In essence affliliate marketing is a lot like an auction. Different good and services are featured on your web pages in return, you will take a percentage from every sale or lead. There’s much less work, very low overheads, it sells 24/7, and even better, it is relatively simple to learn. To get started, you have to decide exactly which niche market you’d like to specialize in. A great way to do this is, identify solutions to issues a specific group of net users are looking for, and what solutions are on offer to help them. One of the better ways to determine this is looking for groups of narrow keywords; there are less searchers for these in general, all the same they convert far more into sales.
These profitable keywords can be rooted out by using Micro Niche Finder or or a a similar application. Data compiled from Micro Niche Finder or analogous applications or services creates a listing of associated terminology allowing you to earn top listing on internet searches. Micro Niche Finder will in addition tell you detailed information on the words or phrases, the number of other sites using the particular word or phrase, even competitor details. Ultimately, Micro Niche Finder information can help determine suitable domains, help you put together your internet site, and also draw your attention to the best sales opportunities.
Now it’s time to build a website; but it will require a bit more than simply that. Search engine optimization is an absolute must. Products like SEO Elite can make this less problematic. Your competitors’ websites are analyzed by the program which then provides suggestions on how to better search engine performance.
With software such as SEO Elite, data produced from the software package suggests where you might find pertinent links, the most profitable keywords, and even a list of article submission web sites to use. In summary, the data obtained are the same sort of data that an SEO professional might give.
Once you have determined which target market you’d like to sell in, design your product advertisements, and your web site has been put together, then all you need to do is significantly explode your search results. You’ll collect regular payments and you’ll question why you ever worried about making money!
Sep 24 2009 03:44 pm |
Commerce Opps and
Marketing Portal and
Sales Techniques |
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To begin understanding sales competency, you have to begin with the ultimate assumptions about professional selling. Can we all agree that professional selling is ultimately:
1 - Grounded to a buyer(s) behavior and decision process?
2 - Focused on helping a transaction occur?
3 - Bound by an ethical responsibility to do “what is right”?
If we can all agree on these things from all sides of the table we can begin to dissect the sales profession step by step using the system’s approach. If the buyer, marketing, purchasing, and even HR professionals can agree to this, then we can begin to arrive at a common definition of “sales competency.” Obviously, this is a long way away. Though I have worked on the definition of “what” professional selling competency is for six years, I still have work to do toframe it up all the way.
Sales competency is ultimately defined as a salesperson’s knowledge, skill, abilities, and values. All four components must be in alignment to the customer in order for a sales professional to become competent. Because competence is defined as knowledge, skill, abilities, and values, sales professionals have a difficult job ahead of them if they wish to become better. Becoming better is not easy and most sales organizations do not provide adequate training to cover the breadth of competency - because it has never really been defined before.
Effective sales professionals are continuously learning and they have developed a framework and process for accessing their knowledge. They have a solid “knowledge foundation” and they understand their strengths and weaknesses. Because skill is determined by the knowledge a salesperson has gained plus their experience level, salespeople do get better over time. But it takes too long in almost everyone’s opinion. Sales Management wishes that sales people would “ramp up” quicker. Sales people wish they could sell more, faster. The buyer wishes that all salespeople were “competent” and reliable.
Some of the most skilled sales professionals have stayed in one vertical market or industry for a longer period of time. They have also stayed in the same sales role for a longer length of time (such as outside sales). Why? They have followed a defined career path with increasing levels of responsibility and complexity of sale and they have been able to gain effectiveness, efficiency, and competency.
Ironically, a “truly” competent salesperson would have the ability to move into any organization and gain the trust of the buying decision-makers. They would be able to create a situation where buying can occur within an ethical environment at a fair price no matter who they worked for. They would have the knowledge to speak to a CEO, the front-line manager, or the newest employee about what issues and challenges they face almost immediately - no matter what vertical market they served.
They way to get there is to strive and push to increase your knowledge, skill, and ability so you can be the best at what you do.
To accomplish this, you need a framework. Since 1999, I have been personally interviewing hundreds of salespeople and I have been a “bag carrying/quota carrying salesperson. I have also been vigorously studying the sales professional as part of Ph.D. research. My dissertation and final Ph.D. publication will be on the area of individual selling competency. The remaining part of this book offers you an important framework that many salespeople have leveraged to succeed, gain more confidence, and attain their greatest accomplishments in selling.
The Components of Salesperson Competency
For anyone in any profession, they usually seek to become better. To do this, they must first start with an objective analysis of where they currently are and where they want to be. They must objectively analyze their performance against existing benchmarks from their organization or from their professional trade association. They must understand what their current performance “situation” is and where they need to be. They need to understand who their performance is impacting.
