Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) can be one of the smartest business moves you will ever make. A good VA will be able to assist you in handling your administrative workload, allowing you more time to focus on growing your business and generating revenue. Here are just ten of many ways that a Virtual Assistant can provide much-needed support to your small business:

1. General Administrative Support
If you ever wished you had an administrative assistant on call, a Virtual Assistant may be the perfect solution for you! VAs can provide general administrative services such as word processing, data entry, spreadsheet and database maintenance, desktop publishing- the list goes on and on. In fact, if you could give it to an administrative assistant, you can give it to a Virtual Assistant!

2. Invoicing
A Virtual Assistant can facilitate your invoicing, ensuring that your clients receive timely, accurate invoices. By partnering with a VA to prepare your invoices, you can gain a tremendous amount of time each month to focus on other aspects of your business that require your specialized attention.

3. Email and Voicemail Management
If you get large numbers of emails or voicemails, a Virtual Assistant can manage your inboxes. They can sort through the spam and reply to messages that don’t require your attention, leaving you with fewer messages to wade through everyday. A VA can also provide you with a consolidated report of voicemail messages, allowing you to return a number of important phone calls from a single report.

4. Online Marketing Management
A Virtual Assistant can assist you with your online marketing plan. They can manage your pay-per-click campaigns, post articles, submit your website to search engines, add your website to online directories, create banner ads, prepare and send email newsletters, etc. Since VAs make their livings online, many of them keep abreast of the latest trends in online marketing.

5. Customer Response
Use a Virtual Assistant’s services to keep existing and potential customers happy and returning. A VA can effectively and efficiently handle customer questions and complaints in an appropriate manner. By providing your customers with a timely, helpful response, a VA can help you build a stronger relationship with your customers.

6. Event Planning
Nothing is better than a well-planned event. Enlisting the help of a Virtual Assistant in coordinating your seminars and company functions can take a tremendous amount of burden off your shoulders, allowing for stress-free coordination of your events. They can make arrangements for the location, speakers, catering, photography, etc- and notify the attendees, too.

7. Travel Arrangements
Whether your business requires you to travel extensively or occasionally, a Virtual Assistant can help coordinate and consolidate your travel plans. A VA can arrange your transportation, accommodations, in accordance with the meetings and events you will be attending. They can compile a detailed itinerary for your trip, ensuring that your travels are well-planned and hassle-free.

8. Internet Research
A Virtual Assistant can efficiently perform internet research, consolidating the information you seek and saving you both time and money. A VA can use their extensive research skills to your benefit, providing you with incredible value by investigating requested topics and providing the results in the desired format.

9. Calendar Management
Managing a busy schedule effectively doesn’t happen by chance. Team with a Virtual Assistant to help you stay atop of important dates, appointments, contacts and events. They can help you stay organized and prepared each day, with minimal effort on your part, reminding you of obligations and events ahead of time.

10. Project Management
Large and small projects alike can be managed by a Virtual Assistant. A VA can keep your project on track by organizing and coordinating resources, objectives, deliverables, etc. They can relieve the everyday stress of project management while ensuring that deadlines are met and progress continues.

A Virtual Assistant can provide you with customized support solutions for your small business. By teaming with a Virtual Assistant, the unique needs of your business can be accommodated while reducing your workload and providing you more time to grow your business and achieve your financial and personal goals.

Business spending on coaching will exceed $1 billion this year. Although once considered a perk reserved exclusively for senior executives at multinational corporations, today coaches are just as likely to be found at entrepreneurial start-ups and small businesses. Still, confusion exists about exactly what coaching is and the kinds of results it delivers.

I’ll argue that enhancing self-awareness is the most important benefit of coaching, because without it things don’t change. Finding out how one is perceived by others can be eye-opening. An individual may have strengths that are not being used to his or her best advantage or weaknesses that turn out to be strong points that are over-used or applied in the wrong situations. Sometimes people assume that others are perceiving things, processing information, and learning in the same way that they do. Or, behaviors may be driven by mistaken rationales or beliefs.

Coaches assist people in developing skills in areas like organization, time management, leadership and strategic development. They also challenge the personal assumptions and beliefs that can result in clients doing of more of what’s not working, or overlooking painfully obvious solutions to problems.

