This list is from Chris Hamilton, of
www.salestipaday.com. There are a ton of useful ideas here, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.
Sales Tip A Day - 25 Sales and Marketing Tips:The following information is designed to provide some Sales and Marketing tips that you might want to incorporate into your sales and marketing process. These are in no particular order.
1. Use Twitter – You can promote your goods and services to targeted people 140 characters at a time. Make sure that you provide value and don’t constantly bombard your followers. Constant bombardment is like spamming someone and if you do this you will lose the valuable followers you have built up.
2. Increase your Twitter followers – A quick tip to building Twitter followers, go to Twellow at
www.twellow.com. Register and click on a category or browse with search terms. You will then get a list that shows you different users based on your search criteria. Click a few users a day (my suggestions is no more than about 40) to follow. By the way, Twitter has a cut off when you reach 2000 following. It appears the only way around this is to keep your follow and following numbers close (within 5% or less is what I try to target) and to potentially have more followers than following.
3. Removing people who don’t follow you on Twitter - It’s one thing to add followers, but if people aren’t following you back, why keep following them. Sign up for Buzzom at
www.buzzom.com , and click on the “Twit In” tab. Select “Unfollow” and you will get a list of people who are not following you. Select all click “Unfollow and Block”.
4. Business card marketing – Use the back of your business card to promote what you do – this is a great way to market your service or products.
5. Start a blog – Start a blog on something that you are passionate about. If it is about your industry or what you do, this is a great way to differentiate yourself from others you compete against.
6. Get listed on Google local business – If you own a business or have a location that you work that is owned by a company, make sure that you are listed on Google Local Business. This is a great way to drive leads to you. Google Local Business is like yellow pages online.
7. Get listed in Google product – If you sell products, get them listed on Google Products. This is a free service that allows you to add up to 100 products. Your products will be placed in the Google results, usually near the top of the search term.
8. Events – Host an event. This could be a networking event, a speech, a presentation or whatever. Leverage current clients and prospects to attend. If you are in Linked IN, add the event in the Events section.
9. Set aside time every day to prospect - Prospecting is something that you need to be doing on a daily basis, make sure that you put aside a certain amount of time every day to identify potential clients.
10. Add a PS in a sales letter – People are drawn to the PS line in a letter. Make sure that your PS is hard hitting and provides value, as it may be the only line that the addressee may look at. If they are intrigued, then they may actually look at the whole letter.
11. Add a Proper tag line in a sales letter – The rule above also goes for the tag line in a sales letter. Make sure it has value, it is bolded and potentially a slightly larger font compared to the rest of the letter. You may even want to highlight it in color if you have access to a color printer. Draw attention to the content with the tag line and get the prospect to read the rest of the letter.
12. Do a product placement in your voicemail greeting – At the end of your voicemail greeting, either in the office or on your cell, leave information on your product or service. Put it in the form of a question. Such as, This is Joe Blow at XYZ Company and I am away from the office and will return your call when I return. Oh and if you would like to know how you can reduce your operating costs by 25% within the next month, please ask me how.”
13. Do a product placement in your email signature – As with the Voicemail product placement, make sure that do a product placement in your email signature line. Once again, phrase it in the form of a question. People will ask you about it.
14. Have a call to action in a sales letter – Always have a call to action in a sales letter. It can be something like, “Call me for a 1-week trial” or “Take our online assessment to understand areas that you can find cost savings”.
15. Start a newsletter – Keep your clients and prospects informed. Start a newsletter either via email or by regular mail. Most of you competition probably isn’t doing this so differentiate yourself from them by doing this.
16. Put PowerPoint presentations on SlideShare – If you have a great PowerPoint presentation that you would like to have others see, and then post it on SlideShare. This is a great way to get your word out and showcase your product or service. Make sure that you have a way on the slides for viewers to get a hold of you.
17. Give referrals – Give referrals to other people – Make introductions to other people on behalf of other people to help them grow their business. You will be amazed at how you will be able to grow your own business when these people refer other to you.
18. Get referrals – Always get referrals. Warm leads are far easier to cultivate than cold calls. It takes numerous cold calls turn a prospect into a client. Compare this with far less calls to turn a warm lead into a client.
19. Solve problems – At the root of all sales is a problem. Find out the problem and see how you can fix it and you should be able to get a sale.
20. Use testimonials – Testimonials build credibility. If you have testimonials, use them, if you don’t have testimonials, get some. Instead of giving your client testimonials to call, have your testimonials call your clients. This will blow them away.
21. Speak at an event – Instead of seeing one prospect at a time, why not find an event to speak at and get in front of a lot of prospects at one time. Make sure that the event is relevant to what you do or offer. Call the event organizer and see if you can get a spot to speak.
22. Provide a freebie or try before you buy – Help eliminate any doubt that a prospect may have. If you can provide a freebie or a try before you buy offer, you will be able to remove doubt and increase your sales.
23. Track your sales pipeline – Whether your company makes you do this or not, make sure that you are tracking your sales pipeline. By doing this, you will stay focused and keep the sale moving in the right direction.
24. Hand out an Electronic Business Card or vCard – You can create a vCard in Outlook, which can be forwarded to other without having to be physically in front of them. If someone needs your contact information, send them your vCard, that way they can get a hold of you.
25. Persistence – As with anything worth doing, sales is a marathon not a sprint. Keep at it and if you make a goal of learning something new everyday, you will outshine your competition.
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