For professional salespeople, they must objectively ascertain:
- What results are currently being achieved?
- What results are desired of me?
- ow large is the gap between my current situation and the expectations?
- What is that impact of that gap? To myself, to my employer, to others?
The goal for you, then (as an individual sales professional) is to understand what you can control and improve upon in order to close the performance gap.
If there is a gap in performance, the goal then is to clearly understand why that gap exists. Perhaps you don’t have the right information or support. Perhaps you don’t have the time or ability to perform all the work that needs to be done. Maybe the rewards in place are not giving you the proper incentives. These are “external” causes of the performance gap that you may not be able to control (and are usually the purview of your management team).
Usually, a gap in performance that you can control stems from the absence of the right activities, beliefs, or competencies that will lead to the desired level of performance.
- Activities are visible outputs that you create as a salesperson. These outputs can take the form of something communicated, something thought, or something created.
- Beliefs are internal thought patterns that lead you to accept something as “true”, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons (i.e. that all salespeople are bad people, etc)
- Competencies are comprised of your knowledge, your ability, and your skill
- Knowledge is acquisition of the right information necessary to perform.
- Abilities are defined as the quality of being able to do something, either physically or mentally (like drive a car).
- A skill is the proficiency, facility, or dexterity acquired or developed through training or experience (like driving a car very well).
Once you have defined why a certain gap exists and defined specifically, what you can control within that gap, you must understand what you can do about it. You should objectively and appropriately define specific ways to close your performance gap by addressing the root cause (activity, belief, or competency). To accomplish this, you may choose to read, attend training, interview others, listed to something, etc, etc. You may choose to accomplish this on your own or with others.
The key is to identify what you need to improve and learn it in the most appropriate manner for you. What this doesn’t mean is reading a book on sales methodology and “swallowing it whole.” Most salespeople do not do this anyway. If a salesperson gets one or two “nuggets” of information from out-of-the-box sales training it’s considered good. To become an expert salesperson, you have to develop expertise in selling. You must be able to think effectively about problems that come up within professional selling. Understanding expertise is important because it provides insights into the nature of thinking and problem solving. Research shows that it is not simply general abilities, such as memory or intelligence, nor the use of general strategies that differentiate experts from novices. Instead, experts have acquired extensive knowledge that affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment. This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems.
With this accomplished, it’s time to implement the new activity, belief, or competency. This is easier said than done. Because the choice you have made is most likely accomplished in a “vacuum”, you probably haven’t discussed why you chose to change a certain aspect, or you haven’t been able to ground your thought process to anything solid. By that I mean, if you don’t have something to serve as a checklist, framework, or scorecard, it’s hard to stay focused on implementing your new behavior. This is different than just “staying motivated’. I am specifically talking about the need to implement a lasting change. To do that, you need to make changes in a planned and managed fashion. The aim of this process should be to more effectively implement new activities, beliefs, and competencies. The changes to be managed lie within and are controlled by YOU. You must have a plan, work the plan, and measure your progress. This process is not unlike the change or “version control” aspect of information system development projects. This process starts with understanding the end result, assessing where you currently are and incrementally making the appropriate change until the desired result is accomplished.
Unfortunately, this is a “new way of thinking” for most salespeople. Why? Because to do this effectively, you have to understand “WHAT” professional selling is - this is very different than “doing professional selling.” If you try to engineer a change on the latter, you quickly end up in the area of subjective “here’s what I think we should do” thinking. This is often counter-productive and not uniquely tailored to your specific needs. The best way to get where you need to go is - do this yourself. Sure, you can ask others for input, but use the other articles I have written as a guide. They are built on “WHAT” professional selling is.
Brian is the Chairman and Founder of the the United Professional Sales Association (UPSA). UPSA is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington DC that has addressed the concerns and challenges of individual sales professionals. Brian has authored the world’s first universal selling standards and open-source selling framework for free distribution. This ‘Compendium of Professional Selling’ containing the commonly accepted and universally functional knowledge that all sales professionals possess. The open-source selling standards have been downloaded in 16 countries by over 300 people. Over 30 people have made contributions.
Because UPSA is not owned by one person or any company, it is a member organization and guardian of the global standard of entry into the sales profession.
Find out about the membership organization and understand the processes and framework of professional selling at the UPSA Website at http://www.upsa-intl.org
Find out more about Brian at: http://www.brianlambert.biz
Apr 27 2008 03:23 pm |
Sales Techniques |
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Do you want to boost your selling power? Then, add power to your
persuasion.
