1) Know Your Call’s Goal

Before you even pick up the phone, you need to have a clear idea of your intention and goal for the call. Do you have a direction that you want your prospect to head in after speaking to you? If you do not have a vision for your call, you are unlikely to achieve the end result that you want.

2) Don’t Give It All Away Too Fast

This goal is simple. Do not give away all of your goods without knowing if the person will even take the time to look at them. If they want you to just send them the information so that they can get you off of the phone, don’t do it. Do some digging to see what their level of interest is, or if they’re just trying to get rid of you.

3) Bad Telephone Etiquette

Good phone etiquette seems simple enough to achieve. However, when you are in a stressful situation, you might not even realize what you are doing. Do not chew gum, snack, or attempt to multi-task while you are making a call. Your prospect will be distracted by your poor manners and they may get the wrong impression of you.

4) Listen To Your Prospect

If you are struggling to get a read on your prospect, just listen to them. It is easy to monopolize a conversation without even knowing that you are doing it. To get the best insight into your prospect, listen to them. If you don’t, you are unlikely to be successful.

5) Don’t Make Your Fears Theirs

Although you might think that someone is pushing you off because they are busy at the moment does not mean that they don’t want to speak to you. Request a better time to reach them and then call them back at that time.

6) Not Asking Questions

There are certain things that you want to find out about a person to know whether or not you would even want to do business with them. So ask some questions. People love to discuss themselves, their families, and other areas of interest to them. People will respond more favorably to you if you show an interest in them.

7) Be Prepared

You would never dream of speaking to a room full of people without having prepared ahead of time. The phone is no different. You really need to take some time and go over what you have to say. Ask a friend or family member to do some role playing with you. There’s nothing worse than fumbling over your words when you are talking to a prospect.

Request What You Want

You need to give your prospect a call to action. You want them to follow up with what you’re telling them by having them do their own due diligence. By asking them to do something for you, you can then follow up with them and see what their own research turned up.

1. Headline: On the average, five times more people read the headline than the body copy. If consumers like the Headline they will go on to read the body copy. The Headline is what brings them in. The headline must be easy to understand and state the reason why the consumer should continue on and read the body copy.

2. News and headlines: People read consumer magazines and newspapers to get news. If you have genuine news such as product updates or new innovations by all means put it in the headline.

3. How many words in a headline? Research conducted with cooperation from a large department store found that headlines of ten words or longer sold more products than short headlines. In terms of recall, headlines between eight and ten words work the best. On average, long headlines sell more goods than short ones – headlines like David Ogilvy’s “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” have been remembered for years.

4. Speak to Your Prospects: When trying to reach a specific groupt; Speak to them in your headline – Parents, bald people, CEO’s?

5. If the Reader is Interested THey Will Read Long Copy: Readership declines rapidly after fifty words, but continues steadily between 50 and 500 words. Potential buyers will read further into an ad. Spark their interest with the headline, Give them a reason to buy in the copy. We have included many articles from John E. Kennedy and Claude Hopkins on Writing Headlines

6. Before and After Ads: Before and after advertisements get better than average readership. The contrast seems to work well. Consumers tend to comprehend them well.

7. Photographs vs. drawings: Photographs work better than Art almost all the time. People like to feel thins are “real.” The photograph should help pull readers in. Plus it must be pertinent to the product you are selling. The photograph must have story appeal.

8. Captions: Captions under photographs are read 2x that of the body copy. Never place a photo without a caption It helps make your ad look more like editorial which will increase believability and results. Because Associated Press Style requires captions under photos readers expect it.

9. Editorial layout vs. Addy Layout: The more the ad looks like the editorial in the magazine generally the higher the readership. The addy layout is much easier to get approved by the CEO of the company you are representing. A good ad agency will take the time to explain to the CEO that they know much more about their product that the consumer.

10. Test and Retest Readership has been known to increase with repetition. Continually test new ads against the old ones and run the winner.

