Should “A-Rod” 

be negotiating

terms for Scott Boras

to play third base?

     With immediate apologies to all those “not a baseball fan” types who prefer brawn-over-brain sports that require heavy drinking to appreciate, and, oh yes, apologies also to all those who suffered great heartache at having to see Olympic curling competition come to an end.

     It’s just that even Herman’s Hermits have heard of baseball’s super-star Yankee slickster, and America’s champion sports agent (No, not the Tom Cruise character from the “Show me the money!” movie). And everyone knows that neither of these guys could do the other’s job with even a shred of success. Besides, it hooked you into reading this, right? 

     Well, this is not much ado about nothing because business owners and managers insist everyday on putting the avalanche of marketing burdens on the shoulders of salespeople who haven’t a clue about the most appropriate tools to use, nor any sense of the command of psychology needed to make those tools work effectively. And designating marketing people for sales roles can be an even bigger joke.

     Marketing is not sales. Sales is a function of marketing.

     Marketing is also the umbrella over all these other functions: pricing; packaging; online and offline promotion, merchandising, and advertising; online and offline public relations, community relations, investor relations, industry relations, business alumni relations, and much of customer relations; professional practice development; formalized networking, blogging, and social media activities; website design and development; and “buzz” (word-of-mouth) marketing.

     Sales has many parts to it. Not the least of these is that being a sales representative means running one’s own small sales performance business complete with bookkeeping and all the other migraine-promoters. But sales is sales.

     Marketers are the planners, organizers, strategists and creators. Salespeople are the movers and shakers. Salespeople are the lifeblood of every organization. Marketers provide the support services that bring prospects to the point of sale. Salespeople sell!

     If you want your salespeople to do a better job of selling, let them sell. Take away the responsibility for marketing that drains their energy, makes them crazy and is beyond their comprehension to begin with, and let them sell.

     Give the responsibility for marketing to people who are trained to do marketing. Let them come up with the words and pictures and designs and plans and budgets and strategies and slogans and jingles and branding lines and media plans and scripts and news releases and online program approaches.

     When their work succeeds at driving prospects to your door, reward them for the results; but then let your salespeople do their job! 

     Of course they all need to interact and share insights with one another. The more each team and individual knows about what makes the other(s) tick, the more successful all of them will be, and so will be your business. Your greatest challenge is to motivate everyone to do what they do best to take your business in the direction you want it to go. That’s leadership, and only you can do that!

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Get it out of the elevator 

and into your pocket!

     The more you recite your “Elevator Speech” — you know, that little one-sentence description of what your business is all about that you would presumably use to tell your whole business story to a stranger during the few seconds of an elevator ride — the better it will get.

     It’s like the repetition of any story: the more you tell it, the more polished you’ll make it, the more effectively it will communicate, the more enticing a spiel it will become. But to make it work, you have to use it over and over and over again (Repetition Sells!): in meetings, at social gatherings and community events, waiting in lines, and yes, even weddings and funerals.

     That sounds distasteful to you? Sorry. It’s reality. No one’s ever really offended by quiet discreet sharing of an information one-liner that’s descriptive, in good taste, and doesn’t require ten paragraphs to explain it.

     If you have your own business — or you’re a sales rep, which means you have your own business — you are expected to be able to say what you’re all about in one clear, concise (and hopefully energetic) statement that you can say comfortably without struggling for breath..  

     “So, hey, Philamena, I hear you run your own business; whadda’ya do?”

     Please don’t tell the guy you’re a EXIF 2.2 expert who consults on compatibility of PIM and PictBridge. You might instead try: “We help individuals and businesses that work with photography to find the  computer printer systems that best fit their needs.” 

     I know it’s tempting to let others know that you’re a CTS PT who specializes in inflamed flexor tendons instead of simply explaining you’re a “physical therapist who helps people with wrist pain from repetitive motion (like computer operation, packing and assembly, or hammering) to not lose time at work.”

     Odds are if you’re new in business, you still need to tend to the polishing up of this “best set of words.” If you’ve been around awhile, you probably recite the same old statement every day to everyone and haven’t stopped to actually think about it for a long time.

     So, whichever situation best describes you, stop and think about it! Ask others around you what they think of your concentrated explanation.

