Yesterday I had (what is for me) a terrible experience on Twitter.  I have been very upset, had a headache and reduced to tears.  I have been trying to defend myself to complete strangers in 140 characters and haven't found any closure.  So in an effort to actually claim my headspace back and be present for my family and true friends (yes - some of you have come from Twitter, and I am grateful!), I have written an open letter - so that I get to have my say:

@ErikVeland

I am not pissed off, I would like to you truly recognise the difference between being pissed off and actually being hurt and upset at you being hypocritical.  My personal skills?  You're being nasty using Twitter for your own version of marketing (read bullying) who's the android?  Some people on here actually have feelings and a life outside of Twitter, I'd love to have time to interact personally with everyone, but my 3 kids & husband-earning income to support them; extended family & friends take up most of my time (my choice - I truly love my life and am very lucky).

Interaction

I see you interact with the same 10 people you obviously see in real life, so what's your point to social media?  You don't seem to be broadening any contacts, you certainly don't seem to be value adding to anyone with your judgemental superior attitude; but how could you, if you bully & berate people before you even know them?

Categorising me (and I you)

You read what 5 tweets of mine & categorized me?  Are you that naive, do you believe your personal interaction methods are better?  I remember being in my 20's & thinking I knew it all: when you're nearly 40, running your own business (instead of having an employer who has a receptionist, an accounts person, a customer service person, a web designer, a marketing person, a sales person, and a manager to do everything for you), when you have 3 kids who deserve your undivided attention & you've created a job that gives you flexible time to read at Prep & go on their excursions & see them at sports day & watch the concert, then you come back to me & tell me how much twitter time you have & I'll critique how you interact with people by choosing 5 random tweets that suit my purpose.

Twitter uses

Yes I also use Twitter as a successful marketing tool, again when you have your own business & something of value to add (not just Tweets about where you're drinking and your flatmates private business) then let me know & I'll let everyone know my judgement if you are wrong by my standards.  It's called bigotism, which has been the main reason for some of the worlds worst crimes on humanity.   You need to learn that there is not just one right way, when you mature I hope you can make people proud instead of being a juvenile with high school bullying tactics when you come across someone who is different from you, or does something you don't agree with.  Guess I am spoilt by my Father and husband & the other gentlemen in my life who emulate undestanding & compassion; but what is social media about if not to expose us to different points of view?

So you think I'm a tool for using Twitter for marketing; you don't like how I say hi to new people I'm following & don't like that I auto thank people because I don't have as much time as I'd like (& I was taught to be thankful, not just ignore people)!  Although I like to think of myself as loathe to judge people I admit I have made a judgement of you based on what I see as your ignorance and lack of understanding of the multiple and wonderful applications of Twitter.  It seems to me YOUR human interaction user manual has some major faults - unless it is your aim to be offensive/rude, narrowminded/ignorant?

Given that we both have personal interactions on Twitter, I see our differences as:

Me: Twitter as a marketing tool to spread the word about my business,

You: Twitter as a narcissism tool to promote yourself.

How is your self serving need better than mine?  At least I own a business which helps others, and yes, sometimes I am re-numerated fairly for my time, but there are a lot of times that I give my help for free (let me know if you want some testimonials or contacts to confirm that claim).  Remember, I don't earn a wage - my income is from my business that I created from scratch - I started my own business to have control over my time for my family and control over me from the bullies I have had as bosses.  I'd like to know what value you "add", as to me you seem to only be detracting.

@nicolejensen

You tell me I should learn to use Twitter properly?  You are actually in a circle of people I regularly engage with - have you EVER interacted personally with me?  Apart from yesterday telling me how you think I should use Twitter and that I am RUDE for using an auto thanks.  Did it occur to you that there may be more than one way that is correct?  Did it occur to you that I have, what I think, are perfectly valid reasons for economising my time, without meaning at all to be rude.  I don't purely broadcast, I do listen - can you say that you have displayed the same behaviour?  That is definitely not how you have treated me.  Right or wrong, I use SocialOomph as I don't have as much time as I would like to manage Twitter - but I love Twitter, I have loved it for all of the new contacts and friends-the wonderful people here, the wonderful ideas that have opened my eyes to alternatives I hadn't previously experienced.  Apparently it is an issue of passion for you, I respect that, but it doesn't give you the right to be judge, jury and executioner to those who are different.  For your reference, I have removed my auto thanks for when people follow me, as I don't have a thick enough skin to go through such scathing ridicule again, I am sorry to all of my new followers if it's a week or a month or two before I get to you - I will do, as always, my best.