Posted by: Paul Stanford

Website Marketing

I was party to a three way conversation earlier today between a “traditional” retailer and an internet marketeer. The conversation centred around websites and how they should be promoted.

It was interesting to hear two completely opposing views. The traditional retailer was adamant that a website was of no use unless it was advertised elsewhere to promote its existence and to drive visitors to it. Whereas the internet marketeer had the very strong view that this was not necessary and that with the right keywords and content it would be found by visitors putting in searches in the major search engines. So which of these is right?

Well I’m not sure that I am asking the correct question because I don’t believe it is matter of who is right and therefore by definition who is wrong. Instead I feel that both are right. From my experience the most successful websites are those that are marketed through a multi-pronged approach using a mix of “traditional” advertising and on-line optimisation through keyword content.

What are your experiences of attracting visitors to your website? What has worked best for you? I’d be interested to hear your views.

Paul Stanford is a Director of 4Momentum http://www.4momentum.co.uk. 4Momentum provides business advisory services to small businesses, charities and social enterprises primarily in Sussex. Services include advice on starting a business, growing and transforming a business and selling a business. Clients typically contract 4Momentum for short periods of an hour to long term consultancy over many months for advice on subjects such as mentoring, business planning, sales and marketing advice, bidding for contracts, raising finance and general business advice. Paul is approved by the UK Government to deliver business advice on their behalf through Business Link and is a member of the Institute of Business Consultants. Visit his blog at http://www.paulstanford.co.uk/blog

Copyright 2008 Paul Stanford

Posted by: Paul Stanford

A Board Advertising

Many small businesses with a presence in or near the town centre need to make themselves “visible” to potential clients. One of the most cost effective ways of doing this is through the use of A Boards. They do work and that is one of the reason s why there are so many of them.

However many are now under the threat of being banned because Council’s say they are a Health and Safety risk for pedestrians.

This is a difficult one and I can see both sides of the argument. But is a blanket ban really the way forward? Or should small businesses be able to put whatever they like on our pavements? Or is there a third alternative whereby businesses could register for an A Board so that it conforms to Health and Safety guidelines (e.g. size and siting)?

Are you a small business owner that has been affected by this? Or are you a pedestrian that has had an accident because of an A Board? Tell us what you think…..

Paul Stanford is a Director of 4Momentum http://www.4momentum.co.uk. 4Momentum provides business advisory services to small businesses, charities and social enterprises primarily in Sussex. Services include advice on starting a business, growing and transforming a business and selling a business. Clients typically contract 4Momentum for short periods of an hour to long term consultancy over many months for advice on subjects such as mentoring, business planning, sales and marketing advice, bidding for contracts, raising finance and general business advice. Paul is approved by the UK Government to deliver business advice on their behalf through Business Link and is a member of the Institute of Business Consultants. Visit his blog at http://www.paulstanford.co.uk/blog

Copyright 2008 Paul Stanford

Posted by: Paul Stanford

Advertising your business and lessons in how not to sell

I was prompted to write about this subject today as I spent an hour of my time that I could ill afford with a journalist trying to sell me advertising space over the phone. So I thought I would try and share my lessons with you all.

OK this journalist had rang me to sell me some advertising space. He didn’t check what authority I had to make decisions or whether it was a convenient time for me to talk. First alarm bell ringing in my head – why would a journalist be ringing me to sell me advertising space if his publication was as popular as he said it was?

Next alarm bell – I explained I would not be able to make a decision today as I wanted to carry out some research into his publication. He told me that I had to make a decision today as someone else had pulled out and they were going to print. He told me he couldn’t send me a copy as it was too expensive. How anyone can expect someone to part with their cash without being able to touch and feel the publication is beyond me.

Third alarm bell. The price was quoted as X£s. When I told him I couldn’t make a decision today the price immediately dropped – yet I had already told him that the price wasn’t the issue. The issue was that I needed to research his publication and his company. Plus I needed to make sure that I would have the resources available within my company to cope with any increase in demand for 4Momentum’s services as a result of me placing an advert in his publication. To which he then replied it wouldn’t produce a lot of work immediately….having previously informed me how much additional work advertising in his publication would bring 4 Momentum.

