Sales Performance Improvement

10 Effective Ways To Reduce Your Business Costs

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:42:00 +0000

1. Barter

If you have a business you should be bartering goods and services with other businesses. You should try to trade for something before you buy it. Barter deals usually require little or no money.

2. Network

Try networking your business with other businesses. You could trade leads or mailing lists. This will cut down on your marketing and advertising costs. You may also try bartering goods and services with them.

3. Wholesale/Bulk

You'll save money buying your business supplies in bulk quantities. You could get a membership at a wholesale warehouse or buy them through a mail order wholesaler. Buy the supplies you are always

running out of.

4. Free Stuff

You should try visiting the thousands of freebie sites on the internet before buying your business supplies. You can find free software, graphics, backgrounds, online business services etc.

5. Borrow/Rent

Have you ever purchased business equipment you only needed for a small period of time? You could have just borrowed the equipment from someone else or rented the equipment from a "rent-all" store.

6. Online/Offline Auctions

You can find lower prices on business supplies and equipment at online and offline auctions. I'm not saying all the time, but before you go pay retail for these items try bidding on them first.

7. Plan Ahead

Make a list of business supplies or equipment you'll need in the future. Keep an eye out for stores that have big sales. Purchase the supplies when they go on sale before you need them.

8. Used Stuff

If your business equipment and supplies don't need to be new, buy them used. You can find used items at yard and garage sales, used stores, used stuff for sale message boards and newsgroups etc.

9. Negotiate

You should always try negotiate a lower price for any business equipment or supplies. It doesn't hurt to try. Pretend you are talking to a salesman at a car lot.

10. Search

You can always be searching for new suppliers for your business supplies and equipment. Look for suppliers with lower prices and better quality. Don't just be satisfied with a few.

Regards Mark

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Image by Yann Ropars via FlickrHow to measure your inbound marketing

This post is on our new Blog check out the link below and find out more.

Ideas on what to measure with your online marketing and social media http://bit.ly/neQAfk

How To Ensure You Generate Enough Business For Your Website

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:10:00 +0000

Apart from pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation, exploiting social media such as LinkedIn YouTube Facebook etc. What else can you do to ensure you generate enough business for your Website?

Perhaps a better question is what should you do to generate enough business in total?

Smart online marketers; combine both online and offline marketing tactics and strategies to generate leads and sales for their businesses.

Then you are into a whole realm of different possibilities.

A great place to start is to work backwards from your annual sales objective.

How much turnover do you need at your average margin?

How much of your business is repeat business?

What is your average sales value?

How many customers stop using your services a year?

How many referrals do you generate?

These types of questions feed into your sales plan, which is concerned not only in answering them, but with the number of new leads required, to meet your annual objectives taking into account how many enquires you convert into sales; your closing percentage.

This could be via salespeople or on your website the same principles apply.

When you’ve figured all of this out, you will be in a position to know; how many leads a week, a month, a quarter you need to keep your business viable and hopefully growing.

When constructing your lead generation plan, some common situations to avoid include;

Having your ‘eggs in too few baskets,’ this is having too much business with too few customers or clients. The acid test here is; if you lost one or two of them what would happen to your business?

Not having enough lead generation methods in play - For example you rely on Pay Per Click and don’t do much else. More competitors enter the market, the price goes up of the Pay Per Click, followed by the quality and volume of leads go down. What would happen to your business, if this was your only lead generation strategy?

Spray and pray lead generation - Do a bit of everything and hope something sticks. This can be a very expensive way of marketing, it normally occurs when a business owner has not developed a marketing strategy, which should include a lead generation plan. All marketing can be and should be measured with returns on investment monitored.

Ineffective lead generation - This can occur when any of these situations are wrong; the message, (which could be the sales copy and the design) the offer, your USP (unique selling proposition), the correct medium, the target audience (The quality and responsiveness of the list).

Just one element being wrong can result in ineffective lead generation for example; if you have the best design, great product, a good offer and great sales copy, but you select a bad list, then it all starts to unwind.