Among the beliefs that I’ve encountered in my coaching practice are, “No one can do the job as well as I can” (therefore I must do everything myself); “I can’t afford good people” (so I must settle for mediocre performance); “If I ignore the situation, it might fix itself” (so I won’t confront the issue); and “I am 100% responsible for everything that people in my department do” (which means that I must review everyone’s work).

Leadership is a particular concern for the small business owner or entrepreneur. It can be quite difficult to go from being the “content expert” (the one who creates the product or service) to the “person in charge of the company.” Coaching can be invaluable for helping these executives develop and communicate a strategic plan, clarify their role as president or CEO, delegate authority to others, and focus attention on a long-term vision.

A company’s stage in the business life cycle also informs the coaching process. Executives in early-stage companies, for instance, need help managing the myriad of details involved in selecting the appropriate business structure, locating professional service providers, deciding between hiring versus outsourcing, developing marketing and sales strategies, and getting orders in the door.

Managing a growing enterprise can carry with it as much or even more stress than the initial start-up. Common issues involve revising a strategy or business plan, hiring the right talent, developing more sophisticated operating systems, evaluating competitive threats, growing at the right pace, and for many business owners, the need to delegate day-to-day tasks to other people.

In established companies, executives grapple with changing customer needs, encouraging innovation, and finding ways to increase productivity and efficiency. Sometimes there is expansion into new markets, or major new product offerings as a means of capturing additional share. Here the needs may be for methodologies to evaluate opportunities, the hiring of more experienced managers, a new management structure, or deciding on major investments in new technology or machinery.

Finally, the company may be in the throws of major change, such as a sale, merger or acquisition. In cases like these, where the quality of leadership, management, and especially communication plays such a huge role in the transaction’s success, a coach can assist the management team in working through the business, psychological, and emotional issues inherent in these kinds of events.

When I carried a bag, sales territories were defined geographically. Of course, that was in the old days. My daughter calls it the days of Black & White Television. In reality, color television came out when I was still a baby. But in the days when I was a field sales rep, the 70’s & 80’s, a sales person got a chunk of geography and you were told “this is your patch of dirt. You go out and you farm the territory and you build the business”. However, for the most part, if you are going to grow your territory it has to grow by taking market share from the competition. Territories today need to go from being geographically defined to being key account assignment defined. In other words, when you use the term, ‘territory’ today, you shouldn’t be referring to a patch of dirt. You should be referring to a group of assigned accounts. Ask yourself the question --- “How many accounts can one sales person effectively call on?”

Territory Planning

Normally, territory planning as a sales person involves looking at prior sales to accounts. It’s strictly historical data and that’s not good enough. Sales people must reach another level of granularity in terms of buying influences and the total number of potential customers in your market . There should be a complete database. Just imagine a circle which encompasses ALL consumers of product in your market; that’s the distributor served available market. (SAM) Some of those customers buy from you and some don’t. Your computer database shouldn’t consist of just your customers. It should consist of ALL customers and there’s a level of granularity beneath it, in terms of where the “buy” influences are at each account. In other words, there’s a lot of things that are different based on the type of accounts and the mix of products used. As you collect data, creating customer profiles by buying influence and real potential, clarity starts to emerge based on that potential, then you relate those accounts back to the total territory potential. This is the beginning of determining territory design and account assignment.

Territory design is fundamentally a time management problem. For you to really get a grip on how to design territories, remember you may be looking at hundreds of account, you need the right answers on gross profit potential, product mix, vendor support, pricing, inventory management, market size and market share growth potential. Again---Ask yourself the question --- “How many accounts can one sales person effectively call on?”

Here’s what should happen….there should be a balance in every field sales guy’s territory between account maintenance, account development, and prospecting. Now let’s define the differences. Account maintenance is a relationship with accounts that you are already getting a maximum share of their spend. You are just servicing the customer; keeping the customer happy. Development growth accounts are those accounts that you are doing a fair amount of business with but you aren’t getting a maximum share of their spend. These are your targeted penetration accounts. This is where the majority of your growth is going to come from.