     Remember that you only get one chance at a first impression. With today’s business economy, there’s no room for saying even one single word in your elevator speech that’s wrong, or that doesn’t enhance the communication value of explaining what your business does, or that doesn’t intrigue others. 

     Once you think you’ve got it, get it out of the elevator. Put it in your pocket and take it everywhere with you. Never stop refining it. And keep feeding it to your employees as the words you want them to use to describe the business anytime someone asks them (and hopefully, of their own accord, when no one asks!)

Comment below or Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today it a GREAT day for someone!

If TWITTER

“doesn’t work”

for your business,

maybe you don’t either!

     With cha-ching, cha-ching becoming a  sound of the past, many owners have resigned themselves to “try anything” to lift their businesses up out of the muck, get things back on track, make more sales, bring in more customers, pay the bills, and put some money in the bank again.

     A lot of “old-timers” are even giving social media a try. They’re baffled, but are willing to “give it a shot!” They locate www.Twitter.com, fill in the blanks, set up an account, then put up one feeble 140-character post every week or so telling the world how great their business is.

     They wait. No Twitter-types break down the doors.

     They walk off shaking their heads and vowing never to return. “TWITTER doesn’t work,” they tell people. “It didn’t get me any business, and besides, what do I care if somebody in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Honolulu, or Kalamazoo hears about my little local service business in Pleasantville?”

[Pssst! What works for your business will only work for

your business if you make it work for your business.]

     You wouldn’t run (and pay for) one ad or commercial and think that’s going to produce droves of visitors. Why would a few Twitter “Tweets” (which of course you’d not pay for)  do the trick? And, by the way, why would anyone — even someone who puts posts on Twitter a few times a day — think that telling Twitterland how great a business is, will send the masses stampeding to their doorstep?

[Pssst! You can only make something work for your business

if you work for your business. It’s called “walk the talk.”]

     TWITTER can work wonders for any business that’s willing to put in the effort to make it work. Making the absolute most of 140 characters takes considerable skill; you can’t breeze in and wing it like a car salesman. It takes brains, organization skills and marketing savvy. A psych degree helps. 

     Are the dynamics any different for FaceBook, LinkedIn, or any other social media networks? No. The closer you study these sites and see what makes them click, so to speak, the better your odds for making them be productive for your business. And you can’t beat the price, so the learning curve trade-off is a worthy investment of time and effort.

     Finally, the lame excuse for avoiding social media because it’s worldwide when they only service local customers? Today’s world has shrunk from a basketball to a marble in terms of instantaneous multi-directional communication. Through social media like Twitter and FaceBook and others we suddenly have “friends” we can be in regular daily contact with from our laptop on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, to Greg in Canada, and Pamela in Australia, and Doyle in Dallas, and Jonena in San Diego, and Victoria in Thailand.

     Do you think any of the millions who are exposed to online messages, might have a friend or relative in Brooklyn (or Pleasantville)? Do you think they might refer to one another the same ways you do? So why not be global, even if you are a little local service business. Hey, you really never do know where business can come from. It might even come from TWITTER.   

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting.

Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!

It’s A Best-Kept Secret

… Among Men.

     From my early days in Madison Avenue’s “Top 10” ad agencies, where I worked for the industry’s two most famous and successful leading ladies, to active roles in women’s rights marches, to a professorship career which led me to ignite a campus women’s program,  followed by group counseling facilitator days with a female partner, I learned I was barely able to hold a candle to the feminine wiles of business leadership.

     I moved into serial-entrepreneur pursuits with a bevy of talented female business associates (the most important and influential of these being Kathy, whom I married 23 years ago), I have always preferred working with women. I can’t speak for many product industries, but to my way of thinking, women have always been smarter about all the things one needs to be smart about in running a service business and dealing with clients.

     And TODAY, I can finally say to all those smirking owners, investors, and VCs who’ve always equated quarterbacks, fighter pilots, and five-star generals with required business leader traits and qualities: “See. It’s not just me who thinks women are better business leaders!”

     The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute has just released new findings that predict women entrepreneurs will create close to 6 million new jobs in the U.S. by 2018, more than half the expected new job total. “That’s great,” you say, “but so what? How does that make women better business leaders?”