Often when business owners suffer from ineffective lead generation, we hear comments such as ‘direct mail does not work, we’ve tried it,’ or ‘email marketing is a waste of time, it’s the spam filters,’ or ’nobody clicked through the website.’

There are plenty of examples of companies that use either of these mediums and make them work. Their lead generation efforts, using these methods are successful, because they have people that work for them, with the right skills.

I hope you’ve found this brief article thought provoking. If you’re not generating enough leads now to meet your sales plan, what’s been covered should help you pinpoint potential problem areas to avoid.

Beyond that, further help can be provide by our inbound marketing services at Integrated Marketing who can help you put together strategies and provide agency services to work with you to generate more leads and sales.

Should you wish to consider outsourcing parts of your lead generation strategies or explore how we can help you with practical ideas, call us during normal business hours on 01623 720022.

Take Care

Regards

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

If you don't tell them how will they know?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:24:00 +0000

I was talking with a web business the other day that got some great products, web based applications.

Most of their business was gained via networking, and selling, which is great, but they weren’t getting much business off the site.

The products were really useful, I cannot tell you too much, because I don’t wish to reveal the identity of the company. The problem was the sales copy on their website. For example, it was silent on the free offer that they were running and it did not tell the reader much at all.

These were a few pointers that I went through with them, about sales copy.

There should be a headline to draw the reader into the copy.

The copy should answer the question 'What's in it for me from the reader or listeners point of view.'

When you write copy put yourself in their shoes, asking yourself questions such as; why should I care to read this, how will this product or service benefit me? What do I need to do to take advantage of this offer, what problems does this product or service solve for me? How will it make my life better, more enjoyable easier, more fun? Are these people genuine is it worth building a relationship with them?

Does the copy explain the features and benefits of the product or service?

What will your call to action be? (Fill in the form, the coupon, sign up for the teleseminar, webinar, call the special number etc).

These are a few of the questions that I would focus on when writing sales copy. These same principles and questions apply tor a website, email, brochure or a script, for a video or audio.

Testimonials should echo what's being said and ideally (for business products and services) denominate the benefit, in terms of time saved, money saved or money made. ROI is useful as well.

Before and after is another useful concept to use.

If you don’t explain or demonstrate what your product or service is about, don’t expect many sales.

If you need help with sales copy you have my details.

Take Care

Regards Mark

CONSULTING RECRUITMENT MARKETING SALES

MARK WHEATLEY associates provide business improvement services to help businesses and practices increase sales and profits. Services include Sales and Marketing Recruitment, Marketing Consulting, other Marketing Services, Sales Consulting and Performance Improvement. They are based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK.

A results driven approach to your business success

http://www.wheatleyassociates.org/ Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Reduce your working week

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:14:00 +0000

Do you want to reduce your working week?

Or do you want to simply want free up more time 'to work on the business.'

If you are time pressured at the moment, I want to give you one way of lifting some of the pressure that you might be under.

The only condition is, you have to be prepared to change something yourself to free up some time.

The trick is leverage; how do I leverage myself how can I automate, how can I get other people to do my work? People that might work for you that you employ or independent contractors that work for you.

Concentrate your efforts on where you add the most value, outsource or train other people to complete the tasks that are low value which are stopping you doing the work where you make the most profit or value added to your business or organisation.

Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Get More Comments On Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:16:00 +0000

I've been scratching my head on this one for a few weeks.

At the time of writing this post, I've had very few comments on my blog. I am not complaining, but sometimes its worth airing your problems, to explain what not to do, as well as what you might do.

So on the basis that someone is going to comment on this, here is one stupid observation and some ideas.

My stupid mistake was not having a visible comment box (idiot). Now I've fixed that I might stand half a chance!!

Here are some other ideas.

1. When someone makes a comment answer when you can

2. Ask for readers opinions and ideas

3. Offer something in return reciprocity

4. Every comment is a good comment, don't put people down

5. Thank people for their comments

6. Ask people for their examples of similar experiences

7. A bit of self-deprecation - like me pointing out, I made a basic error with the lack of a comment box

8. Have a rating system for your content (I am working on that one)

9. Regular interesting posts (Yes you can comment on that)

10.Moderate comments quickly

11. Ask for help

Tell you what................... why don't you add some of your own ideas to this list? Can you help me build a bigger list??