Prospecting is essentially trying to find an opportunity where you have no volume and it may or may not have potential so there’s a constant churning. What you’re trying to do with prospecting is look at the movement and buying influences in your market. You may be in an industry that requires a lot of prospecting or you may be in an industry that requires a lot less but every sales person has to do some level of prospecting. That does not mean the field sales people go out making a bunch of cold calls and use up 20-30 or 40% of their time. Typically leads get qualified by inside sales first, appointments can even be set up and field sales people go out to determine potential and begin building a relationship. That’s what the prospecting is. Who are the people that I need to reach to maintain a control of this account? Prospecting is about looking for opportunities with new accounts that have the potential to provide a significant increase in sales in the next 90 days.

Change is powerful – many sales people have very little flexibility in their mindset and they think they’re doing a really great job by always having the same call frequency. The key objective is to allocate time to opportunities for increase instead of existing volume.

Territory Analysis

Sales management must analyze territories with their sales people and determine if the company is getting maximum coverage based on the market potential. Forget the concept of each territory being a patch of dirt and the sales person assigned that territory as being the owner of every account that resides within it. That’s old school thinking. If you want to maximize your sales effectiveness and increase market share, think coverage. I’ll say it for the third time, how many accounts can one sales person effectively call on and still function as a demand creator instead of a demand fulfiller. Perhaps you have territories where the potential for growth is so high it would warrant adding a junior sales person based on account assignment that can develop and nurture additional business within that geographic footprint and actually create new self sufficient territories that produce market share growth.

Think about it. No sales person ever wants to give up accounts or territory. This is true even in cases where they don’t even know all the accounts. After all, one or two of these accounts might buy something by accident and they want the credit. It always amazes me when I ask distributor sales people how many accounts they handle and the answer is 100 or 150 or even more. Realistically, they will even tell you that they can’t possibly call on all of them. Just as realistically many of them don’t warrant a face to face personal call. However, that does not mean we should ignore them. Big accounts were once small and chances are there are some of those accounts that really have great potential and they are not being called on.

As sales management, do your homework, figure out the real potential of those accounts. If there are 100 plus accounts but they don’t warrant face to face contact you can still set up a proactive inside sales program to maximize coverage and increase business. If there is a lot of potential within those accounts, shake up the territories using the assigned account concept. Experiment with the junior sales person concept. Start with a prototype program in a high potential select territory. A side benefit of the junior sales concept is the development of bench strength for the future. It also allows you to do some pruning without the traditional sales dip that normally occurs when a territory is vacant while you find a replacement rep.

Handling sales people that can put up the numbers but break every rule in the book, someone that can’t get along with their peers and someone that drives inside sales people crazy can be very challenging for a sales manager. This will create a situation that ultimately will affect overall company performance regardless of this sales person’s individual success. This is especially true if this sales person holds the sales manager hostage knowing his numbers help keep corporate off the sales managers back.

Do you pay the ransom?

This type of sales person knows the score and generally uses it to their advantage. The only way to handle a situation like this is to call the bluff. But it must be done in a calculated way by using objective numbers to your advantage. The first step is to determine if this sales person is really responsible for the sales performance or are they just a member of the “Lucky Territory Club.” The second question relates to the true potential of the territory this sales person is assigned to. Are they maximizing market share growth and profitability? In other words, their performance may look good based on the goals set but are those goals too low and do they reflect the real potential that territory represents. Consider doing a fair share analysis for this territory. (E-mail rick#@ceostrategist.com for a sample Fair Share Analysis)

What’s the root cause?

The next action is to step back and try to examine the situation from an outside perspective. Seek help from your mentor, your boss or even human resources. This type of situation doesn’t happen over night. Reexamine your culture, your management style and the accountability of the organization. Is this type of behavior common place? Has it been tolerated before? Have you as the sales manager set precedent in the past?

In today’s environment Lone Wolf sales people generally don’t have as much ownership of the customers as either you or they think they have. If your company has a good reputation, services the customers well and have practiced tier level team selling, your risk of losing business by terminating this type of sales person is minimal.

