Sales

Two Methods From One Model

Generating leads for local businesses can be a very lucrative avenue for you to think about pursuing. Almost every small business has a need for more customers and/or clients. By providing a venue to gather contact information you can become invaluable to local businesses. Imagine how thankful that new doctor or dentist in town will be after you’ve provided them with a patient base that they never could have achieved without your help and expertise.

There are a number of ways that you can go about generating those leads. One way involves having businesses pay you before you have the leads and the other will have those businesses handing you money for names, addresses, and phone numbers of clients whose names you already own and have permission to market to.

Your starting off point and the direction of your own business will be determined by your ability to gather that contact information. It can be as simple as putting up a single page website that does nothing more than educate consumers to the benefits of using a certain type of business or service. Once they’ve visited the site, ask them to express their continued interest by exchanging their contact information for the promise of a discount with the service provider which they eventually choose, no matter who that may be.

Another great way to gather information, which will also give you the opportunity to realize a greater profit, is to create the website with a keyword rich domain name, ie; chicagosbestpainter.com or bestdentistindenver.com or something similar to that. Once you’ve created the site and put an opt-in box near the top of the page to capture names, you then get the site optimized and ranked in the search engines. Once it’s ranked you have the opportunity to approach those painters in Chicago or Dentists in Denver to 1.) Sell them the leads you’ve gathered or 2.) Sell them the site that you’ve gotten ranked and offer to maintain both the site and it’s rank for $xxx/yr.

Either way you look at it there is profit to be made. Whether you take the long road or the shorter one is up to you. There is no wrong answer. Only your expertise and intuitiveness will determine the outcome of your efforts. The key is to take action. Choose a direction and begin to move that way.

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Selling More in A Recession

Before starting out any new business strategies in a down turned economy, it’s always beneficial to bolster your position with preexisting clients and customers. Many times there is enough business to be found amongst your existing client base for you to then finance a “new idea” or strategy that you’ve wanted to implement.  Use these strategies to shore up your financial foundation and then go looking for “new” business.

Whether your primary business is offline or online the same principles apply. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling e-books or toothpaste, applied with the right amount of preparation and presentation, these ideas can make the difference between finishing your quarter in the red or in the black.

Try these tips:

• Begin calling your “inactive” customers.
  • Determine why they’ve gone inactive.
  • Ask for the opportunity to “make it good“.
  • “Would taking care of this immediately change your attitude toward us?”
  • Fix it immediately or task someone who will follow through to completion. (Whether it brings the client back immediately or not)
• Call 20 of your “active” customers/clients and ask them make an additional (wisely chosen) purchase.
  • Make them an OTO (one time offer).
  • Offer an upgrade.
  • Offer a “value added service“, something that improves your existing relationship with them.
• Call other businesses that offers complementary products or services to yours and ask for a trade of referrals. Don’t stop with one.
  • Offer to make it an ongoing relationship that’s mutually beneficial.
  • Over deliver! Offer more referrals than you receive. It will serve you well.

Since these principles apply to either an online or a brick and mortar business, they’re perfect strategies for the Offline Consultant to keep in mind when talking to or even prospecting for small business owners. These are the types of high value free advice that will in turn have those shop owners ready and willing  to do business with you.

In fact, the more giving you’re able to be, the more you’ll have people actually asking YOU to do business with them. It will quickly establish you as an authority  and as the person that everyone will want to be affiliated with.

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Loyal Customers Don’t Want Sales

It’s the #1 deadly sin of most marketing campaigns.

Take a look at your daily newspaper (if your town still has one) or maybe your mailbox.  See all of those coupons?

• 10% off!
• SALE!
• Low Price Guarantee
• Save 20%, 30%, up to 45% – and more!

Here’s the problem with these offers… you’ll only get two (2) types of people responding to them:

Type 1 – People who aren’t your customers and are just price shopping

Type 2 – Existing customers who would have purchased from you anyway but will take advantage of these discounted prices.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with price shoppers – especially in today’s tough economy.  But if the customers are only buying price – THEY ARE NOT LOYAL CUSTOMERS.  The only thing a price-shopping customer sees in your business is what your product or service will cost.

Now, there are a few businesses that thrive on the low-price business model –  WalMart may be the best known.  But, if I’m any indicator of what’s happening to WalMart’s market then they’re spiraling towards their own destruction (remember, you read it first here!).  I shop discount stores regularly; but I’ll shop at WalMart ONLY when I need something cheap – something that I don’t expect to last, that I know I’ll only use once or twice, and therefore something I don’t want to spend much money on.  Anytime I’m looking for a real item – something that I expect to keep, use, and cherish for sometime – WalMart is nowhere on my list.

When it comes to WalMart – I’m a price shopper – not a LOYAL CUSTOMER.

