern marketplace. The business owners are putting their best put forward to create unique products as well as service solutions. The attractive range of services attracts maximum customer group and thus in a way their overall all profits are increased with prompt sales figures. The basic fundamental of any business is to increase the volume and acclaiming customer satisfaction. Amongst the wide array of sales promotion tools the best way to entice a customer is to offer them valuable services so that he can spend his hard earned money. Thus we can say that the efficient idea of attaining customer satisfaction and making them visit again is to render high quality services. The range of such services includes credit card payment system. In the present scenario hardly any customer moves without a credit card. Credit cards are primarily the wireless payment solutions that facilitate cashless transactions. Using these metal or plastic cards you can pay off your monthly bills and can make your daily expenses. This allows you a freedom from travelling with cash all the way which is often risky. With the help of these cards you can exceed the limit of cash that you have available in your account. Thus in a way there is no restriction on your shopping mania. These cards are proved to be a major payment method for the sensible customers. A hidden advantage about these cards is that you can avail a lesser interest rate while shopping with it. Now we will talk a bit about how it works. Well, the cards will not automatically work and to make payments from them you need to have a credit card terminal. These terminals are the small machines that have connectivity to your merchant banker. A magnetic stripe is built in the terminal and you swipe you card in to that only but first you need to ask for the dialing tone. After swiping your card and feeding number to the device the service providers give you an authorization while making complete authentication of the user account. In this way the authorization permits you to receive a fixed sum of money from the person making payments. For your convenience and trust a printed receipt is also generated. Now we can say that it is perfect example of dedicated customer service and thus it is becoming increasingly popular across the global market. Mostly available in fixed or wireless credit cards machine types, it is just offering you a peaceful payment as well as billing solution. To learn more about wireless credit cards as well as find out more about wireless credit card processor, go to 1stFinancialMerchantGroup.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dirk_Nanne

Visual Display Tips

Creating displays can help you to nurture your crafty side. The most effective displays always have a theme and seem inspired. Inspiring displays inspire customers to feel as passionately as you about the merchandise that you're selling. Boutiques are famous for creating memorable displays that keep customers curious about what you'll do next. Whether you run a boutique or larger retail store, you can use these tips to make your displays more interesting and effective. 1) Do some research before you begin. Surf the web, go window shopping, and look at magazines to get your creative juices flowing. You can get ideas that help you to decide on a theme or a focus for your display. Consider the merchandise, of course, but also think about color to set the mood, the season, the promotion, or the theme of your store. Once you get an idea, the rest will quickly come together. 2) Consider running your ideas past your employees. Give them a theme and ask them for their ideas. Sometimes your employees are your best asset because they see what grabs customers' attention every day, out on the floor. Hold a contest to inspire your staff to be more involved in the success of the store. You may be surprised at how creative some of your employees may be. 3) Once you have your idea, decide on a budget. Remember that less is often more and you don't necessarily have to spend a fortune on a display. You may want to buy a few key pieces for the display. Try to buy things that can be reused in the future so that you can get the most bang for your buck. Tables or racks that fold, props that inflate, and decorations that lay flat are easiest to store for future use. Mannequins can be customized to fit a lot of different types of displays and can stay in good shape for many years. Investing in this proven seller is never a bad move. 4) When setting up your display, keep balance and focus in mind. Start by setting up your focal point. Too many focal points will not draw attention like a central focus will. The focus doesn't have to be in the center of the display. Good visuals are hardly ever perfectly centered. They're often more interesting if they're not. A customer may pass twenty window displays with centered mannequins and hardly notice them, and then the one that tells a story and isn't perfectly centered will be the one to turn their head. 5) Use lighting, signage, whatever you need to draw attention to your focal point. You can even use more mannequins to direct attention to the focal point. Have them looking at the main character or feature in your display. 6) Make room for interesting visual displays throughout your store or boutique. Use slatwall panels and slatwall accessories to free up space on the sales floor. You can use the slatwall itself to create interesting slatwall displays. Using vertical space can help you to better manage your merchandise so that your displays remain the center of attention. About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ron_D._Maier

How Can Smaller Retailers Find Better Replacements For Their Point of Sale Software?