Doing nothing is not an option

Allowing this type of behavior with no consequence sends the wrong message and it also gives permission to others that if they were that good at putting up numbers for the company they could do anything they want. Once you look at it from an outside perspective and see if the company has had complicity in the situation, then it is good to do a little self analysis to see if "you" have complicity in the situation. Frankly, in a situation such as this it is highly unlikely that the sales manager is not responsible for allowing this to happen. It is not about accepting this behavior, which is wrong; however, if the sales manager had reacted at the first sign of this type of behavior, this would never have happened. The solution, whichever one you choose, will likely involve improving the personal skill sets of the sales manager and creating boundaries for the sales team. Without establishing boundaries the situation will repeat itself.

The Solutions ---- Termination, coach, mentor or train?

This type of situation with an employee has limited options; we can either fire or teach. If an employee’s performance is not what is expected, it generally can be traced to a lack of training or they lack competency. However, if their performance deficiency is related to attitude (their numbers are good) we must consider the following:

• Is this employee motivated to learn and change
• Do you have the time and resources available to invest in behavior modification
• Is this employee worth the investment

If the answer is no to any of these questions --- Terminate

If the answer to these questions is yes --- a personalized coaching and mentoring process must be established with clear ground rules and timelines for acceptable improvements.

The biggest issue is that of motivation to change. Often times a Lone Wolf will not feel the threat of what can happen to them. As a result they don’t cooperate and work on changing their behavior. They have become complacent, arrogant and live in a comfort zone. This arrogance is what blocks their ability to realize that they need to change. If this type of response is recognized early on, termination is still an option.

Who pulls the trigger?

The last piece of the puzzle is to understand who will make the decision and what course of action to take. If the consequences of the actions compromise the strategic direction of the company, it becomes a decision that should involve discussion with the executive team. That does not mean the sales manager is relieved of the responsibility of dealing with the problem. It simply means that additional input is required before pulling the trigger. It is entirely possible due to the importance of the decision to the company that the CEO may make the call.

Don’t pay the ransom

It is never a good idea to pay the ransom. You are only delaying the inevitable. Being held hostage to improper behavior due to the fear of losing revenue is short term non-strategic thinking. If you find yourself in a position where a sales person can actually make or break your company then you have not done an effective job as the manager. You may be a major part of the problem. It is just not acceptable in today’s business environment that any sales person owns the account base so strongly that it can jeopardize the success of the company. Start the process of rehabilitation or termination.

Step 1 ----- Coach, Mentor & Train the employee to create behavior modification that brings them in alignment with the firm’s values, beliefs, and integrity.

Step 2----- Reestablish accountability with the entire sales team

Step 3 --- Start the recruiting process for the possible if not probable replacement of the employee.

Sales management is not easy. This is especially true in today’s environment with the generational influence, the evolutionary transition from the Lone Wolf sales approach to the Lead Wolf team selling solution provider. Remember, compassion for the employees is both a strength and a weakness. If you find yourself being held hostage by this type of employee and he has been with the firm twenty years, follow these guidelines. However, if the answer is termination don’t get caught up in the self imposed guilt about maintaining integrity due to the employee’s tenure. Think about what you’re doing to your integrity and the company’s integrity in the eyes of the rest of your employees by not dealing with the situation effectively.

Direct mail campaigns are the first marketing strategy most new Network Consultants think of. Unfortunately, direct mail campaigns are not always the most efficient or cost effective means of advertising; especially when you are first starting out.

Direct Mail Campaign Comparison

To launch a direct mail campaign you typically use postcards. Think about how many postcards you would have to mail out to get 100 people’s attention for a few minutes. Now think about how easy it is to get 100 people’s ears for a few minutes if you are on a panel for a Chamber of Commerce event and there are 100 people in the audience. Direct mail campaigns pale in comparison.

Suppose you run a direct mail campaign with a 1% response rate (which is very high unless you have an awesome bribe attached or an ace advertising copywriter). If you mail 10,000 postcards and you have to buy an expensive list of names it will cost you a minimum of $5000. This $5000 investment in your direct mail campaign would get you 100 leads. Of those leads perhaps another 1-2% will convert to clients. If you built a relationship with 1% of the people your direct mail campaign would have reached, your conversion rate would be much higher and you would not have had to part with $5000.

