365 Ways To Double Your Sales – 9

March 12, 2018

Sales people are not known for their planning skills.

The “typical” salesman is the fast-talking, glad-handing, back-slapping, joke-telling good ol’ boy with a quick wit, fancy briefcase and a nice pen he gladly loans out so you can “press real hard…the 3rd copy’s yours.”

While that is true of the “average” salesman, what separates the pros from the punks is their ability to plan their sales and marketing strategies and tactics.

It’s sad that so few talented sales people, entrepreneurs and business owners understand marketing.

I’ve met with representatives from the SBA and SCORE and the Chamber of Commerce and while all are well-meaning and give great advice such as “write a business plan,” “get your financing in order,” “ensure your supply chain is established,” “get a nice big building so you have room to expand” and “take your time developing your product” I’ve never heard any of them give any advice that’s worth a crap when it comes to marketing.

“If you build it they will come” only happens in the Land of Make Believe.

There are COUNTLESS inventors and service experts going out of business DAILY because they don’t know how to get the word out.

They know they have to balance the books each day, month, quarter and year but they’ve never been told they must also create and balance their marketing every day, month, quarter and year.

So they become an advertising victim.

The local Yellow Pages rep sees the new business license at City Hall and comes on over with a nice full color brochure, an OK tie, a cheesy grin and a lot of pie charts and bar graphs showing the coverage they provide, number of books delivered and how they are even providing online listings, too!

“Well gowleeee, I’m just gonna have ta git me sum of dem Yellow Page ads, now ain’t I?”

Fast forward 11 months:

  • the phone ain’t a-ringin’

  • your palms, they are a-sweatin’

  • sleep, you ain’t a-gettin’ (and that ain’t the ONLY thing you AIN’T gettin’)

  • the bills, they are a-piling up.

And the Yellow Pages rep has the guts to show up and remind you it’s time to renew your ad…and you do because you don’t have a marketing plan but you know you’re supposed to advertise somewhere. WTF?

I’d argue with anyone that a marketing plan should be the first plan an entrepreneur creates before they go into business. The plan should address every form of advertising and marketing and rank ordered based on a combination of factors including:

  • reach

  • coverage

  • efficacy

  • affordability

  • repeatability

  • impact

  • longevity

All forms of advertising and marketing should be considered including:

  • email marketing

  • print

    • newspapers

    • magazines

  • radio

  • TV

  • affiliates (become an affiliate of The Sales Whisperer® for free)

  • joint ventures

  • social media

  • online

  • direct mail

  • trade shows

And all of these forms of advertising and marketing must be scheduled and implemented like clockwork. For example, let’s say you want to attend a trade show that is chock full of your ideal prospects. You need to reserve your spot a good 3 months out and begin a targeted, detailed, multi-step campaign that:

  • tells the world you’re attending;

    • press releases

    • blogging

    • social media updates

    • emails

    • postcards

    • ads in trade journals

  • provides incentives for attendees to stop by your booth;

  • enables you to create the most enticing booth possible;

  • includes an automated means to capture the contact information of your visitors;

  • automates the follow-up with all trade show attendees as well as those that stopped by your booth and it runs for as much as year, leading up to the trade show NEXT YEAR!

Times are tough. People are more discerning with their money. Their B.S. antennas are fully extended and set to maximum sensitivity.

You need a detailed, prolonged, multi-touch, multi-media advertising and marketing plan to GROW YOUR MARKET SHARE right now.

Focus on increased profits as a by-product of growing your market share because your competition is NOT this thorough in their marketing. If you can grow your market share now it will pay huge dividends when the economy turns around.

To see if you qualify for a free consultation contact The Sales Whisperer® today and let’s see how we can help you grow.