All comments welcome!!!

Take Care,

Regards

Mark

Do you have a referral system?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Apart from networking organisations that you may belong to like BNI? Do you have any other referral systems? Or do all your referrals come from word of mouth?

If you had four solid referral systems working in your business, what might happen to your sales? 10% -15% increases are easily possible.

Systems that allowed you to ask for referrals without feeling awkward that encouraged the giver of referrals to easily come up with them.

Sounds great doesn't it. There is however a problem why many companies and practices don't get any referral systems operating.

Its not that they are not bought into the subject, there are a few reasons why referral systems don't get developed or they simply fail.

Many of the reasons are found in my implementation posts that I wrote some time ago.

The word is 'system' many companies simply don't create them properly, they don't test it, they don't train their people and they give up too soon.

Let me give you something from some training I provide on networking strategically.

Almost every small to medium sized businesses that I come into contact with, attend lots of different networking events in search of referrals. Have you ever sat back and asked yourself questions like these?

What do I really want to achieve from attending these networking events?

How does it fit into my marketing strategy and business plan?

What am I going to do before during and after the event to achieve my goals?

Who should I try to talk with?

How can I get to speak to these people?

How much time have I got for this?

What pitfalls should I avoid?

How am I going to get people to deal with me?

How can they help me?

How can I help them? (To motivate them to help me).

What kind of follow up system do I need to build the relationship?

The purpose of asking these questions is to have a purpose to your networking, to develop a strategy that will tie into your overall business goals.

There are over 65 different referral strategies in our results driven marketing system.

Here are some things you can do; promotions cards, coupons certificates gifts or discounts, make referrals a condition of business.

Here's one I got from MTV and Virgin in Time Square. A simple coupon was presented to me in MTV offering a discount redeemable in the Virgin shop, how simple is that.

For my readers in the UK, in the East Midlands there is a training grant available which could be used to develop and implement two referral systems in your business. It maybe available in other areas as well, I would have to look into that.

For any of my overseas readers, happy to discuss creating referral systems for your business or practice as well. It can all be done via the telephone and the internet.

Take Care

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Add more value to your offer, don't get beaten up on price

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:48:00 +0000

If you are up against it on price, try to think of ways of making your product or service different.

Differentiation is relatively easy with services, but with products its more expensive. You can of course improve the services that surround a product to differentiate it. Examples could be; a longer warranty, faster service back up, a replacement product and so on.

This week one of my clients added two processes to their service offering that were not anymore expensive to deliver and they closed an order, 30% higher than their competitors, who were not offering the same level of service, provided by my client.

People will pay more if they can see the value.

When your offering is difficult to compare to your competition, your product/service will be less of a commodity, making price pressure easier to deal with.

Let me give you a practical example; years ago I owned a concrete company, now that's a commodity business! We were one of the the first companies to offer 2 metre capacity trucks. We did not charge surcharges for small loads like the bigger operators and our trucks could access areas where the big trucks could not go.

It was a nice little business that we sold to Tarmac in the late 1990's.

Within our Results Driven Marketing coaching system we have 31 different strategies to defend price.

The question to consider is; where can you be different?

Take Care

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Your Business Model

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:05:00 +0000

I was at a meeting today discussing a new business opportunity and discussed different aspects of the business model that was being proposed for a start up.

A key point was that two elements must exist for me to get involved.

In fact these two points are important to any would be business owner or existing one for that matter. Regular repeat sales and the ability to scale the business up easily.

A final point was that the business would need to be attractive to purchasers in the future. The objective being build it and sell it.

Do these points exist in your business model? If not what can you do about it?

A short post today check out tomorrows.

All comments welcome, what do you think are the important aspects of a business model?

Take Care

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Managing Your Sales Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:14:00 +0000

This post is relevant to anyone that uses the phone to follow up leads.

Unless you manage your activity, you won’t know how many calls you need to make a sale.

