Tag: sales - Page 6

6 minute read

I received a call yesterday of a man who was responding to a proposal that I had sent to him a week ago. The call came from the owner of a small firm doing business here in Atlanta and the conversation started off great. My original thought was he would ask me “where to sign”!

So, a young guy applies to be the Director of Sales and Marketing for a fast growing startup in the Fintech space. His name is John Doe. He had experience as a sales manager and he wants to test the waters in the fast-moving environment of the startup life. He’s a natural born salesman. He’s very charismatic and outgoing and seems to just say “yes” to every opportunity he comes across. So, John doesn’t think twice when taking on new challenges. He applies to that job with the prospects of huge earning potential and a great learning experience. When he gets called in for his interview, the entire team loves his energy. The hiring manager pretty much makes up their mind the minute he leaves that they’ll offer him the position.

The Marketing Eye is all about supporting our veterans. In fact, I’m a veteran myself! After serving a tour in Iraq I pursued a career in sales and marketing and I haven’t looked back since. The Army gave me the experience I needed to be able to compete with the best in the private sector. And you can bet that I used every resource that was available to me when I started out.

It's our first quarter conundrum that is making me scratch my head, and is starting to create some sleepless nights. In 5 years, we have never had a month where our sales figures didn't meet our projections.

I'm shocked, concerned, worried and trying to rack my mind as to why. I find myself looking for answers.

Do you currently have a solid sales process in effect? If not, it might be time to examine your sales and pipeline process. Far too often we see businesses have great marketing and lead generation success, but end up with no real customers. Fortunately, we are going to examine what a proper sales process looks like and how it can feed your lead generation and lead conversion rates.

We all know that a well oiled sales and marketing machine can take your business to a whole new level, and as long as it is continually done and improved upon, you will no doubt reap the rewards.

Knowing your audience when presenting your business is essential. In order to succeed at selling your company you need to know when to lay it on thick and when to back off. Different scenarios call for different sales pitches. Speaking to someone in the hallway versus a formal business meeting should not be approached in the same manner. It can be a huge turn off to a prospect when you are trying to over sell them right off the bat.

Today LinkedIn has become an invaluable resource. Whether you are using it to prospect, to recruit, for marketing or for research, you need to make sure your profile reflects your main objective. LinkedIn is a powerful tool for making connections and finding business, so use it wisely.

It might be time for your LinkedIn to go through a refresh. Consider these tips when making your profile more sales centric.

The countdown to Christmas is on and while we are all still enjoying the Spring Racing Carnival, there are a few large retailers who have already put together their Christmas displays and have started their Christmas marketing campaigns.

So what should you do? Do you start early because they have, or do you wait until it is closer to Christmas?

I have put together a reatil marketing "TO DO" list to help you decide what actions to take. 

1. Connect with customers early

In today’s marketing world, there are so many ways to connect with your customers, and when it comes to marketing at Christmas time, the earlier, the better. Especially when it comes to those big ticket items that require some research.

Start sending incentives and loyalty packages out in October, to lure customers to your store over your competitors. Make sure your customers know all about the latest products, and give them reason to purchase early to ensure that they don’t miss out.

Recently I shared a presentation about the value of marketing automation implemented correctly in a business. I gave the presentaton at Cebit 2015 and rather than use a generic case study, I focused on my own company, Marketing Eye, as an example of how to implement marketing automation and gain immediate results.

To give perspective to this, Marketing Eye has a substantial amount of traffic coming to our website each month, mainly due to the popularity of this blog and the effectiveness of our SEO team.