Technology changes so often that businesses often have difficulty deciding when to replace their technology. This is especially true for growing retail businesses that use point of sale software packages to process such things as customer transactions and inventory. Here is a brief guide that can help smaller retailers find better replacements for their POS software applications. It includes suggestions that can help small and medium-sized retailers find ways to improve their efficiency, customer service experience and their bottom lines by choosing point of sale packages that are more appropriate for their needs. Here are some suggestions for small retailers. --Don't buy more POS software than you need. Many small retailers tend to overspend on point of sale software packages because they think they can use the extra features when they expand operations. This isn't always a good idea because most small retailers don't have enough inventory or sales volume to justify using more complicated POS software packages. As a result, it might be a good idea to find point of sale software applications that can be customized to fit the needs of a smaller business. Doing this can save the smaller retailer money and frustration because they won't to need to worry about features that aren't needed to effectively run their business. --In addition, look for point of sale software that is easy to use. Many small retailers have trouble growing their businesses because they have a hard time managing their inventories and how they provide customer service to their clients. Using POS software that is easy to use can solve most of these problems because it makes it easier to doing things such as interacting with customers and keeping physical inventory counts. In addition, it can also help smaller retailers establish better habits that can improve the way they manage their store's overall operations. As a result, using point of sale software that is easy to use can help a smaller retailer grow its loyal customer base and improves its overall efficiency. Here are some suggestions for medium-sized retailers. --Look for point of sale software that can help you control inventory "shrinkage" and improve the overall experience for your customers. Most medium-sized retailers who would like to grow into bigger entities have trouble controlling inventory shrinkage. Furthermore, they also tend to suffer from customer service growing pains that result from making the leap from a tiny store to a bigger store. These problems can be corrected if medium-sized retailers look for point of sale software that helps employees control inventory "shrinkage" and improve overall store efficiency. There are many fantastic point of sale software packages that can help medium-sized retailers control inventory shrinkage, price integrity and the customer's over-all experience. This makes it a good idea to look into these packages because they can provide very good long-term value for a medium-sized retailer. --Furthermore, a medium-sized retailer should also consider point of sale software that is fully compatible with its pre-existing technology. Many cashiers have first-hand knowledge of the nightmares that happen because a cash register has failed them in the middle of a transaction. These nightmares happen because most medium-sized retailers don't consider thinking about the compatibility of its point of sale software with its pre-existing technology. This makes it important for a medium-sized retailer to ask their vendor for technologically compatible point of sale software. Doing this will make your cashiers' jobs easier. It will also make many of your customers willing to shop more often at your store. As a result, finding technologically compatible point of sale software might be the best way for a medium-sized retailer to improve its bottom line. To buy POS software and to find out more information, please visit pos cash registers and restaurant software. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_J_Thomas