The cornerstone of face to face selling is making enough calls.

There was a brilliant book written in the 1930’s by Frank Bettger “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling” In it he wrote this;

“You can’t collect the commission until you make the sale,

You can’t make the sale until you write the order,

You can’t write the order, until you have an interview

You can’t have an interview until you make a call.”

Frank was making cold calls, there's nothing wrong with cold calling apart from many people don't like doing it. There are plenty of ways of generating leads without cold calling.

All of the lead generation that I advocate is direct response marketing. Where you are making an offer and asking for people to 'put their hand up' to show you they are interested. What that means is; they fill in the coupon, or go to the website, call the special number etc.

If people have given you their number and expressed an interest, you've got a legitimate reason to call, particularly if you have made it clear that someone will be calling them.

To achieve a certain level of volume in sales you need to create enough activity to hit your target. Kind of obvious that one, but why not take a look at yourself and ask yourself the question. Am I doing enough to hit my sales target?

Selling is a process which tends to follow a sequence, a typical sequence could be:

Sales Letter
Letter Follow Up Introduction Call
Presentation
Proposal
Order
Sale (The first invoice)

Consider your own sequence and determine how many letters, emails etc, are required to and to hit your annual target?’

Your answer will depend on the number of letters, emails, and follow up phone calls required to get an appointment and the number of appointments that turn into sales.

You could be getting plenty of appointments, but not enough sales. This would indicate that the improvement area is somewhere in the presentation and proposal stages.

The point is by monitoring your numbers, it tells you where you are successful and where you may need to improve an aspect of the process or your technique. Its the early warning system of a sales slump!

Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth Part 2.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:01:00 +0000

There has been quite a lot of interest in my original post, 'People The Biggest Barrier To Growth.'

The idea for that post came from a friend, who told me that he was employing people in his company, for the first time. Moving from 'one man band' to a man with people management responsibilities.

Which was when I remembered the research that I did, on what stopped SME's growing. People being the problem, that was singled out as the biggest barrier to growth.

Anyway my friend asked me, what was the best strategy in overcoming that problem?

This was my reply.

There is no one answer to that of course. In my experience it’s attracting and selecting the right candidates. For example, the selection process that I use on salespeople for clients, has a number of elements designed to sort out the 'wheat from the chaff.' That’s the starting point of getting it right.

Beyond that, it’s the right conditions, pay, commission, training, their role and responsibilities. being clear, along with performance expectations being set.

The quality of the product and service the company provides has to be right.

Good leadership and fair management, are essential. Creating an environment where there is a lack of office politics, which can destroy organisations is vital.

People being valued for their contribution, some kind of review process, to get two way feedback on progress.

There is more of course, but getting those right is a good start.

A good book on managing people is the one minute manager. I recommend it to all my clients that want to learn some practical methods of managing people. The big bonus of this book is that; the style its written in, makes it an enjoyable and easy read.

Day five of my 41 day blog challenge, all comments questions and observations welcome.

Take Care

Regards

Mark

P.S. Guest Blog writers welcome send me an email.

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

What is the link between Rudyard Kipling and Consultative Selling?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:41:00 +0000

Let me explain the link.

One of the aspects of consultative selling is uncovering the problems of the prospect, finding out what the real problems are.

Seeking to put a value on what the current position is for them clarifying what your solutions would mean to them if they invested in them, its a particularly useful approach when selling business to business.

The link is is from the poem 'I KEEP six honest serving men.'

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

What and Why and When and How and Where and Who are the consultants questions.

You will never be stuck in a sales situation when you use them.

Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

More On Sales Objections

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:59:00 +0000

There are a number of techniques that you can use to deal with sales objections.

Provided that a sales lead, is a qualified lead, its possible to sell to anyone. That assumes that you are selling something worth buying of course!

A qualified lead is a decision maker, who can afford what you are offering and can buy within a reasonable timescale.

It helps, if you think of objections as being unanswered questions.

There are several techniques you can use to handle them.

When I work with companies in the area of sales training, I ask them prior to the course to write down all their common objections. We work together at creating responses for them during the training.