@greyko

I appreciate your kindness and respect - you simply stated that I am not the type of person you would interact with and you would block someone like me.  I have absolutely no problem with being blocked or "unfollowed" if our views don't align.

Followers of @ErikVeland & @StellarStrategy

To the followers of @ErikVeland who had the Social Media grace of contacting me directly, thank you for the opportunity to interact; a grace that Erik did not display before choosing to publicly belittle me.

To all my followers, who are true friends, yes - I shouldn't let one negative experience colour my whole view of Twitter.  I guess, like real life, there are amazing, generous, supportive and friendly people, and then there's the Eriks...

(note: my business name came from an epiphany in line at the pub - I am proud of the name Stellar Strategies and if you care to ask any of my clients, they say that is what I do - I create Stellar Strategies for businesses to thrive)

My journey

@ErikVeland It's taken me a good chunk of 2 days to stop being upset (which really, if I am honest with myself, is the antithesis of starting my own business to create time for my family).  If you bothered to take the time to know me, you would have found out I am highly sensitive and I worry about what others think of me, so add them to my faults too.  You have criticised me for lack of personal skills, I hope this open letter enlightens all my listeners, you and your listeners that I'm not sure that your personal skills are better, unless you indeed were aiming to hurt someone's feelings, embarrass them and upset them.  If so congratulations you found me, a sensitive sucker who listens to what strangers have to say and worries about being liked.

So thank you for the education and your part in my personal growth and constant journey of wanting to improve myself.  Feel free to laugh & criticise & berate me all you want - if that's what you need to do to feel a better person.  Hope you feel great!  Each to their own Erik - no right or wrong, only responsibility for our own actions and the hurt & upset OR the love & care we show others.

PS: don't forget to come back to me when you have 3 kids & run your own successful business, so I have the opportunity to critique your Twitter skills when you have to prioritise your time differently.

Are your prospects 100% with you, ready to hand over money or, are you finding that you are not closing all the sales you would like?

Do you get the feeling they are keen for your product or service, but something is holding them back?

Would you like to know a neat trick to simply increase your sales and help some of these prospects simply and easily over the line??

It comes down to options!!  Yep - as simple as that!  It is not always about your competitor, or your clients readiness, or even your ability to handle the sale.  Sometimes it is simply about creating options and giving your prospects more choice.

If you have a serious look at most businesses, they have their key products or services, their signatures in the market.  You either buy or you don't.  So how much business could they (or you!) be missing out on?

One of my recent coaching clients has a fantastic service, but he had one price and one solution, so the options were:

1. take what he offered, or
2. don't!!

Here is what I suggest: take the service you want to promote and create a service either side - yes, give your client 3 options!!  The most expensive, the one you really want to promote and the cost effective option.

Oh and here is a wonderful piece of advice I received from @itsinthestars (btw I highly recommend you join Elizabeth's mailing list - she is one very savvy woman with an absolute fountain of information to assist your online business!):

• for those whose websites are directed to an english speaking population, list your 3 prices from left to right in descending order and make the information smaller as you span across, ie:

I have heard this called the F-effect (someone may be able to help me with the correct nomenclature??). The principle being we read left to right; so we read all of the information on the right, we may find it out of our price range or more of a solution than we really need - the middle option is now looking good!  AND human nature generally decrees that we aren't cheap and you get what you pay for, so the last option isn't generally considered (unless there is a genuine budgetary requirement).  Again the middle option is looking good!

From a sales perspective, you are removing the "yes/no" dilemma - your prospects are now deciding between service or product options, not "will I or won't I" options!

By giving your prospects choice you are reducing the likelihood of them looking elsewhere!

Buyers today are the most savvy they have ever been!  You will know that they generally come prepared, having researched what they need or want.  So by the time we are at the "purchasing cycle", we are less of an information provider than we used to be and more of a service or solution provider.