Retail Loss Prevention

Boutiques and small businesses can be put under by losses suffered due to theft. Unfortunately, small businesses are also the ones that can't afford fancy theft prevention systems. To help offset the risk of losing valuable merchandise, small businesses can implement these economic strategies and protect their assets. There are a few ways to help your business control theft. Your staff is your first line of defense. A simple training session could help you turn your existing employees into loss prevention machines. Tell them to think about what a customer needs to be able to shoplift. They need to feel anonymous, inconspicuous, they want some privacy, and they definitely don't want to be bothered by sales associates. Simply greeting them and then a minute or two later asking them if they need help will make them feel uncomfortable enough not to shoplift. A majority of shoplifting happens in the dressing room. Keeping fitting room door locked will force potential shoplifters to have to talk to an employee. Have employees offer to hang garments on the fitting room door. Have them count and limit the number of items that can go into the dressing room. Have them ask customers if they can find them a different size while they're trying on. Besides employees, there are other ways to deter shoplifters while they're in the dressing room. Hang signs that say shoplifters will be prosecuted. Hang mirrors all the way around. Use bright lighting. Shoplifters love dark corners, dressing rooms, and privacy. The less of this you provide, the better. Use the same concepts in your store. If you can't afford the real thing, try to invest in dummy alarm systems that make people think you have a sensor at the door. Put tags on the clothes that have to be removed at the register. You can install mirrors and domes from the ceiling so that people feel like they can be seen. You can even use dummy cameras in the corners of your store. Set up your store in a way that deters theft. If you have a corner that can't be seen from the register, use bright lighting and mirrors to make shoplifters uncomfortable. Even mannequins give people the feeling that they are being watched. Position your garment racks so that they don't encourage shoplifting. Shoplifters say that they target stores with crowded garment racks that are positioned close together or where they're view is blocked from the register. They can easily maneuver garments off of the hangers and down into a shopping bag or up their sleeve by working inside the garment rack, away from the view of cameras or employees. Choose garment racks that display clothing on the outside. Space them out so that you can see between them. Keep your employees asking customers if they need help, and use things like ceiling mirrors to deter theft. About the Author: John Garvey is on the staff of Only Garment Racks, a leading online source of garment racks including clothing racks. Find a high quality garment rack or clothing rack at http://www.onlygarmentracks.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_P._Garvey

