Tag Archives: Small Business

Business Development, Business Strategy

Why is Selling So Difficult For Small Business Owners? Use These 3 Sales Management Strategies

Why is selling so difficult for small business owners? The ability to sell is necessary for every business yet it is often a neglected activity. To simplify the selling process, you need to build a sales approach into your marketing mix program. (Your marketing mix includes product, price, promotion and place – the sales activities belong in the promotion category.)

First, it is important to understand the marketing mix promotion category. Marketing promotion includes personal selling (face to face), direct mail marketing (one-to-one and via email or mail), and use of telemarketing campaigns (one-to-one and via telephone). Additionally, marketing promotion includes the advertising (for example, radio, newspapers, internet, magazines, storefront, and more), promotions (for example, trade shows, coupons, contests, point of purchase displays and more), and public relations (for example, press releases, community involvement, and more) activities.

Second, it is important to build a sales plan targeted to each product or service category, and also focused on each type of customer. If you are entering new markets, use sales contact management and sales leads software to focus your efforts. This software will also provide good sales service maintenance and follow-up support. Business process management tools help you to focus your sales activities and provide you with valuable time saving tactics. You can track and manage your activity and results for leads, prospects, and customers. You can also integrate your sales leads software with your sales management software to develop reports on customer purchases, service or product launches, price change impacts, service or product change impacts, and more.

Third, develop strong negotiating and closing skills. Always look for a win/win solution both for you and your customer. Make sure you focus on the unique value and benefits of your products and/or services and how that value will benefit your customer (solving their needs or problems). To negotiate a sale and to close a sale effectively requires a specific skill set. You need to be a very good listener and really hear what your customer is saying. You also need to be sincere – how many times have you heard pre-rehearsed closes that just turn you off? You can practice your close but when you are in front of a potential customer make sure that you can close based on what your customer just told you, what you heard, and what you believe you can deliver – in effect, how will you fulfill your customer’s needs more effectively than other suppliers?

To be successful in business, you need to either be successful at selling or be able to hire a great sales person because no matter what you have to sell (product, service, idea or something else), you will have to sell it to someone. Learning how to sell effectively is possible but you need to enjoy it. If you dread the idea of selling, don’t do it (your customers can perceive your discomfort and you will find it even harder to make the sale). Hire someone who loves to sell to do it for you (you can hire an employee, or sales agent, or contract worker, or broker but it is likely that employees will be most committed to you and your business). Customers and potential customers will resist buying from someone who isn’t comfortable with the sales process, and while you might get some orders, hiring someone who is good at selling will free you up to do what you’re good at… a much more effective use of your time and resources.

Overcome the challenge of developing small business sales skills:

  • learn to focus on developing a marketing mix promotion that includes building service or product differentiation and positioning features and benefits that help you to increase sales successfully;
  • learn to build an effective sales plan and use software and business process tools to help you manage the plan;
  • make sure you develop strong negotiating and closing skills and
  • learn how to manage your own efforts, or the efforts of others.

Learning how to sell effectively is of critical importance to your small business sales growth; and just as important is recognizing when to hire someone to do the selling for you.

Kris Bovay is the owner of Voice Marketing Inc, a business and marketing services company. Kris has 25 years of experience in leading large, medium and small businesses; including developing successful sales plans and strategies.

You can find more strategies on how to sell on the More For Small Business website: specifically business to business selling and business to consumer selling strategies. Copyright 2010 Voice Marketing Inc.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kris_Bovay/216730

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business Development, Business Strategy

Use a Marketing Research Plan to Focus on Your Market

A marketing research plan needs to include different types of market research, and include the impact or results of that research in your business and/or your business plan. You can build a stronger value proposition by using a targeted marketing research process and approach.

What are some different types of market research? In terms of the process of analyzing your market, there is primary research (collected for the ‘first’ time, original investigation) and secondary research (use of data and analysis from other sources – online and offline). Primary is usually more time consuming and expensive but is more likely to be more clearly targeted on a specific issue or problem; secondary may be more general, less targeted but more economical.

Why is having a marketing research plan important to your business? Because without a plan you will not understand as much as you should about your market. For example, you will not know how your market (that is, customers) feels about your service, your products and your brand until they demonstrate it by not buying your products. The opposite of that – buying too much of your products – can also have an impact on your business; you may be forced into the position of not being able to satisfy a demand that you didn’t see coming. In either scenario, the result will be unsatisfied customers.

The marketing research process and approach can include using methods such as surveys, interviews (face-to-face or telephone), and focus groups. It can be used to investigate competitive activities and impacts; the health of the industry you operate in; brand awareness and credibility; the impact and effectiveness of your advertising ‘spend’; what motivates your customers to buy (from you or your competition); how satisfied your customers are (or aren’t) and what it is that makes them satisfied, or not; what products or services you should add to your line; how to more narrowly target your market; whether you should grow your geographically reach; and much more.

Conducting marketing analysis includes defining the management issue or question to be answered (the why); developing the proposal (how will the issue be studied); identifying what will be studied, the time frame (when it will be studied and for how long), and who will be doing the analysis. Once the problem is clearly defined, the key issues in researching revolve around accurate and unbiased data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data and reporting of results.

Of critical importance, once the marketing research plan is completed, and the analysis has been conducted, is to act on the recommendations of the study. The investment of your time and resources must benefit the business: if you trust the results of the analysis and research, then make decisions and take action on the outcomes. If you don’t trust or believe the results of the research, then invest in re-doing it, or having a third party consultant or researcher take a different approach. But don’t go into a research project with a pre-defined idea of what the result should be; you will build bias into the study and be disappointed in the outcomes.

Use the 9 Steps to Your Marketing Research Plan to build your own plan and to focus your marketing research process on the most effective approaches and methods for your business.

Kris Bovay is the owner of Voice Marketing Inc, the business and marketing services company that provides you with a voice in your markets. Kris has 25 years of experience in leading large, medium and small businesses. Visit More For Small Business for more proven business strategies and other small business services. Copyright 2008-2009 Voice Marketing Inc.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kris_Bovay/216730

Business Development, Business Strategy, FAQ, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

The Immediate Goals of Starting a New Business

Are you tired of your boss? Or are you getting ready for greener pastures? Setting up your own business can be very exciting. However, before you even take the first step, save yourself time and money by being aware of what’s involved in running a business. Investing time and money into proper planning is paramount when it comes to turning your dreams into reality. The idea of operating a small business is not just about working for yourself or from home, it’s also about having necessary management skills, technical skills, industry expertise, finance and, of course, a long-term vision to grow and succeed.

Whether you will choose to be an entrepreneur, buy a franchise, or start an existing business, the business planning resources are the same. The only things that will be different are the business strategies, business opportunities, upfront cost and step by step instructions to start various businesses.

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Finance

How To Build Your Business Credit Score?

For a business to be in the favor of different lenders and to obtain the necessary funding for its future capital needs, having a favorable credit score is very vital. But a good credit rating does not come in an instant, and for any business owner, there are certain steps to follow. These steps will help improve a business’ credit rating as well as maintain a favorable reputation to lenders and investors.

1. Make sure that your business has a legal entity

Your business will not be able to build business credit if it does not have an entity unto itself. And thus, it is necessary for you to be incorporated or to form an LLC (Limited Liability Company). No lender will be willing to give a business loan to a sole proprietor because this might end up as a personal loan in disguise.
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