With direct mail campaigns you are a stranger - you might be a stranger with a good sounding deal but there is no trust. You are also an intrusion. With relationship marketing you achieve the opposite effects and as a result, much better outcomes.

The Bottom Line on Direct Mail Campaigns

Although direct mail campaigns are the things that new network consultants turn to for advertising they are not the best choice. Direct mail campaigns are impersonal, expensive, and ineffective when compared to relationship marketing. Spend your time building relationships rather than stamping postcards - the personal touch is what will win you the business.

If your brand does not command greater preference or produce increased margins then you do not have a brand — you have a business. The only reasons to invest in competitive brand development are to grow margins and/or increase preference. If your brand is not adequately delivering one of the afore mentioned values, then this month’s Brand Thief is an imperative read.

Too often the foundation of your marketing strategy, your brand, is ignored when developing marketing strategy and tactics. It is where your strategy gets its permission to play that proves to be the most important part of your entire marketing strategy.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu states, “Those known as sophisticated at strategy do not have unorthodox victories, are not known for genius or valor — because their victories contain no miscalculations,” and his thinking is point-blank. The question now becomes, what constitutes an “unorthodox” victory in the marketing arena? The temporary victory that comes from developing a marketing strategy without redeveloping or redeploying your brand strategy is anything but orthodox.

Branding As Marketing

At Stealing Share®, we cross the boundaries because we know that your brand needs to steer your marketing strategy. Branding and marketing need to blend organically. When we discuss brand permission, we are referring to the permission attributed to the brand by the customers in order to accomplish a particular meaning, advantage, or to occupy a specific position. Most marketing strategies lack this permission because they have confused their brand with their corporate proposition or product efficacy. As a result, the expensive marketing juggernaut fails to fulfill marketing department expectations.

The reason most marketing strategies fail is not because the strategy was wrong, rather because the marketing department was unable to observe the brand dispassionately. Just take a look around and see how many people have no idea as to how they appear to others. Look for example, how many bald men think the “comb over” is an effective disguise. People cannot see themselves as others do, and marketing departments quickly reinforce this fundamental truth when they step into the “corporate body” — unable to see itself dispassionately. The corporate body sees its circumstances in terms of its own precepts. Such blindness presents an opportunity for visionary brands that are willing to see brand development as central to its marketing development and not simply as something to be “managed” by the best intentioned of brand managers and marketing mavens.

Napoleon warned “The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.” In this case, “means” can be defined as “brand truth,” as surly as it can be defined as marketing budget. There is often a wide gap between what we push to be true and what the consumer believes to be true. The good news is that your main competitor is sitting in the same boat.

How Marketing Has Changed

Brand IS about persuasion because it is all about the beliefs that drive your target audience to covet it. It is not static and needs to illuminate marketing activities and strategies that were submerged. Stealing Share is a brand development company, but brand development without a concrete marketing strategy as part of its deliverables is like going to the finest restaurants in the world, deciding what it is you want to eat, and then eating the laminated menu rather than what you ordered. This meal has the same taste and nourishment value as tree bark.

Ad Agencies Are Not The Answer

The current market environment is a living and breathing example of “Who Moved My Cheese?” The market seems more competitive and crowded than ever, and new fresh ideas are scarce. Promotions seem run of the mill, and they often reduce the brand’s ability to command good margins. Collaboration with advertising agencies seems to be increasingly adverse because there is a growing gap between what the agencies consider great and the brand’s understanding of outcome. Marketing messages tend to define category benefits (i.e. ATM availability in the banking market). The positioning differences only exist in the minds of the marketers and seem to be completely lost for the customer.

After each massage therapy treatment I used to ask them if they wanted to book in again. Most of them said yes.

This "asking-for-another-session" method of client retention was spoken at the right time in my massage therapy business and it canbe in yours too. As you know now one of the key elements to getting new clients for your massage therapy business is catching them when the time is right for them. There are quite a few ways to know when to do that as asking them if they want to rebook for another session is another method.

The reason why this works in your massage therapy business is because of the following:

You are fresh in their mind as to what great feelings they are experiencing. Asking them right then and there if they want to experience this again is the opportune time to gain their business back again. As soon as they have gotten off the table, got dressed you can simply ask;

"How do you feel?"