     Ah, it’s HOW this new job creation tsunami will occur that’s important. Women entrepreneurs are reported in this research study to be “more customer-focused, more likely to incorporate community into their business plans, and more adept at creating opportunities for others,” according to a report of the findings earlier today by Lisa Pateus Viana in the “Small Business” section of FOXBusiness online.

     Viana says these characteristics are “helping women excel in 1) running a business 2) keeping employees driven and productive and 3) building a loyal customer base.” She goes on to say that the research shows “the only things more important to women entrepreneurs than their customers are family and religion,” and proceeds to make a strong case for the values of something few male counterparts strive for: a sense of balance.

     It seems to me that the only ones who disregard the validity of these kinds of study findings are those who have never learned to accept themselves or be able to respect others anyway. So, good riddance to all those stimulus/bailout-dependent corporate and government muckity-mucks who think entrepreneurship is an irritating business nonevent without promise.

     And let’s hear it for the emerging new stronger-sex business leaders! In fact, if we cut them some slack, they may actually create us some millions of new jobs sooner than later! 

~~~~~~~~~~~Visit Hal’s Recent Guest Blog Posts~~~~~~~~~~~

•  
  • “The SALES Snow Job” @ http://bit.ly/bYHmXx
  • “Got A Sick Website?” @ http://bit.ly/6iYe6g    
  • “Leadership Puzzles” @ http://tinyurl.com/yfsczbk 
  • “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” @ http://bit.ly/7K0s4a   

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

“Git yer shovel and

hipboots, Mollie;

that slick sales guy’s

back agin.”

     When did you last encounter a slick, fast-talking salesperson who answered your questions like he was snapping a towel? A car dealership? Discount furniture store? Stereotypes? Sure, but the examples serve a purpose because they bring the worst images of sales to the surface. If we can know the worst case scenario, it’s easier to strive for the best.

     The problem is, it seems to me, that many salespeople who appear to be best case scenario salespeople on the surface are actually worse than the worst underneath. They are the ones who are smart enough to recognize that nobody likes or buys a “sales hustle” anymore, that today’s consumers are more enlightened shoppers, so they blanket the truth with a snow job and hope no one notices the slippery ice below until the check clears the bank.

     These are the same hot-shots who ignore or trivialize prospects’ concerns and create diversions by instead emphasizing the strengths of the product or service being shopped, to the exclusion of the weaknesses. It’s a throwback sales attitude that no longer tweaks the twitter, if you know what I mean. 

     But, hey, doesn’t every one in sales do that? No. True sales professionals treat prospects like family (well, not including the dysfunctional cousins). True sales professionals may not dwell on weak sales points, but they won’t smoke and mirror the negatives into some dark corner either.

     Professional salespeople build high-trust reputations at every opportunity. They are invested in selling as a career. They get the big picture of life. They seek to build a reputation for honesty, not deal-making. They want to be able to establish long-term repeat-sale relationships once the sale is made.

     If you’re serious about sales and you should be… if you’re a rep or business owner or manager (of ANY part of ANY business), or an entrepreneur… because your very existence depends on how effectively you listen to customers and respond to their needs and concerns.

     This includes being as open and honest about your product and service weaknesses as you are about the strengths. Leave the one-sided boasting to the advertising and PR people. YOU are the company! Customers and prospects expect and deserve truth as well as benefits.

     When a salesperson tries to give someone a snow job, he or she is starting out with the assumption that the customer or prospect is stupid. Frankly, ANY assumption is dumb (We can all stand to be reminded that expectations breed disappointment), but starting out with a snow-making machine — and not first handing the prospect a shovel and hip-boots — is particularly self-destruct-targeted.

     It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes with Bing or Google to learn as much if not more than any sales rep about a particular brand or product or service… and whether snow is in the forecast! 

Comment below or reply direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!  Blog FREE via list-protected RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Great VALENTINE for GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

Are You Marketing to

Your “Inner Circle”?

     Besides your mother, there is no bigger fan support base for your business than the market that constitutes your “internal” (or “inner circle” of) customers. Perhaps you never thought of them as a market.