Mattress Retail and the Naming Conspiracy - How to Shop and Compare

Unlike most branded retail products, the mattress retail business uses model names without numbers and, because of the totally unrelated names, it is almost impossible to compare and shop models from one store to the next. This "conspiracy" makes it very difficult for the consumer to take advantage of the price guarantees offered at virtually every mattress retailer. The most common question heard by salespeople in the business is, "How can I compare models and shop for best price when the names are different everywhere I go?" The complaint that usually follows is "The price guarantee I see everywhere is worthless. It's a joke. Comparisons are impossible." Accurate comparisons of like models are essential to the effective utilization of the price guarantee advertised by most mattress retail dealers. A typical price guarantee might read, "We'll beat anyone's price by at least 10%." Some retailers will specify that it must be the same brand and model. With the model names being different everywhere, those retailers are able to exempt themselves from ever honoring their advertised guarantee. Some retailers require that the price be an advertised price, but most retailers don't advertise the model names in their ads, and that pretty much let's them off the hook. Consumers cannot shop ads if the model names are not in them, and shopping the competition is extremely difficult in person when the names are different everywhere. It doesn't take long for the consumer to realize that there is a "conspiracy" in place to defeat the use of the "advertised gimmick" called the "price guarantee." The frustration turns quickly to irritation and the consumer is left with nothing but mistrust for the mattress retailer and his sales staff. I don't know how many times a day I had customers tell me, "you guys are just like used car salesmen." The mattress manufacturers would love to have the model names standardized amongst retailers, but the retailers will never let them do that. The manufacturers would save a lot of money, since they have to pay people to come up with new names for every model, every year, for every retailer. They have to tweak the different models in very minor ways in order to keep them slightly different. Those minor differences cost the manufacturers a lot of extra money in modifying the production runs. The retailers want to keep the consumer confused. They want as many different specifications, different fabrics, different tape edges, different stitching patterns, and, most certainly, the different names. The confusion virtually negates the price guarantee because the salesperson can say that the models are different. "This one has a foam encased edge and the one you saw at the department store does not. I can't beat the price, but I can match it." The retailer I spent most of my career with allowed us to beat prices "as long as the models were fairly close." We had to spend a lot of time shopping the competitors to become extremely familiar with the similarities and the differences between the brands and the models in our market area. Unfortunately, that is not the norm for mattress retailers and their staff. Most retailers do not require their staff to shop the competition. The poorly educated staff is forced to "wing it" or to lie to the consumer in order to protect the price points. Some lies can be detected by the consumer and the salesperson loses. Some are so well camouflaged that the consumer cannot detect them and, in that case, the consumer loses. When the consumer loses and discovers the truth later (and he or she usually does) the retailer loses, the salesperson loses, and the industry develops a bad reputation. Trust presents a huge obstacle to overcome. The customer becomes afraid to make that purchase in the future, and the salesperson has a very difficult time getting past the inherent mistrust now permanently entrenched in the customer's psyche. Retailers wonder why the consumer usually takes three years to make that purchase...three years after he knows his mattress is no longer providing a "good night's rest"? The simple answer for mattress retailers would be to modify their game plan and to allow for easier comparisons through the naming process. That change will probably never come. The consumer needs to take charge. Comparisons are actually easier than you might expect. Once you have found a mattress you feel comfortable in and one which supports your spine properly, take notes on the following ten items: 1. Brand name 2. Model name 3. Basic Appearance (firm or tight-top, plush or softer top, or pillow-top) 4. Coil count (queen is the standard used now for quoting purposes) 5. Independent coils or tied together coils 6. Wire gauge (the lower the number, the heavier the wire) 7. Special foams (memory foam or latex foam) 8. Edge support (heavier gauge on the edge or foam-encased) 9. Regular price 10. Sale price These ten items, once noted, and taken with you when you shop the competition, will give you everything you need to find the "comparable" model at other retailers. The "cold white sea" of mattresses staring at you as you enter the store adds to the confusion. They all look pretty much the same, but items 1, 3, and 9 on your list will lead you directly to the correct area. The brand name will match, the basic appearance should be very similar (tight-top, plush, or pillow-top), and the regular price should be pretty close or within two to three hundred dollars (in most cases). The mattresses are usually displayed with the most expensive in the front of the store and the least expensive to the rear of the store. Brands are almost always grouped together. By the time you have approached the correct area, a salesperson will probably have arrived to greet and assist you. If you haven't already noticed signage announcing a price guarantee, ask your salesperson whether they have one and how it works. Bring your notes out and tell your representative that you are looking for ______ brand and ______ model that you saw at _____ store. Indicate the one that looks most similar to the one you selected at the other store and detail the specifications from your notes. Ask which one most closely matches the one you are looking for. If your salesperson tries to deflect you toward other product at this point be wary. Take charge and keep him or her on track. Don't be afraid to say that you are "locked in" to that particular brand. Ask your salesperson to check the specs to make sure that you have matched items 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Lie down to make sure that this mattress feels comparable to the one that you liked in the other store. If it feels the same after spending at least 15 minutes on it, then ask your salesperson to beat the price as guaranteed in their advertising or printed policies. Be sure to utilize the "apples to apples" final price including delivery, set-up, pick-up of the old set, and tax in your price beat. Be careful of high pressure add-ons to recoup the retailer's lost margin dollars. If your mattress retailer does not honor the price guarantee for one reason or another, you should ask for the manager to do it for you, or move on to another mattress retailer who will gladly accept your business. Unfortunately, mattress retail dealers are not likely to change their embedded (excuse the pun) naming "conspiracy." Nor are they likely to alter their "loss leader" advertising that is damaging their image, integrity, and standing in the eye of the consumer. The only solution to this dilemma is a more informed, a more detail-conscious, and a more demanding consumer. Shop with confidence, take charge, take notes, make the comparisons, and claim the price guarantee. Your shop for sleep is easier than your fear expects. Ronald Czarnecki, EzineArticles.com contributor and recently published author of "Shop for Sleep and Survive the Bite" offers consumers the first "how to" guide for mattress shopping. The career veteran of the retail mattress world breaks the "code of silence" and uncovers the map to the "good night's rest" we all deserve. For more information visit Ron at: http://www.shopforsleep.com or join him on his blog site at: http://www.sleeplessandtired.com Good night, sleep tight, and survive the bite! Copyright 2010. All rights reserved to Ronald Czarnecki. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ronald_Czarnecki