There is however a different approach to having stock answers to objections.

That being pre-empting the objections.

The idea is to bring up the objections yourself in the sales conversation.

For example, if you were selling cars and the particular make, had a bad resale value because of a quality problem with a particular car, that had tainted the brand.

You might say; ''one of the problems you can have in the future with any car is a poor resale value, even when the sales price and the deal on your own car is favourable, you can loose money when you trade the car in.

To stop this happening we've got a contract purchase option that guarantees the price of your car, when you trade it in, say in three years time.''

This has dealt with the potential objection before it was raised.

Its also worth mentioning that it has been known for prospects to tell lies or just avoid the truth and don't even raise the real objection! They can give you a false objection or an excuse to leave, which is why raising them yourself, does help deal with these unanswered questions.

I could go on there are a number of other techniques that you can use.

I'm happy to deal with any comments on the subject.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you bring your presentations to life?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:27:00 +0000

Some people take laptop's to make presentations to the their prospects, personally I used printed pages from
a PowerPoint presentation.

There are a few reasons for doing this, the first being communication. A leading university concluded that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication.

By having photographs, samples, graphs etc. It helps support what you are saying verbally and improves communication. Which if I recall is defined as sending and receiving information.

In terms of believability it also helps when your visuals have independent information from reliable and reputable sources. The reason I use printed pages rather than a presentation on a laptop is; I can close the book and move on, if my prospect understands the point that I've made and they want to ask me some more questions.

If you don't use visuals, why not develop some and try them out, to see how they can help you support your sales presentation.

I would be interested in hearing about what you take to presentations, what works and what doesn't.

Take Care.

Regards

Mark

P.S. If you want to be a guest blog writer on this blog let me know.

A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success

Mark Wheatley associates is a business development company that specialise in low risk sales and marketing helping medium sized businesses and professional practices grow through coaching training and consulting services. Based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK. www.wheatleyassociates.org Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Does yours stand out? Image from Glastonbury

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:17:00 +0000

Anyone for tapas?

I took this photo at Glastonbury last month.

Its a very large flamenco dancer promoting the sale of tapas.

It certainly got my attention.

The question is; could you buy or make something a little wacky like this, that you could use? Something along similar lines to get your business to stand out?

It does not substitute for signage and clearly space is an issue, but for a retail or restaurant business with a little room outside, well its a possibility!

If you have seen anything similar send me your photo's and I'll put them on the blog giving you a mention of course.

All comments welcome.

Take Care

Regards Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:42:00 +0000

You could turn this statement around and say good people are a key catalyst of growth.

The statement comes from the research that I undertook when I did my MBA.

The dissertation was examining barriers to growth in small to medium sized companies and does the Internet Internationalise businesses faster. This was back in 1998 when the Internet was still 'young' so we all know the answer to the second part of the question now.

What I wasn't expecting though was the response to the wider question of what's stops small businesses growing. It wasn't cash flow or marketing it was people.

Every managing director more or less said the same thing; getting and keeping the right people was the biggest thing that was stopping them growing their businesses.

People that have the right attitude, skills and motivations these were their observations.

What are yours? What's stopping you I would be interested to hear your comments.

If you don't want to admit it publicly as a comment below send me an email and I will publish the results without revealing your identity in a future post.

So what's holding you back what's stopping you from growing at the rate of growth that you would like?

Take Care

Regards

Mark

P.S. I am still interested in more guest writers

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

The Human’s Guide to Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:09:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I asked for some guest blog writers, this is the first contribution. It’s a great post about the "The Human's Guide to Blogging" which gives you some great tips on writing effective articles, whatever your niche written by Gavin Whittaker.

More about Gavin is at the bottom of this first guest article.

Let’s get on with the Human’s Guide to Blogging.

Big eyes, green skin, from mars? - If you’re an alien then sorry this short article sharing some great secrets of blogging is not for you...

What? - you’re human?...great, you’ll get this then.

Us humans consider it a challenge to put pen to paper, or write online articles. Why? - because we simply try too hard.