     Perhaps you never thought about who, exactly, makes up this hot prospect / top customer group. Here are some quick thoughts you might want to consider:

     Without exception, the best source of business is existing and past business. Most small business owners and managers realize this, if not overtly, then at least instinctively, and do a pretty decent job of catering to these special people.

     The second best source of business is your “inner circle,” your “internal customer market.” This is comprised first and foremost of your own employees and staff. And many owners and managers also recognize the potential attached to this segment of the internal customer market with things like employee discounts.

(As an interesting side note: In Ben & Jerry’s growth years, every employee was required by job description to take home 7 free pints of ice cream every week, which they of course served to friends and family and gave to neighbors, which became a seeding process to help create a “big buzz”! ), but . . .

     How many small businesses take the next step outside this innermost support ring? When did you last, for example, make special effort to gain customers from your vendor/supplier ranks?

     Think about the fact that at least part of the success of every vendor and supplier to your business (from manufacturing and office supplies, to specialized and not-so-specialized services) is dependent on your business’s continued success.

     Marketing? Ha! It doesn’t even cost anything to hand-deliver or email these people special announcements of special product or service deal considerations. The stronger your alliances with your vendors and suppliers, the more they’ll act as your UNcommissioned, UNpaid sales force as they make their rounds calling on other businesses. It’s like networking the networkers.

     Have you made efforts to similarly (perhaps more quietly) market your wares or services to outside visitors –including sales reps– who call on you in person or by phone? What about other businesses on your block, in your building, neighborhood, community, state or region?

     Internet social networks are not the only avenues for capturing customers from among those who already know of your existence and who may share some common ground. Put on your thinking cap, and keep open-minded. 

     And what have you done for or with the mass or industrial or professional media lately? Not only might those people be prospects for you, they have the ability to influence many others … So do you!

VISIT # # #  Hal’s Guest Blog Posts… 

GOT A SICK WEBSITE?> @http://bit.ly/6iYe6g 

WHAT’S YOUR T-SHIRT SAY?> http://bit.ly/7K0s4a

 LEADERSHIP SEARCH?> 12/30 @http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 DOES NO BEAT MAYBE?> 1/6 @http://bit.ly/74qlG5

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Marketing your business outside

your small business market can

bring you BIG business returns!

     Before you stick your nose up at the idea of marketing your small business outside your business market, sit back, absorb, and be willing to be surprised! In fact, I’m willing to bet that I’ll stop your mouse in mid-air within the next 3 sentences.

     Before you offer one of those 37 pet excuses why it doesn’t work, won’t work, can’t work, costs too much, makes no sense, is fantasy, and just ain’t worth the time or trouble — before you start in, let me tell you that you need to open your mind and re-visit the idea. Because it works! [That’s 2 sentences; 1 more to go; this bracketed stuff doesn’t count.]

     It can work for you and your business and (AHEM!) it’s free! Ah, there it is. The magic word that suckers every small business owner/ manager/partner/entrepreneur. Did it stop your runaway mouse?

     Okay, here we go…Let’s say you own a small appliance repair service business in Gumboro, Delaware, and you think it’s ridiculous to promote what you do to people who live in San Diego, Dallas, Detroit, Denmark, or Djibouti, right? (Sorry about getting stuck on D’s, and Djibouti? Who knows?)

     Well, you might have been right a few years ago, but with today’s smaller, quicker world, there’s really “no tellin'” where your next sale is coming from. Someone who sees mention of a small appliance business in her cousin’s hometown is likely to mention it in a next phone call or email. If you believe sales could be from anywhere, then sales could be from anywhere. Check out this little story:

A restaurateur friend of mine in California, knowing I went to college in New Rochelle, New York, recently raved to me in an email about a unique “no-menu” restaurant located in New Rochelle after having just seen it mentioned on Twitter, and then checked its website.

I’m a couple of states away now, but my brother’s insurance business is in Larchmont, New York, next to New Rochelle. When I called to wish him Happy New Year, I asked his wife about the restaurant. They knew the place, she said, but had shied away because they heard it had no menu. But my mention of the email I got piqued her interest and she said they would try it this week.

• Total cost to the restaurant:    ZERO
• Total value to the restaurant: PRICELESS (My brother’s a big eater AND a big tipper!) 