Most people will say; "good."

And you can say; "would you like to book another treatment?"

Or they might say; "when do you think I should have another one?"

Be honest. If they have hectic lives and are stretched for time for example, acknowledge that and respond accordingly. "Well you have some tightness in your shoulder area that does need work. If you came back next week (whatever time you feel they should) you will be really starting to get rid of that pain and your tension headaches should be a lot better. I recommend having 8 weekly massage therapy treatments for a while, I'll get you to a stage where you have significant reduction in your tension headaches and then you can tell me when you want to come. We can then maintain the relaxed state of your shoulders and neck by coming once a month. How does that sound?"

By responding like this, you will be demonstrating that you do want to get them better. And being a Massage Therapist you should indeed be as genuine as you say. It's not good to respond with "Oh you should come whenever you can afford it." That's really negative. Not only does that negate your positive energy as a business person, but it brings the focus back onto money, which massage therapy is not. Massage therapy is about healing. THEY will work out if they can afford it or not. Your job is to get them to come back to help them heal and increase good business for you.

I did this so many times in my massage therapy business and so many times people made repeat bookings.

Now not all your massage clients will come back. And that's ok. Let them go. But you will find if you open your heart and mind to asking for what you want, it will be provided for you. And it all starts with a simple question; "Do you want to make another booking?"

Small business development is a make or break activity when starting out as an IT consultant. You need to get your name out there as much as you can. Business won't drop into your lap - you need to use proactive small business development techniques to get things moving.

The foremost method for small business development is reaching out to business organizations. You should try to blanket your entire region. To get this kind of coverage, your small business development takes time.

Plan to get out to 8 to 12 events of all sorts in any given month. To be effective, in your first year of business you should be spending a minimum of 15 to 25% of your time on small business development. If you work a 40 hour week (which is more like a 55 hour week) you should be spending one to two days a week on small business development activities.

Other small business development activities include:

Follow ups

Highly targeted direct mail campaigns

Seminars

Networking

In the first few months, before you have regular clients, you will likely spend 50 - 80% of your time in small business development. You can cut this down once you are on your feet. As your client base improves you can pare your small business develop down to four to six events a month and eventually get down to two to three.

Small business development is more important than your administrative duties and your IT training. You will have plenty of time to take care of those things after you have built up a pool of regular, long-term clients.

We always seem to be hearing in the news that a government contract has been awarded to a company, which has not fulfilled its responsibilities. As a matter of fact this is so commonplace that one should be asking why does this keep occurring? Well, there are a number of reasons why this is the case.

Sometimes politicians persuade bureaucratic agencies to lean towards a certain government contractor and the bureaucrats know that they must comply otherwise they could lose their job and or their agency will not receive the funding it needs for next year's budget. Those companies, which pander to podium pushing politicians through lobbying and fund raising for their campaigns tend to get the best contracts. We all know this is true.

Another common reason is that the government is known to be after the lowest price. Therefore many companies underbid the contracts just to get the work and then cannot afford to do the job correctly. Likewise many companies refuse to bid on government contracts because the government is so slow to pay and if you are a smaller company the cash flow could kill your business.

Many street sweeping companies, which have big large contracts with retail outlets and shopping malls often cheat the company on their services. In fact, as I travel around the country I am appalled at this particular industry. It seems that so many of the contractors who have street sweeping businesses cheat the customer. I asked myself why this is? It appears to me that the lowest bid will get the contract and many of the companies bids are so low that they cannot afford to do the work or by adequate equipment to do the job right.

I have watched Street sweeping folks come into a parking lot and drive around a few times put a little bit of dirt in the air kind of like when you take your home vacuum cleaner and forget to clean out the bag and the vacuum blows all the dust all over the place while you are vacuuming. Then the street sweeper leaves without cleaning anything, as there is still debris in the parking lot and trash. This seems rather dishonest and I guess no one notices that they did not do their job.

One of the biggest challenges facing salespeople when prospecting is that few, if any, new contacts become long-term possibilities for sales or networking. This is due to the fact that an initial contact usually ends at just that – an initial contact, and nothing more.