Now Sssh...don’t tell anyone this as it’s a ‘trade secret’ but the trick is to just be yourself.

And here’s some great tips on composing your blog articles from scratch too:

A great headline – clear, succinct and if appropriate a play on words

250-350 words...don’t turn off your readers with essays. Chunk it down and live to blog another day

A mug shot – a picture says a thousand words. No Hawaiian shirts or grumpy faces however please

Bullet points – The human brain responds well to these

Tell the reader early on how they’ll benefit from this article – ideally within 8 seconds

Media –a video and a couple of pictures make it feature rich

Cross reference other information sources that add value and are related to your article

Don’t sell – social media is about liberty. People choose to follow you because you’re human, interesting and add value. Don’t spoil it with a sales pitch

A footer that follows every blog. Some common ground that reminds people who you are, what you do and what they need to do next - a call to action

Proof read, spell check and word count it! - don't damage your brand with silly little mistakes

And...be human. Tell people how you see the world and the situation...but do be sensitive to other people’s beliefs and values too.

Give your post some tags – buzzwords that help others find your article and boosts your presence on the search engines

Write an excerpt of your blog so at a glance visitors can get a summary of what you’re harping on about

Link your blog to your other social media sites so your message is spread far and wide

Metrics – what’s the purpose of your blog? - Ensure the call to action matches that and then put some financial and non-financial metrics alongside your posts

Why don’t you use these tips as your checklist for every blog you write? Print it off and check against it every time you’re about to post your blog up...it’ll help, promise!

About Gavin

Gavin Whittaker is an IT Author, Social Media Consultant and Trainer, and a Member of the Technology Channels Association.

Gavin runs a variety of training courses and workshops in and around Nottingham to boosts businesses effectiveness and profits from social media.

You can visit Gavin's blog - www.fastsecurepc.co.uk for some great PC performance and security tips - to keep you safe on the Internet.

Similarly, Gavin's first book 'Avoiding Fraud on the Web' can be downloaded FREE at www.avoidwebfraud.co.uk. This book highlights the 10 most common scams on the Internet and how to ensure you don't get caught out. His next book 'The Beginner's Guide to a Fast & Secure PC' will be available later this year.

Signing off

If you want to become a guest blogger on subjects relevant to this blog just contact me.

Take Care.

Positive Affirmations something an old boxer said

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Positive mental attitude and self belief mantra is a massive industry with solutions provided by Guru’s and would be Guru’s trying to sell their latest recordings, books, seminars and so forth.

Now clearly a positive mental attitude isn’t the solution to everything, but when you are leading a business, particularly a business that’s in difficulties, its far better to have one, to transmit your positive beliefs and mindset to your colleagues, rather than being a defeatist and being negative.

Having turned around businesses in the past myself, I believe that being positive and keeping your emotions under control are part of the ‘tool kit’ required to deal with difficult situations.

Positive affirmations, such as; ‘I always can find a solution to a problem,’ or when you are going into a meeting with the Bank for example; ‘I am prepared for this meeting they can ask me anything and I’ll be able to answer it.’ ‘I’m a bloody negotiator; I’m a great salesperson etc.’

These kinds of statements do help.

I often recalled a story which my Father told me that he would recount when facing difficult situations.

He used to say to me, ‘You cannot let it beat you Mark, if you believe you can get through it you will.’

He told me on a number of occasions about what his brother in law Bill had told him.

Bill was a boxer who was a prize fighter in the 1930’s who took people on who challenged him, as well as fighting other professional boxers.

‘Let me tell you what your uncle Bill told me, after a particularly bad fight, Bill asked another older and more experienced boxer, called McKinty a question.’ Bill said; ‘What do you do McKinty, when you are in trouble in a fight?’ McKinty's reply was; 'Well when you are faced with a situation of great adversity, what you need to do is, get your head down and box on.’

My Dad would then reiterate the point, ‘So you see Mark we’ve got to not let this beat us, lets get stuck in like McKinty, get your head down and box on.’

I was reminded by all of this the other day, when I came across a board minute when I was clearing out some old papers. If was fifteen years ago when I put forward a plan to turn a group around, it certainly helped being positive.