But how can you add power to your persuasion? How can you become
more effective at persuading your customers to buy?
Let’s look at the way the skilled professionals put power into
their ability to persuade.
Let me share with you ten secrets I’ve learned from some of the
most persuasive salespeople in America — ten ways to add power
to your persuasion. I call them the 10 P’s of persuasion.
(1) Be positive.
One of the most successful insurance salesmen in America is a
country fellow from South Georgia, who says, “You can no more
sell something you don’t believe in, than you can come back from
some place you ain’t been.”
Successful salespeople are positive people.
They have positive mental attitudes about themselves, the
companies they represent, the products or services they’re
selling, the prospects they’re attempting to persuade, the
country they live in. They’re positive about everything.
Enthusiasm is contagious. When you’re excited about life and the
work you’re doing, you can persuade with power, because you can
get other people excited.
(2) Prospect.
Successful salespeople have learned to direct their persuasive
power toward people who have the resources to buy and have good
reasons to buy what they are selling.
Professional salespeople pinpoint prospects who are likely to
provide long-term profitability. They analyze the possibilities
for cross-selling. They know that it takes an average of three
calls to cross-sell an existing customer but seven to sell to a
new customer.
In short, the powerful persuader targets all efforts at the
person who has the resources, the motivation, and the authority
to buy, and the potential for profitable repeat sales.
(3) Prepare.
Red Motley, who started Parade magazine, said that the average
salesperson will work like crazy to get an appointment, then
blow the opportunity with a poor presentation after the
decision-maker has agreed to the interview.
You don’t make sales to busy people by rambling on for 40
minutes about features and benefits. Usually, after such
disjointed presentations, neither the salesperson nor the
prospect can summarize what’s just been said.
Professional salespeople always do their homework. They know
that the better they’re prepared, the more persuasive they’ll be
when they walk in to make a presentation.
They research to find out everything they need to know about the
prospect. They plan what they will show and what they will say.
And they practice, practice, practice.
(4) Perform.
Amateur salespeople complain furiously when they are beaten out
by a competitor. How could that customer buy that overpriced,
poor-quality product? He must be an idiot!
The customer was no idiot. The complainer was just outperformed
by a more competitive salesperson.
Remember: People don’t buy; they’re sold. In fact, nothing is
ever bought. Everything has to be sold. If you don’t make a
strong presentation, you can’t persuade your prospect to buy.
Powerful persuaders are like stage actors playing to a full
house. They are artists at making their presentations. They’re
entertaining and informative to watch and hear.
To succeed in business, you have to make every second of every
minute of your “action time” count.
(5) Be perceptive.
Powerful persuaders are alert to everything that happens during
a sales interview.
They are not preoccupied with personal problems, with airline
schedules, or even with the next call they are going to make.
They know that reaching a sales goal always begins with making
the sale at hand.
Powerful persuaders tune into their prospects and look for the
motivating forces in the life of each. Once they discover that
motivating force, they play to the motivation.
To add power to your persuasion, learn to read your prospects
and to discover the motivations they have to buy or not to buy.
(6) Probe.
Average salespeople do a lot of talking. They can give you a
30-minute speech on any subject you want to name.
That’s why silence is so threatening to most salespeople. The
instant a prospect pauses to take a breath, the amateur will
jump in with a sales spiel, just to break the silence.
But powerful persuaders use questions to diagnose the needs and
concerns of a prospect much as a skilled physician uses them to
diagnose the problems of a patient.
They become masters at asking penetrating questions, and they
use those questions to draw prospects into the selling process.
(7) Personalize.
The most powerful word in selling is you.
The emphasis on you marks the difference between manipulative
and non-manipulative selling.
Manipulative selling is self-centered. It focuses on what the
salesperson wants and needs.
Non-manipulative selling is client-centered. It focuses on the
needs and desires of the prospect.
A person who is looking at the business proposition you are
offering wants to know just one thing: what’s in it for me?
If you want to add power to your persuasion, personalize every
part of your presentation to meet your prospect’s own personal
needs and wants.
(8) Please.
Powerful persuaders seek to close sales by pleasing their
clients. When prospects become excited about the idea of owning
what you’re selling, they become customers.
Professional salespeople know that they can’t force their
prospects to buy. Their challenge is to make them want to buy.
So they seek to please them in so many ways that they create the
desire to buy.
(9) Prove.
Salespeople with selling savvy don’t make statements they can’t
back up with facts.