Fourth alarm bell. He continued to talk and talk and talk and talk….he wasn’t listening to what I was saying and I got so fed up with this guy that in the end I said I must go because I have to attend a meeting (which was the truth) and that I would contact him again after I had the chance to do some more research and planning. I repeated this four times and I told him that I would have to go and that I would put the phone down on him if he didn’t stop.  So after my final warning I did exactly that.

So the lessons are – when buying advertising don’t agree to anything that you haven’t had the time to research and are completely comfortable with.

And when selling make sure that you listen to your client, know what authority they have, check to see if now is a convenient time to talk, listen to his objections, give him the opportunity to research your goods/services, don’t assume the reason for him not buying is because of price and don’t overstay your welcome with his time.

Ask yourself, given my experience today,  am I likely to want to do business with this company in the future? You bet I won’t be.

Paul Stanford is a Director of 4Momentum http://www.4momentum.co.uk. 4Momentum provides business advisory services to small businesses, charities and social enterprises primarily in Sussex. Services include advice on starting a business, growing and transforming a business and selling a business. Clients typically contract 4Momentum for short periods of an hour to long term consultancy over many months for advice on subjects such as mentoring, business planning, sales and marketing advice, bidding for contracts, raising finance and general business advice. Paul is approved by the UK Government to deliver business advice on their behalf through Business Link and is a member of the Institute of Business Consultants. Visit his blog at http://www.paulstanford.co.uk/blog

Copyright 2008 Paul Stanford

Have you ever thought “My advertising campaign is boring?” That is because you are not being creative and you are not having fun doing it. When you create a fun and exciting advertising campaign, it doesn’t have to take forever and it doesn’t have to be difficult.

Business owners must create an advertising campaign or they won’t attract new business. Advertising campaign’s don’t have to be boring and the same ole same ole. Spruce your campaign up and make people want to go to your website for more information. Including the family in your campaign will give you more family time while working your business at the same time. The neat thing about it is they won’t mind helping you because they will have fun as well.

Think about fun and exciting ways to get your products noticed. Think about things that you like to see or things that grab your attention. Have you ever gone to a parade and had someone hand you a sample product or a flyer with a piece of candy attached to it? Why not do this with your own products?

Here are some ways to advertise your business using samples from your business.

• Put your sample product in a smaller bottle or baggie, so you can get more out of your sample and you can reach more people
• Make a bright and colorful flyer and attach a piece of candy to it
• Put your business card in a bag with a sealed tea bag and offer a discount or free product for placing an order
• Create a flyer with a crossword puzzle on it and give a pen or pencil to complete it
• Attach a business card or flyer to your sample and use it in a mom pack or filler bag
• Create your own mom pack or filler bag and give them to daycares to give to their parents or take them to a school for their teachers
• Create a flyer on bright paper and attach a piece of candy and put it on the screen door handle of each house in your neighborhood
• Create a flyer with a trivia question and have the answer on your site and give away a prize for the correct answer
• Create a color sheet on a flyer and give it to daycares for their children to color

These are just a few ideas. You can come up with your own ideas when you brainstorm and write them down. You can even include the family and have even more ideas. Including your family will give you ideas from other types of people. Your family can also help you create your products and hand them out.

Your advertising campaign doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You can get your supplies at the dollar store or even online and save yourself some money as well. Use your imagination when you create them and it will be wonderful!

Pick your business up by the sandal straps and start creating your own fun and exciting advertising campaign.

Barb Ireland and Renee Brown the founders of The Sample Cake, http://www.thesamplecake.com Stop by and check out a new and exciting way to market your business. Articles are free to be reprinted as long as author’s bio remains intact.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barb_Ireland
 

First of all, let me give you a pat on the back for taking the bold step forward. As a person who has been through it myself, I know making the decision to start your own small home-based business is not an easy one. So, congratulations, from the bottom of my heart, is in order. Take comfort in the fact that not a lot of people dare make the step and go to their graves wishing that they had taken the step…a small and seemingly insignificant one…forward.