Could you imagine how much more successful you’d be if you could take each and every cold contact you make while prospecting, and transform it into a long-term connection that remains in constant contact with you for the long haul? Think about it. Let’s say you currently make four hundred new contacts per month, in the usual manner, meaning you get a few appointments but nothing more. The first month you make your four hundred contacts and that’s where it ends. Next month, you make another four hundred contacts and they vaporize into thin air. The third month, you go through the grind again. And so on, and so on.

Now, think of what it would be like if you could capture those four hundred contacts and keep them in constant contact with you. After the first month, you’d have your four hundred contacts done. The second month, you’d have eight hundred in your permanent pipeline. The third month, well over a thousand contacts are yours to own. At the end of a year, you’d have nearly five thousand permanent connections!

Can you see how your sales would absolutely explode if you were able to do this? The good news is that lots of salespeople are already doing it with great success, and you can too.

The key here is to forget about the old method of contacting someone, asking if they’d be interested in meeting with you, and then dropping them forever if they are not. What you need to be doing is asking for that person’s permission to receive a free, monthly e-mail newsletter from you that provides the prospect with valuable content that they can use to improve their business.

Getting that content isn’t too difficult at all. If you are not inclined to write helpful articles about your industry, or about general business tips – such as time management, or how to increase productivity – then you can obtain content for free on the Internet. Just do a quick search for ‘Free Reprint Articles’ and you will find thousands upon thousands of articles that you can use in your newsletter. And the newsletter itself is not difficult to manage. Services such as aweber.com that I use personally are very inexpensive, they automate the entire process, and they take care of CAN-SPAM compliance by including an automated unsubscribe link at the end of your newsletters.

What about snail mail? This is effective as well, but the problem is getting your prospects to open and read the newsletter. It’s also expensive. Except for the twenty bucks or so a month that you’ll shell out for the e-mail service, an e-mail newsletter is free.

The long-term effects of doing this are absolutely astounding. Imagine having thousands of prospects, in your target market, receiving your monthly newsletter. They will appreciate the useful content you will provide, and the best part is that your name will be constantly in their minds as the only person to buy from when the time comes! By publishing a quality newsletter, you are no longer just a salesperson in their eyes – you become a highly qualified expert in your field, they will begin to trust you as a business advisor, and that is what the very top of the top sales pros are to their customers.

One of my heroes in life is Bill Levine, the founder of PIP Printing. It was almost 40 years ago that he found himself at the front of the line in an industry. That industry has changed significantly since he opened his first instant printing operation. It began with an idea that joined technology together which eliminated several steps in the printing process. At that time, the printing plate making process required 8 time consuming steps that took days to accomplish. The newly developed Itek plate making unit was a self contained system which had the ability to create printing plates in about a minute.

Although this new invention was shown at tradeshows around the country in 1966, only a handful of individuals saw the vision of an industry and the revolutionary concept of this technology. Those who caught the vision were blessed with skyrocketing growth as the instant printing industry grew. I know, because I was there with Bill Levine as a member of his team from 1980 to 1988. Some instant printers refer to this as the golden 80’s.

Today, most of those Itek plate making units are retired and have been replaced with high speed copiers that perform the role of the printing press in many applications. With today’s technology it is hard to tell the difference between a copier image and one that was printed.

The FAX Revolution that Sputtered
In the mid 1980’s there was a large machine that cost about $6,000.00 which had the ability to send a document across the country in minutes using a telephone line. The only challenge was that another machine had to be on the other end to receive the document. This seemed revolutionary at the time and today we call these old Fax machines. The challenge at PIP Printing Headquarters was convincing business owners to invest in the expensive technology.

It was only a few years later that Fax technology caught on and customers were lining up and paying several dollars to get their faxes sent around the country to another location as the Fax explosion took hold. The profits generated from those early investments paid off handsomely.

Today, the lines have all but disappeared and Fax technology is being replaced with email and instant messaging. In my case, I don’t have a fax machine; I use efax for sending and receiving faxes.

Selling Technology Isn’t Easy
The facts demonstrate is that most people don’t want to be first in line. Being first in line has some risks. However, the people at the front of the line always get the best seats and the greatest rewards.

Our sales role is to create the vision of success in the hearts of our customers so they see the advantage of being first in their market with our system or solution.