     There are thousands more stories like this for all kinds of small businesses that choose to not limit their marketing because making excuses and staying stuck in a time warp is easier to deal with than having to develop new promotional, publicity and marketing strategies.

     I’m not suggesting you suddenly abandon your steady customer base, or that you plunk down barrels full of cash to sponsor American Idol.

     I AM suggesting that small businesses need to put aside past thinking limitations and step up to global promotional efforts, especially when they’re available for free, 24/7, exercise a little imagination, and go at it persistently.

“Tell your LA & NYC friends they can get LA & NYC music composed & recorded in Ohio…better & cheaper @ http://bit.ly/7LzLES” is all it might take, for example, as a Twitter post (and a dozen characters left over, no less!) or post some variation a few times a day. Or on Facebook, or with a video and soundtrack sampler on YouTube.

     Got the idea? Go get the business? It may take longer than you like to get the “buzz” going, but it’s hard to beat the cost.      

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Stop writing to, at, for, under, and

over customers. Write WITH them!

     I read an e-zine article published today by an “author/trainer and full time radio host” (we’ll call her FP), entitled “How to write a GREAT direct response letter” that made me wonder what indeed Ms. FP is authoring, training, and radio-hosting about. Surely it can’t be the direct response letter writing skills her article would appear to lay claim to.

     As if it were “BREAKING NEWS…” chugging across the screen, she wraps her snappy little  lecturette around a paralyzingly old acronym: AIDA (for Attract ATTENTION; Create INTEREST; Stimulate DESIRE and Bring About ACTION). Sounds okay, huh? But it’s not!

     This formula, first of all, was updated almost 30 years ago to add a final “S” to the AIDA guideline (Note, btw, a “guideline” NOT a “how to”) making it: AIDAS. The last “S” is for Ensure SATISFACTION. Without the last “S,” Ms. FP, you have a big “NO SALE” and your magical “how to” approach flushes away with one flick of the handle.

There is only one way to write killer copy that sells, and it is the same way to give killer sales presentations that sell — from the heart, and from the mindset of being on the same side of the table as the customer, helping the customer solve the customer’s problem.”

      This means (Ms. FP does manage to get this right, but doesn’t take it far enough) the focus needs to be on addressing the benefits, not the features. Features do make engineers, manufacturers and designers happy. But customers only use features to justify their purchase decisions to bosses, stockholders, spouses, etc.

     Answering the question, “What’s in it for me?” is the only question a customer really cares about. Isn’t it what YOU think about when you’re being a customer?

     Triggering an emotional buying motive (which is the deciding factor in every purchase, even those you might think are completely rational, analytical, and unemotional) requires a true talent for persuasive writing and one-on-one selling that probably 50% of the world’s population have, but that probably fewer than 1% know how to use.

     Lots of people THINK they can write words that sell, and many THINK they can speak words that sell, but reality overwhelmingly suggests that those thoughts almost never translate to big-time performance.

     Lack of self-esteem, authenticity, empathy, product knowledge, marketing experience — and realization that choice and resolve can make the difference — are ordinarily the culprits.

     When you have doubts about your ability to write or speak the best sets of words to sell your products and services, find a proven professional wordsmith. How? Look for great writing, then find the writer. You only get one chance at a first impression.

Note: $1 billion in client sales have been attributed to Hal’s award-winning creations.

 # # #  

 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s 12/30 Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s 1/6 Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

# # #               

“Customer service begins

after the sale is made!”

–IBM, the early days

Is it just me? I hate the put-stuff-together, 46-fold-road-map-style directions printed in fading gray ink on tissue paper (but in 27 languages!) for products I purchase. Like the Christmas toys that even your child can assemble that kept you up half the night, HO! HO! HO!

And then there are those great power tools from Mexico with instructions that challenge your English-Spanish pocket dictionary left over from trying to deal with the landscapers last summer, when you offered them –por favor– a bowl of eyeballs instead of ice cubes.

You got the tools for putting together that great “Early American” furniture set from China, with instructions in broken English and diagrams to match? Oh, and only 89 of the 92 parts?

Or how about those “E-Z Steps” that accompany the new services you signed up for? You know, the “techy” ones with 11 disclaimer paragraphs of .4 type that protectively entomb a microscopic 800 phone number to call for further information about account activation?