And they don’t expect their clients to accept at face value
everything they say. They are always prepared to prove every
claim they make — to back up those claims with hard data, with
test results, and with performance records.
One of the best ways to persuade by proving is to give proof
statements from people who are happy with your products or
services. Third-party endorsements go a long way in building
credibility for your claims, and for your products.
Facts and testimonials are very persuasive. Learn to use them,
and become a powerful persuader.
(10) Persist.
Call on good prospects as many times as it takes to sell them.
About 80% of sales are made on the fifth call or later. Yet
studies have shown that:
50% of America’s salespeople call on a prospect one time, and
quit.
18% call on a prospect twice, and give up. 7% call three
times, and call it quits. 5% call on a prospect four times
before quitting. Only 20% call on a prospect five or more
times before they quit.
It’s that 20% who close 80% of the sales in America.
You don’t have to become a dynamic personality to sell. You
don’t have to put pressure on people, or out-talk people to
sell.
The most effective thing you can do is to apply your own selling
savvy to these ten ways to add strength to your presentation.
To master the art of persuasion — and selling — you must also
learn to recognize and work with different personality types.
There are eight different types of personalities:
(1) The Balkers. These people are indecisive. They can’t make up
their minds. It takes a lot of patience to deal with them.
Sooner or later, you have to force the issue by asking, “What
would keep you from signing the agreement letter today?”
(2) The Talkers. You can control the talkers by asking questions
to keep pulling them back on track. Use simple questions they
can answer “yes” or “no.”
(3) The Clams. Keep drawing them into the conversation with
questions to make them talk. Ask for advice, or for their
opinions.
(4) The Skeptics. With the cynics, use a lot of raw data. Pour
on the proof statements and documentation. Keep getting
agreements as you go along.
(5) The Sarcastic Souls. Sometimes they’re hard to take, but
keep your cool. Find out what’s behind their sarcastic remarks.
Laugh at their sarcasm all the way to the bank.
(6) The Egotists. Resist the temptation to tell them off. Feed
their egos by asking their opinions and giving them compliments.
Win them over by giving in on all minor issues.
(7) The Bullies. They get their way by acting tough. Be nice,
but stand your ground. Don’t run, don’t fight — just stand.
(8) The Timid Ones. Take it nice and slow, don’t rush them.
Concentrate on building their confidence.
You have to deal with different types of people in selling your
products and services. The better you become at discovering and
dealing with each of the different personality types, the more
successful you can be.
Remember, clients always do things for their own reasons — not
for yours or mine. You’re thinking: I wish this prospect would
go ahead and make a decision…I need this agreement…Besides,
I’ve got another appointment!
But the client keeps thinking: Why should I spend this much
money? Is this the best investment I can make right now? What’s
the big rush? If you want to move an evasive client to action,
you have to give that client a strong benefit for acting
promptly.
And, here’s where you can usually separate the amateurs from the
real pros. The amateurs start thinking about discounts — “I’ll
give you 10% off if you’ll go ahead and sign the agreement
today!”
But that’s not visionary salesmanship, not the high level
strategy that works effectively with people who are buying your
professional skills. In fact, it often creates precisely the
opposite effect from what you want. The client starts thinking:
“Maybe this person is not such an expert, after all! He or she
must not have much business! Maybe I’d better take a closer look
at this whole thing!”
Real professionals take the opposite approach. They focus on the
client’s key benefit for buying immediately. For instance, if
the client’s problem is costing X number of dollars a month, the
real expert will talk about how much it would cost the client to
delay solving it for thirty days.
Or, if the client is on a tight schedule for delivery, they
might say something like this: “Mr. Smith, if we can go ahead
and finalize our agreement today, I can guarantee delivery on
schedule. But I’m not sure I could promise a definite delivery
date if we wait until next week.”
It’s called “hot button” selling, and it works like this. You
find the client’s primary motivation for buying, and zero in on
that motivation. You keep asking questions until you find the
prospect’s strongest reason for acting promptly, then you
reinforce the client’s own reason.
One of the simplest and most powerful formulas for success I’ve
ever discovered came from Frank Bettger, a man Dale Carnegie
called the best salesman he ever met. Frank Bettger said, “Show
people what they want most, and they will move heaven and earth
to get it.”
So, I always figure that, if people are not willing to do
whatever it takes to get moving, I have not yet discovered and
shown them what they want most. When you have done that, you
don’t have to worry about pinning down evasive clients. They’ll
pin themselves down.
Learn how to persuade more effectively and you will boost your
selling power.
Apr 04 2008 10:34 am |
Sales Techniques |
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