So ensure that you make it easy for your prospects to stay with you!  Give them choices, build these choices either side of your preferred product/service and make closing the sale easier!!

PS: oh, by the way - DON'T GIVE THEM TOO MANY OPTIONS!!  If they are confused they will likely go elsewhere.  3 is a great number, if you can achieve it!

By Stephanie Bressan 2010 Stellar Strategies - Copyright

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Stephanie Bressan a Sales Coach, Trainer and Speaker and is the founder of Stellar Strategies a Sales Business providing assistance to teach you how to increase your business through sales and offering sales outsourcing solutions!  Please see our blog for heaps of free sales tips and advice, or contact us info@stellarstrategies.com.au if you have any questions, or if we can be of service!

An effective elevator pitch is a critical business tool, especially for small business and sole traders!

You will know if you network, are meeting new prospects, or trying to win business, that you need to be able to EFFECTIVELY convey what it is that you do, in a way that captures attention!!

There are heaps of fantastic resources on the internet to help you write your perfect elevator pitch; but I found they were very long winded and sometimes quite confusing.  Your elevator pitch is designed to enlighten prospects, not confuse them!

So I have created a template that my coaching clients love, they say it is simple, easy to use and helped them to nail an elevator pitch, when previously they had been avoiding what they saw as a complex task!  Pop over to our shop (click here) if you would like to purchase the simple and easy template "The Stellar Elevator Pitch" to get your perfect elevator pitch done and dusted in 5 minutes!  Otherwise - if you have a bit more time, you may prefer to just follow some free instructions below:

Your elevator pitch is how you quickly and concisely tell people about yourself, but it is not enough to simply say what you do (well, that is if you expect to find any customers!!).  Your elevator pitch needs to capture attention, create a desire to hear more and open the possibility for further communication.

So the elements you need are:

• Information about who your company is
• information about what your company does
• information about who is your target market
• information about how you help your target market
• information about why your target market should use you

Now here is the important thing - it is not a speech, instead you are trying to engage someone in a conversation!  So you need to convey the above information as succinctly as possible.  Write dot points of the above answers and then fashion them into a sentence of approximately 30 words (most elevator pitch advice will say 60 seconds/words, but I can tell you a sale is made or broken in the first 30 seconds, PLUS you want people to ask you more, not bore them to death!).

STELLAR SALES TIP: Finally you want to create an emotional connection and if you follow my sales advice you will know that I teach questions and examples are the best way to do this!

A Stellar Strategy eg: “You know when a small business struggles to make money?  We provide them with simple tools to fix that!  We recently helped XYZ company secure 10 new clients in a market they were struggling with!”

As always - please feel free to share this information, we only request that you recognise the author Stephanie Bressan, Sales Coach and owner of Stellar Strategies (www.stellarstrategies.com.au)!

Remember, you can purchase the quick and simple template here to help you achieve the perfect elevator pitch in 5 minutes and if you are still struggling with that perfect elevator pitch I can help you with a quick 30min coaching session!

We love to hear your comments or feedback and please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments or at info@stellarstrategies.com.au.

Yesterday I discussed the risks you take in being too "salesy" with your blog: when your blog is a business tool, NOT your business!

Firstly, I would like to say thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted and emailed me about this post "How to make sales from your blogs".  Quite a few of you were a bit stunned that "The Sales Encyclopedia", recommended that you DON'T sell on your blog at all!  (thanks @darrensrjohnson for that lovely tag btw, don't mind if I do accept that compliment!!).  I know, it is one of those paradoxes that is a little hard for me to even grasp, as I am always touting the benefits of never missing an opportunity to sell; but some of the comments and emails I got really got me thinking, so I would like to clarify that there is indeed an opportunity for you to sell in your blog posts - BUT THERE IS AN ART TO IT!!

Those of you who know me will know that I teach: If you come on strong with the sales pitch before someone "knows, likes and trusts you" they will be put off and you will likely loose a potential customer.  As @wordmistressAUS and @susanliving pointed out, your blog is a tool to share your knowledge, often it is people's first introduction to you - a free way to advertise your expertise, akin to standing in the mall and handing out flyers to encourage people to visit your shop!  And as Gina stated, you don't sell 50 paces from your shop selling, you sell in your shop!