So now that you’ve given yourself a headstart or a new beginning, it’s time to get serious. How do you get business? Should you advertise? How big should your budget be? where do you start? How extensive should your online advertising strategy be? how much are you supposed to spend on advertising online? Is adwords the only way out of the realm of invisibility…no, the right question is, is it the only door open?

One word of advice, from one small business owner to another…never put all your eggs into one basket. There are lots of ways to find exposure and we should never limit ourselves to just one method. That would be like putting all your hopes into one advertising avenue and when it crashes or just doesn’t turn out the way you have hoped for it to turn out, your hopes crashes along with it.

We want to prevent that and a small business, especially a start-up one, cannot survive without an emotionally trodden owner. The first thing you need to do is to adapt a BIG PICTURE mindset for your small business. As small as it is, advertising and marketing needs to be done in incorporating larger scale in order to reach maximum number of people within the shortest period of time using minimum the cost. Impossible? Think again.

Now, the thing is that you can promote your small business in a big way using multiple methods of advertising and marketing. For a start, tell everyone about it. when I first started out my small writing and designing business, I printed out 500 business cards and handed 10s to people I am familiar with, 5s out to people I am QUITE familiar with and then 1 to those I’ve just met. Ask your friends and family members to keep your business card handy and hand them out to the people they meet whom they think might need the services that your small business provides.

Contrary to popular beliefs, it IS POSSIBLE to advertise for free on the internet. I won’t go into that in this article since I know I can write a whole book on that one alone – but it’s possible and many people all around the world has been generating reasonable to mind-blowing traffic to their websites with proper search engine marketing, online promotion strategies, tie-ups, partnerships, affiliations, link exchange, article marketing…just to name a few. Free advertising is possible but it takes a heckuva lot of time, so you need to have the patience and diligence for that one.

While advertising for free is possible, you should not rely on this method alone to get the word out because it might take YEARS! And I know you can’t sustain the cost of maintaining your small business this way, so you’ll definitely need to advertise. On whether to use a big or small budget, it all depends. I would strongly recommend jumpstarting traffic with advertising like adwords or small, random banner advertising. But like I always say, don’t get ahead of yourself…keep to your budget and try to worm your way in to see if you can barter it in for something worth your time.

Another popular method of getting the word out for small business owners is to populate the internet with links into their website via a network of people. Facebook is mighty popular these days and although I don’t know how long the fad is going to last, it’s worth a look. Article marketing is another fantastically effective (but time consuming) method of getting links into your website. Last but not least, you can always spend a small amount of money printing out brochures or small flyers, stand on the road side and hand them out to passer-bys.

I have a friend who owned a small boutique and online business. With a tiny budget, she spent approximately USD$150 a month printing cute little bookmarks and handed them out randomly to people in shopping malls. She had the guts, determination and ‘desperation’ to just walk up to someone and introduce herself this way. “Hi, you don’t know me but my name is Lilian. I have a small boutique down the road and I would like to give you this little bookmark. The website address is here and there’s my phone number of it. Have fun shopping. Bye”. And she’d just walk off.

Today, Lilian owns four boutiques in strategic locations and earning a handsome income from them. All because she started small and dared to just do it. (Pssstt! I have a feeling she’s earning even more than me now but…let’s just keep it between you and me.)

Marsha Maung is an established freelance writer who has mastered the art of writing for the Internet. She is one of the first few Internet freelance writers who delivered original kick-ass copy. At the moment of publication, she’s into freelance writing for blogs, articles for search engine marketing, ghost writing books, newsletters and other reading materials. She calls Selangor, Malaysia her home and enjoys playing in the park with her kids, Joshua and Jared. For more information, visit her website at http://www.marshamaung.com Marsha actively and passionately contributes to http://www.contentmagician.com as well.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marsha_Maung