Right! It’s that number you’re allowed to call between 9am and 11am or 2pm to 4pm, Pakistani time. Yup, the same one included in the box of Mexican power tools and Chinese-American furniture, that by now you’ve learned to not mind being left on hold for 45 minutes for the privilege of finally connecting with a non-English-speaking, unintelligible “counselor.” 

Of course by this time, you full well know where you’re going to plug the thing in, and what your plans are for the new drill and saw set as soon as you can Google the counselor’s phone number to get a street address and take the next flight out.

I’m not being multi-cultural-diversity friendly, you say?

Sorry, I don’t think it should have to be a huge time-wasting political struggle just to be a customer… a paying customer no less!”

Don’t underestimate the sales power of product and service directions. You need to exercise at least as much care in thinking through and writing (and printing) instruction information as you do for your marketing, advertising, promotion, and sales materials.

A well-written business plan might help you wrangle some financial backing, and some super website content and marketing materials might help you drive customer traffic to your products and services, but customer service (the real thing) starts the minute a customer settles in to figure out how to best use and care for your products and services.

Customer service doesn’t mean you smile and handshake and backpat people through the orientation period that needs to frollow every purchase. (Why do assembly and activation instructions have to be more complicated than frozen food package directions?)

Whatever credibility, integrity and branding value you may have worked hard and spent much to achieve will go out the window in a heartbeat when your customer spreads out the paperwork and finds small-type loopholes in the warranty, a missing or damaged part, no clear diagrams or explanations, stickers that don’t come off…

Make it hard for customers to not be thrilled!

If manufacturers or suppliers aren’t doing their jobs, don’t represent them, OR do their jobs for them because–in the end–your customers are your customers who will boost your repeat sales numbers when you boost your attention to after-sale details, like directions.

# # #  

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Bosom-Bumping,

Chest-Thumping Websites

     Is your businessthe greatest thing since sliced bread and bottled beer? Do you consistently remind your customers and prospects that you and your business are the best there is and that your competitors should just fold up their tents, throw in the towel, take their footballs and go home to sit on the couch and eat bon-bons while they watch global warming creep in?

     Nah, you might say. Whaddayathink, I’m some kinda whack job? you might ask. I play it low-key with customers and competitors, you offer timidly, because, says you, your website does all that rowdy outta-control stuff!

     Well, if your website is bumping bosoms and thumping chests, it is BIG-time out of step with reality. Websites are NOT 24/7 TV commercials!

     Websites are your only round-the-clock opportunities to be engaging and deliver consistent sales messages, to stimulate 2-way interactive exchanges of information without prejudices or emotions getting in the way, without shooting yourself in the foot.

     Done right, your website gives you a dimension of control that’s not possible in personal selling. No, it comes nowhere near replacing personal selling, but it absolutely does enhance and accentuate the sales function in every industry on Earth if it has the right ingredients, especially (says all the research) great copy/text/writing/words.

     And if it does have the right ingredients, you need only to attract attention to it and generate visitor traffic (a task generally best left to Internet marketing specialists).

Here’s what your website should do: Educate, entertain, create interest, stimulate desire, bring about action, generate sales inquiries and leads, and promote increased awareness of how great you are not by saying it, but by demonstrating the benefits your products and services provide … not the features, the benefits!

     Does it matter that you’re a nonprofit organization or government agency? Of course not. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re the fading-off-into-the-sunset US Postal Service, the local community college, a church or service dogs organization. People buy benefits.

     Use your website to sell benefits. Do it serious or do it with humor, but do it by helping the customer solve a problem or address a need, not by bumping bosoms or thumping chests or telling everyone how great you are.

     Because when it comes to sales, except for maybe your mother, nobody really cares how great you are. And, in the end, integrity speaks for itself.   

# # #  

 LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED site http://bit.ly/XhN1h

 WONDERING WHEN NO is Better Than MAYBE? See Hal’s Guest Blog Post in BonMot Communications’ Angelique Rewer’s FREE HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED e-zine www.thecorporatecommunicator.net 

# # #