Here is the fun part I promised: here's how you CAN sell in your blog posts!  You can use 2 sales tools, what we Sales and Marketing people love to call:

1. "Persuasive Selling" (tip: I love Shamus Brown, find access to heaps of his tips and advice here!), and
2. the "Call to Action"

Persuasive selling is the new method - gone are the days when sales people could corner unsuspecting consumers and scare them into buying with their clever closed questions and sales techniques!  We are savvy now, we have access to heaps of free information at our finger tips and we know what we want!  A clever sales person uses that consumer knowledge to their advantage - they engage a prospect on a personal level, find out what the prospect is REALLY wanting / needing and then helps them to find their solution.  You can capitalise on this by asking in your blog posts what it is your readers want to hear and know!

The "Call to Action" is simply giving people a reason to act, perhaps you might sign your blog off with "see our products page for more helpful tools and resources" or "til end of June we are offering 10% off all products".  Make sure you put in hyperlinks to make it easy for people to get to your products (and get your hyperlink to open in a new page too!).

As with my previous post, I want to reiterate that your blog is not the forum for the "hit them on the head, get the sale at any cost" method!  Your business blog is about helping your potential consumer, asking what it is they want to know - providing that information and offering them the tools and resources to increase or expand on that knowledge with your products and services!!

If you are not an online marketer, but instead your blog is a business tool, how do you make money from your blog?  It's a great question BECAUSE you have to be careful - if you try to use techniques that work for online marketers, you are at a very real risk of alienating potential clients.

I guest presented tonight at a "Blogging for Business" Webinar and the question that was hot on everyone's lips was "how do I get sales from my blog"!?!  Now there are many Blogging experts out there to offer you advice to convert sales or monetise if you're a professional blogger.  Here are some that I personally like: Darren Rowse-ProBlogger, Yaro Starak-Entrepreneurs Journey and Eric Goldstein-Create with Eric).  You can utilise solutions such as affiliate marketing, selling information products and sponsorship.

But what if your blog is not your whole business?  What if your blog is something that supports your business?  You need a different strategy if you want to make money from a business blog!

So to help you with some Stellar Strategies, here are my simple tips for making money from your Business Blog, firstly:

• Become an expert - share your knowledge and become a source people look to,
• comment on blogs of businesses that are similar or complimentary to yours, get your name out there!
• don't directly go for the sale, the hard sell on a blog is more often than not bucked against,
• create a relationship with people (People buy from people they know like and trust), so take the time to genuinely connect with people, and
• when you know about that person, when you have had some interaction with them and know created a solid foundation - THEN YOU CAN START THE SALES PROCESS!!

So, once you have a following, a connection with people, a Tribe developing, then secondly you can use some sales techniques!

1. Have a call to action (perhaps a monthly special, a referral reward, an expiry date),
2. have a giveaway,
3. ask for word of mouth referrals

But remember, none of these actions will work if you don't have a following - so make sure your blog is creating a following and then the sales will start to flow!

Here are a couple of great articles that go into detail with some helpful techniques (if you want to get even more serious!):

1. How to get your blog traffic to convert in 5 easy steps
2. 5 easy ways to get Sales and Leads from a Business Log without annoying your audience

If you have any questions, other tips I may have missed, or want some information on how you can improve sales in your business - please don't hesitate to get in contact!  I love people asking for blog posts on certain topics that are important to them, so don't be shy!  and if you are struggling with how to implement or utilise any of the above strategies, drop me a line info@stellarstrategies.com.au.

Happy blogging - enjoy yourself, know your target market and what you can do for them and watch the business start to flow in!

You may have heard of KPI's (Key Performance Indicators).  Sales people live and die by the most obvious KPI - BUDGETS!!  But the truth is, if you only have a sales budget and no other testable, measureable KPI's how do you expect to track and improve your sales.

Many small businesses I coach in sales initially think that the concept of testing and measuring is too difficult; in truth once you have grasped the concept and set up your matricies, it is EXTREMELY simple!!

For businesses without sales staff, it is critically important that you implement some strategies for Sales Measuring, otherwise you may find your business is not growing or earning enough income.  Just as you would measure the success of marketing dollars spent, you need to have a performance plan for your sales!

