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

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

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