Then, there are your existing customers who’ll jump on the low prices.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – your customers will have purchased goods or services from you at a really good price.  But, it’s not entirely a good thing either, since – in my experience – most businesses use sales and discount offers to increase revenue and net profit and not primarily to make happy customers.

A large, retail company recently ran a huge promotion with discounted prices.   During the promotion, things seemed to be going swimmingly.  Customers were redeeming the discount coupons at a spectacular rate.  But, when the promotion ended and the sales data analyzed, the company executives were surprised to find that sales revenues were almost unaffected – the increase was insignificant – even with the huge number of redemptions.  Why?  Because most of the redemptions came from existing customers who saw an opportunity to save a few dollars.  The bottom line?  The company’s revenue didn’t increase, their margins decreased, so they ended up with a smaller net profit during the time of the promotion.

“But,” you ask, “doesn’t this prove that good customers want sales?”

No, it proves that good, smart customers will take advantage of a sale – but that’s not what they’re looking for from you.

Loyal customers look for one AND only one thing: COMFORT.

• They want to feel comfortable with you and your business.
• They want to feel comfortable that they’re making the right decision while they’re spending their hard earned money
• They want to feel comfortable once they’ve actually shelled out for your product or service.
• They want to feel comfortable talking to their friends about their purchase.
• They want to feel comfortable that – should they ever need your product/service in the future – they know where to go.
• Then, once they feel comfortable – they want something new

Now, here’s the concept most business owners either don’t know, don’t understand, or entirely ignore:

When suspects and prospects, customer and clients don’t already have a relationship with a business that provides comfort, they’ll shop price to make up for what’s lacking.

So, when you’re creating offers to send out to suspects and prospects remember:

1. Suspects and prospects don’t really know you and feel comfortable with you or your business, so most will ignore your offer.
2. The only way suspects or prospects will consider your offer is if the price is so low that it makes up for their lack of comfort.
3. If your offer is made to existing customers, find something to offer other than price.  For example, instead of a restaurant offering a 15% discount on a meal,  offer a free, rich, to-die-for desert to every loyal customer that returns to the restaurant within a specified promotional period and orders the latest, delicious new entree.  These customers

• already know the restaurant
• feel comfortable that the new entree will be every bit as delicious as advertised
• may already have tasted (or lusted after) the to-die-for desert

so this offer is for something NEW they can feel comfortable about.

Sales and discount offers are short term tricks to increase traffic to your establishment.  They may work for a while but, like most short term fixes, there’s the problem of diminishing returns – the more you use them, the less effective they’ll be.

On the other hand, promotions and offers that focus on building comfortable relationships with prospects and loyal customers will put your business on sure footing for years to come.

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Are You Hiring A Salesperson For Your Offline Consulting Business Who Is An Employee Or An Independent Contractor?

If you sell online marketing services to offline businesses, and you’re considering hiring someone to help with your sales efforts – a salesperson for your business – then you need to clearly understand whether you are hiring an Employee or an Independent Contractor. This is actually quite an important consideration for any job that needs to be done in any area of your company, but for now we are going to focus on hiring a salesperson to expand your marketing efforts.

If your business is located in the United States of America (the US), then your business taxes and hiring expenses will be significantly affected by this legal distinction between a worker who is an employee, and a worker who is an independent contractor.
This is because you are compelled to meet certain regulatory and statutory requirements if you hire an employee, but not so if you simply pay for the services of an independent contractor.

What’s more, these rules and regulations that govern the hiring of employees versus independent contractors do not apply only at the federal level, but at the state and sometimes the local level as well. So be sure to do your own investigation into the labor laws for your own state and locality, as these can vary greatly from place to place. Furthermore, even though we are only considering the US regulatory environment here, this is an area that you most certainly need to investigate for yourself regardless of the country in which you do business.

In the US, the most significant issue is the requirement for employers to pay their share of Social Security Taxes, Medicare Taxes and Unemployment Taxes on the employee’s wages, as well as withholding and paying the employee’s share of Social Security and Medicare Taxes to the federal government. This distinction also affects what documents and information they are required to provide you, and what tax documents you need to give to them when they are hired. In addition to this, you may also have to pay penalties because you failed to file the required tax forms, and failed to pay the appropriate employment taxes. The bottom line is that you’d better get this right, because most businesses simply cannot afford to get it wrong!

Fortunately for us, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does provide some guidance on how to determine whether a worker is considered an employee or an independent contractor for tax purposes. You can find their article, “Employee vs. Independent Contractor – Ten Tips for Business Owners” at the www.IRS.gov website, which explains that there are three key factors that impact this determination.

Those three determining factors are:

1. Behavioral Control
- Do you get to tell the worker how you want the work done?
- Do you dictate the process to be followed?
- Do you supply the tools to be used?