I am currently writing an e-book with a "Simple Sales Plan for Small Business" which will go into more detail, but here are some super quick and incredibly easy steps you can use measure your results and then set up your sales process!

1. How many prospects (ie: people you have had more than once point of contact with) generally turn into paying customers?
2. how many cold contacts (ie: people you have no previous relationship with) did it take to get those prospects?
3. how many times do you make contact before securing business from cold leads or prospects (eg: 2 phone calls, 1 email and 2 newsletters = 5 points of contact)?
4. how many new clients a week do you want?

Now you might not currently know the answers to all of these questions - don't stress, it is easy to start implementing this at any stage of your business!  Write the above 4 questions down and stick them up around the office, ask other staff for their input, have a guess!  But once you commit to the awareness of thinking about the numbers and how many contacts lead to a client, you will start to come up with some working figures!

This doesn't have to be an exact science - take a week or two to think it through, start to note how many cold contacts you deal with over that period, how many turn into prospects over the next few weeks/months and how many become customers!  Now it will totally depend on your service/product and industry, but generally the sales cycle for building a new customer is approximately 3 months.  So by the end of 3 months you should have more awareness of how many new clients you got in that time, how many prospects you have in your database for potential future business and how many "cold contacts" you started with.

Once you know these figures, you then decide how many new clients a week you want and make sure you diarise the time to contact enough cold leads to generate your magic number!!

PS: a tip from the Telemarketing side of Stellar Strategies, when you sit down to make prospecting calls you should be aiming for approximately 15 contact/s per hour!

See my blogs on Telemarketing Scripts and Top 10 Tips for Successful Telemarketing for some help on getting yourself set up for regular prospecting!

I hope these Stellar Sales Strategies help you improve your business!  I look forward to your comments or let me know if you have any questions or topics you would like to hear more about!

In my last post I talked about the Foundational elements you need to sell successfully.  Building on this, our next Stellar Strategy to ensure successful sales in your business: you need to know your target market!  Now that is not to say you can't sell outside of this market, BUT to increase your chances of successfully converting business it is helpful to identify your target market:  the customers who are most likely to purchase your goods and/or services!

Identifying prospects is a critical building block of continued and sustainable sales success.  It will give you a focus and will stop you from wasting time chasing business that may not be suitable.

The best way to start is to think about the customers you have had to date:

• which customers did you enjoy working with? (you want more of these)
• which customers represent repeat business? (definitely more of these!)
• which customers were difficult to work with? (can you change what caused the difficulties? or are these ones you need to cull to make way for better clients?)

You can also include any or all of the following segment definitions:

• Geographics (region, population etc.)
• Demographics (Age, Gender, Education etc.)
• Psychographics (Interests, Activities,Values etc.)
• Behavouralistic (benefits sought, usage rate, perceived need etc.), and
• Industrial (if B2B: Industry type, #employees etc.)

Once you have profiled your Ideal Customers and you have created your target market, you now know who is most likely to need, want and buy your product and/or service!  With this Stellar Strategy you can now ensure that your marketing is geared correctly and that you are giving yourself the best chance at sales success!

As promised in my previous post "Stop Giving It Away" there is a starting point to ensure you are able to successfully sell your business/product/service and promote yourself comfortably!  This Stellar Strategy is the Foundation you need to be able to sell!

As with any stable structure, unless there is a solid foundation, everything can come tumbling down.  In my experience when you are facing difficulty with sales, one of the following 3 elements is weak and needs work:

1. You
2. Your Product/Service
3. Your Company

To successfully sell, you must identify with the 3 major elements of the foundation and view them with a positive frame of mind.  Each is equally important: if any one element is lacking, it causes instability in your ability to present yourself and your company positively.

For example, if you are feeling unwell or not quite yourself, this will impact on how you present your company and your product or service.  If you have a product that you don't totally believe in, that will come across no matter how strong your company is and how confident you are.  If you feel your company structure or support is not there for you, then you can have the best product or service in the world, but difficulty getting it to market and that comes across in your dealings.

So, how do you make sure your foundation is built on rock and not sand?  You need to find your passion with each of the 3 elements!  Once you believe wholeheartedly in yourself, your company and your product/service so will others!