Signing off for now, if you have any of your own story’s about being positive or positive affirmations, let me know and we can feature them on this blog.

I’m looking for guest writers.

Repurchase Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:52:00 +0000

A repurchase system is a hidden marketing asset. (See my earlier posts which explain more about hidden marketing assets).

Your customers or clients should benefit when they purchase your product or service when it’s needed.

You might think that's an obvious statement, but do your customers or clients purchase at the optimum time?

Do you have repurchase systems in place?

For example, it might be better for you to get your hair cut every four weeks not every six weeks.

So the optimal time is four weeks not six, to avoid those bad hair days!

What does that mean if you own a hairdressers business or hair salon owner, if your from the USA?

Lets say the price is £10 for a cut for man. If someone purchases every six weeks that's it works out at 8.66 haircuts a year, well we don't have a .66 of a haircut, so lets say its 8 haircuts a year.

For at least two weeks out of this six week cycle, your hair might look slightly untidy.

Its £80 sales revenue per customer, per year without any extras.

Now if the hairdresser pre-booked the appointment and managed to get their customers to have their haircut every four weeks, that would generate 13 haircuts a year or £130 per customer in revenue an additional £50 per customer on the six week repurchase cycle or 62.5% more.

Just by changing the repurchase pattern, you can achieve a significant increase in sales.

In our Results Driven Marketing coaching program we have around 23 different proven marketing strategies like this one, to increase sales and profits. Creating better repurchase systems is one of the approaches we can use.

The program is available internationally coaching takes place via the telephone or video.

If you implement the ideas and strategies that we create for you, your return is guaranteed.

Significant levels of growth is possible with the system.

Why not email me to find out more.

Hidden Unique Selling Proposition

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:29:00 +0000

I went to see a new prospect today, a really nice chap with an interesting business.

Without giving away who he is; its an online business which helps other business owners manage their people.

He has advantages in his services that are superior to the major competitors.

When I asked him what are his concerns about his marketing he complained that 'people don't understand our service.'

Well prior to the meeting I reviewed his website and considered the notes from my first phone call with him. During the meeting he told me about other features and benefits, about how his system worked and guess what?

What do you think it said on his website and in his sales copy about the advantages of dealing with him?

Not a lot , he really wasn't telling anyone about his unique selling points or the extra value he was providing or about why people should do business with him as apposed to his competitors. So no wonder people didn't understand his service.

A Hidden USP

If your business isn't communicating about 'what's in it for me,' from your prospective customers point of view, why should they care why should they buy from you?

Anyway here is the ad. If you need a new USP creating to convert more sales, just email me and I will explain how I work etc. It does not matter where in the world you are, this service can be handled via the web.

Take Care

Regards

Mark

P.S. If what you do is good TELL PEOPLE.!!!!

A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success

Mark Wheatley associates is a business development company that helps companies and professional firms grow providing low cost business growth strategies and sales techniques through coaching training and consulting services www.wheatleyassociates.org

Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

The Sun Asda and Tesco

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:26:00 +0000

I was doing the weekly shop the other week and the cashier said to me 'would you like a Sun to read, its free,' I was about to say no and then she said 'you can have £5 off your shopping bill,'

Well money for nothing and the Sun for free that's almost a song. Anyway it was a deal based on an irresistible offer. Why wouldn't I want £5 off for no effort on my part, even if I don't like reading the Sun, who's headline was all about the none football activities of our England football captain that was.

When I said okay to the cashier, she opened the Sun and she tore out the coupon that was in a full page ad that Asda was running.

It was interesting to see how Tesco reacted to the competitive threat and a reminder that coupons are a direct response tool to bring new customers or clients into your business.

You don't however have to spend money on full page ads in national newspapers to take advantage of this lead generation mechanism. There are online and offline methods which are both low cost and very effective.

If you want to know which work best or tell other people your experiences with coupons please leave a comment.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

No Posts Last Month

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:24:00 +0000

Greetings all blog readers!

I did not make a post last month because I was very busy helping my brother sell one of our businesses.