2. Financial Control
- Do you get to tell the worker how to allocate their budget?
- Do you dictate which personnel they use for delegated tasks?
- Do you have a say in whether they can use, or how much they
can pay sub-contractors?
(Side Note: If you are an independent contractor looking to
sub-contract some of your work, then you also need to give
consideration to these issues yourself. Just because you are
an independent contractor does not preclude you from having
employees of your own.)

3. Type of Relationship
- Do you have an employment contract?
- Does the worker get employee-type benefits?
- Does the business relationship continue after the initial
project is done?
- Does this person work only for your company?

The essential distinction between employee and independent contractor is summarized quite nicely in tip number six, “If you can direct or control only the result of the work done — and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result — then your workers are probably independent contractors.”

Now if you are still unable to decide whether your worker is an employee or an independent contractor using these guidelines, then you can actually ask the IRS to make that determination for you by filing Form SS-8, “Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding”. But be warned… The IRS could take as much as six months to get back to you with an answer.

So before you do hire someone to expand your sales efforts, be sure to take the time to decide whether you do want to hire an employee or an independent contractor. Then once you’ve made that decision, take the time to write the appropriate contracts or agreements and plan out the work process and/or results that you’d like to see.
Plan ahead so as to avoid any possible confusion and subsequent painful tax bills.

Growing Your Offline Consulting Business By Expanding Your Sales Force

Many people in the internet marketing world are waking up to the significantly under-served opportunities available in the real world – selling online marketing services to offline brick and mortar businesses. Talk about turning bricks into gold! For those who have been engaged in this arena for some time however, many eventually find the growth of their offline consulting business limited by the constraints on their own personal time.

The obvious solution to this problem of course is to hire a salesperson. Unfortunately, while the solution may be obvious, the time spent, risks, and costs of actually hiring the right salesperson for your offline consulting business are not so obvious. Today we are going to take a look at three different options for expanding your sales force, what their advantages and disadvantages are, and which circumstances are best suited for each option.

The three options that we shall discuss for expanding your sales force are as follows:

1. Using commission only sales agents
2. Outsourcing your sales activity
3. Recruiting sales people

A commission only sales agent, or salesperson, is an independent contractor (not an employees) who usually represents or promotes more than one business/product. The big advantage to using a commission only sales agent is the low cost and low monetary risk, since you do not pay this salesperson any money at all until they actually close a sale for you. They only get paid when you make money, so there is no upfront cash outlay for your business. There is also no base salary or employment taxes to pay, nor benefits to provide, nor employment paperwork to file.

The downside though is that you can only influence these sales people, but you cannot control what they do. If they decide to focus their efforts on other products or businesses and make your services less of a priority, then there isn’t much you can do about it, so you may not want to rely solely on this kind of an arrangement for your sales force, but use it in connjuction with either or both of the other options below. Additionally, using a commission only sales agent most often works better for selling products rather than services, so you may need to spend some extra time training this kind of salesperson and familiarizing them with your offline consulting services.

Our second option of outsourcing your sales activity can really be done in one of two ways. You can choose to either outsource only certain functions (like cold-calling, telephone follow up, or managing a direct mailing campaign), or outsource the entire sales process. These may be good options for you if you need something done quickly, and the partial outsourcing option in particular may be ideal for complementing the efforts of your sales force.
However, with partial outsourcing, you still don’t have the whole job covered, so you may still need to hire a salesperson.

If you choose to outsource every part of the sales process, it will free up quite a bit of your management time. However, it is extremely difficult to do this on a commission-only basis (especially if you have a very long sales cycle). You will most likely need to agree to a shared-risk payment structure that includes both a day rate plus a commission payment.  This means you have to pay for their work even if they never close a single sale!
Another significant disadvantage to outsourcing your entire sales process is that you lose the opportunity to build relationships with your customers, making this a poor long-term choice.

For maximum control of the sales process, the best option is undoubtedly to recruit your own sales people (i.e. hire your own employees). In this situation, you get to dictate where your sales people focus their efforts, and even how they should do their job.
The big problem with this of course is the risk, time and effort required, and the relatively high cost.

In this case, you do need to offer some base salary, pay employment taxes, consider providing employee benefits, and file all of the necessary employment paperwork – and all of this only after going through the whole recruiting process! And even then, you may find that you’ve hired someone who simply cannot deliver the increased sales to pay for their employment.

Most certainly there is no sure-fire solution to finding exactly the right salesperson for your offline consulting business. But if you’re currently a maxed-out, stressed-out, one-man sales force, then you should not let the potential pitfalls of hiring a salesperson stop you from doing just that. Simply think things through beforehand and make sure you’re choosing the right option for your particular situation. Keep realistic expectations of what can be accomplished when, and remember, if it does not work out, you can always make a change.