Look out for "Stellar Foundation to Successful Sales" exercise coming soon, to help you define all of the positive elements, so you can find your passion!  And if any of the elements are lacking, then you need to take steps to fix or change them.  Because if you don't wholeheartedly believe, how do you expect anyone else to?

I hope you enjoy this Stellar Strategy - our next post will be about the next level in your Sales Structure - Your Target Market!

Please let me know if you have any questions about sales and self promotion, or if you would like me to write about any particular topics to help you increase sales for your business!

Most of you would already know that Stellar Strategies provides Sales Outsourcing solutions.  We have two main areas:

1. Small Business: for businesses that are either too small to have their own sales force or have more customers than sales people can handle, and
2. IT Manufacturing/Distribution: we are a specialist in the IT arena, we speak the language and know the Features and Benefits of this specialised range.

Recently I have had alot of enquiries about how outsourcing sales can help you to improve your business.  It is really important when you consider outsourcing that the company you choose adds to your brand, because they can do more harm than good if you aren't careful.

So I thought I would write the top 7 tips you need to know when looking for an outsourcing company, to ensure they will do justice to your and your brand!

1. Know your target market-if you don't know, outsourcing could be expensive because your campaign is more hit and miss,
2. find out if your provider is comfortable dealing with your target market-eg: don't use a B2B specialist for B2C sales, make sure they know your buzz words and truly understand your product and business,
3. know the result you are looking for-do you want contact names, permission to send info, appointments booked, rapport created or just a yes/no to your questions,
4. what is your provider's record with previous clients-do they know their conversion rates and Return on Investment statistics,
5. do they bring extra knowledge to the table-can they recommend how you should proceed to gain the strongest results, do they increase your knowledge,
6. can they represent you-do they share your vision, do they understand what is unique about you and how to portray that, and finally
7. Trust your gut! Do you feel like they are an extension of your own company policies and values?  Is it a good fit?  Do you trust them to represent you in the best possible light?

Outsourcing actually makes sound financial sense, hiring someone internally can cost a company an additional estimated 50-200% of the annual wage, then there is always the chance that a new staff member won't work out.  It makes even more sense if you are a micro or small business owner and the job of sales falls back on you or other staff who have no sales experience.  On top of all the other things you need to manage in the business, the sales process goes lacking!  When you outsource to a professional sales team you gain measurable consistent results and spreading the workload between team members also provides balance and efficiency, creating higher conversions!

BUT you need to be careful!!  There are many companies out there who offer outsource sales and telemarketing services in the traditional vein of sales being a numbers game.  Personally I recommend that you look for a company who understands the numbers work better when they act as an extension of your company and they create rapport and relationships on your behalf!  Otherwise they could be removing parts of the foundation you have spent your hard earned time and money to build up.

Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss any of the points above, or if you are considering outsourcing and want some help qualifying and identifying who will be the best fit for you!

Wishing you Stellar Success!!

Stephanie Bressan - info@stellarstrategies.com.au

So you're looking for more customers?  Here's some tips on what NOT to do...and some good ones on what you should be doing too!

You wouldn't walk up to a stranger and ask them to marry you, so why do most businesses think that they can just hire a sales company to win them new business with one phone call?  People buy from people they Know, Like and Trust: how can you create that in one or two phone calls?  The answers is: you can't!

In my experience the first time you cold call you can expect approximately a 1% or less success rate; the 2nd time up to 2%; the third time increases up to 5% and the good news is that by the time you have had between 5 and 10 points of contact, conversion goes as high as 30%!!

So here are some tips to AVOID making costly sales mistakes:

• don't go straight for the appointment
• don't be mysterious or coy
• don't be rude to the receptionist
• don't go for the kill

And more importantly here are some tips for steps you DO want to take:

• do ask questions
• do get them to talk
• do find out what they like about their current suppliers
• do find out what is important to them
• do ask permission to make further contact
• do get contact details to allow for a relationship to develop!

Hope these Stellar Strategies help you to increase your success when you are seeking new business!  and of course - if you are going to outsource this key job function in your business, be sure the company you hire knows how to befriend the gatekeeper and get the contact details of the decision makers!

Wishing you Stellar Success!

Stephanie Bressan - info@stellarstrategies.com.au @stellarstrategy