In terms of what's going on at the moment I am currently working on a new business development course which will be supported by coaching.

This will be launched in April of this year. Its taking the Michael Gerber principle a bit further, 'working on the business not in the business.'

The objective is to grow a business incrementally by between 2-5% per month, addressing seven results divers. The course only requires an hour a week of the business owners time and I am throwing in some time management principles that will help you create additional time, if you are time pressured.

You can in fact sign up to the time management report on the blog and that will explain some of the concepts. Since I've not been attentive to my readers if you sign up to time management report I'll send you something else that you will find useful.

That's all for now.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Sales and Marketing Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Here are a few questions to simulate your strategic thinking for the New Year.

If you are getting too many no’s or don’t knows, just leave a comment and I’ll do my best to reply.

1. What sets your business apart from the competition, why should they choose you instead of your competitors?

2. Have you got five or more lead generation strategies to generate sufficient leads to achieve your budget for 2010? (Excluding referrals).

3. Do you close above 50% of your prospects? (A prospect is defined as someone that has shown an interest in your products and services).

4. Have you got three or four referral systems that are being consistently worked by the appropriate people in your organisation? (Word of mouth does not count).

5. Are you spending sufficient time in managing and developing your sales and marketing activities?

6. Are you attempting to increase the size of every sale with every new and existing customer/client?

7. Do you have a cheaper alternative when people cannot afford to buy from you?

8. Are repeat sales built into your sales model?

9. Do you know how long an average customer/client stays with you in years?

10. When you have lost a customer/client do you know why?

11. Do you continually communicate and educate your customer/clients in terms of the benefits and applications of your products/services?

12. Do you have a very strong initial offer to start a relationship?

13. Have everyone that 'sells' been trained in consultative sales?

14. Have you done anything before that’s worked in sales and marketing, but you no longer do it? (If yes start doing it again).

15. Do your sales people have script books that enable you to ensure that your sales expertise doesn't ‘walk out the door’ if your best salespeople leave?

16. Is it really easy to buy from you or could you make it even easier?

17. Do you use joint ventures to obtain more customers or sell more products and services?

18. Is your website generating sufficient leads in relation to your investment in it?

19. Do you take advantage of your existing relationships? (For example has your solicitor, accountant or banker helped you beyond just providing a service?)

20. Is the time that you are investing in social media and the internet producing a return?

Let me know what you think to the questions or if you have any issues.

These questions are from our strategic business audit document.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Get More Done In 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:42:00 +0000

Just a quick post to suggest that its worth completing the form 'How To Remain Focused The Secret To Time Management.' It only four pages so it won't take a lot of time reading it!

Regards

Mark

Sell it again Alice

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Wheatley) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:32:00 +0000

Last Friday I had a nostalgic trip down memory lane and enjoyed seeing Alice Cooper in his 'Theatre of Death' tour in Nottingham.

It was the third time I've seen him and he keeps on coming up with new ways to 'act' out his death!

Hanging, guillotine, a box full of spikes and a large syringe administered by his nurse the 'killer. Tiffany Lowe, after the song poison.

Its all harmless fun, it was a real laugh hanging out with lots of people with strange makeup and black Alice wigs. They weren't all middle aged + but it wasn't a family show either!

Anyway back to my normal subject of marketing. Prior to the gig there was a bloke with a drum handing out leaflets promoting the recording of the gig.

This was on a memory stick, which enabled the punters to take away half he concert. The other half was available via a download later on plus some other goodies.

As you can see I was one who decided to part with more money.

So Alice sold the gig twice, not to everyone of course, but that's the opportunity for you and many people in different walks of life. The opportunity to record to reproduce your knowledge, your skills digitally, then to sell it again.

So the question that's worth asking is. What do you know or what skills do you have that are worth something to someone else?

What are your skills and knowledge, which can be reproduced and sold many times over?

That's real leverage.

He's another idea even if you don't want to sell it; you can still help other people by sharing your knowledge.

Food for thought for the New Year.

All comments welcome have a great Christmas and all the best for 2010.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved