Sales Training

Sales Training

Sales training is something that you need. Opening the classified ads for jobs will tell you just how many positions there are in the sales world. Experienced sales individuals can make quite a bit of money. But, how can you get the training that you need to be in those ranks? Nothing is more frustrating than having an opportunity to get experience but being told that you need experience to get it. To help this, you can invest in getting sales training.

The Benefits From Sales Training

Sales training is beneficial. Depending on your sales field, you can find that having the knowledge you need behind the sale is what is going to drive you to the sales goals you have. Sales training truly does prepare you for every possible reaction a customer may have. It allows you to be prepared so that the first time you step out onto the sales floor, you are doing well.

Sales training can also help you to get that job. Positions that are open look favorably on individuals who have been trained. Many sales positions are available to individuals with less experience with sales training. This is a definite plus on the resume.

Getting The Sales Training

Getting the sales training that you need is not hard. There are excellent opportunities for you in just about every media. Even online sales training courses are available to help you reach the next level in your career. If you are not sure that there is something right out there for you, just take a look at community colleges. In fact, some of the businesses that need you will even provide sales training to you.

All in all, it takes a few weeks of solid learning to be ready to get out there and achieve your goals. Whether your goal is to get experience in sales to get an even bigger career in place or to simply to do well in the job that you have now, sales training can help you go from good to excellent.

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How to Increase Sales and Profits, Without Spending a Cent!

Ever heard of something called "conversion rate". You may have but are you measuring it all the time, or are you just guessing what it might be?

If you don't know what conversion rate means you're missing out on the most powerful strategy there is in the world to increase sales, without spending a cent. Plus, by increasing your conversion rate your net profits always go up!

So what is conversion rate?

Conversion rate is the difference between how many call, walk in or contact your business and then how many of them end up buying. For example, if you had 10 phone calls to your business and you took their name and phone over time you simply track how many of them actually spent money with you. So if you have 3 people buy from you your conversion rate would be 30% or 3 out of 10. 

This simple measurement is life changing for business owners when they see the power of it. If you don't know your conversion rate and "guess" it’s about 50% I guarantee you're wrong! Almost everyone thinks their conversion rate it higher than it actually is. The reason being is that the people you talk to that say they'll come back and buy later or that sound like they are very interested in buying often don't. But you don't know that if you don't measure all inquiries because you assume they have bought.

When you measure your conversion rate be prepared for a shock. I've worked with retailers who thought it was 75% and found it was 38%. I've worked with service businesses that thought it was 50% and we found it to be 13%.

They get a bit depressed when they realise its only 13%, but I get excited! That's because it’s impossible to double 50% conversion rate, but with 13% you can triple it and still have room for improvement! 

Did you know that increasing your conversion rate proportionally increases turnover and net profit? That means if you increase your conversion rate by 50% (e.g. from 24% to 36%) you have just increased your turnover by 50% as well! That's because you get 50% more paying customers than you have right now. And you can increase your conversion rate, turnover and profit without spending a cent on advertising or promotion.

So how do you measure it? First of all you need 2 to 3 bits of information on every person who contacts your business. Things like their name, phone number and what their inquiry was about. 

This then gives you information to refer back; to see how many people actually ended up buying that contacted your business. With your business it may take days before you can tally inquiries to customers. For some service businesses you may need to wait a month from the inquiry date to purchase due to the time it takes people to make a decision.

You'll notice your conversion rate will be different for each of your staff. Why is that? Good question. But when you realise the difference you can do something about it, but until you have measured it how can you do anything about it?

So now, onto the magic question, How To Improve Your Conversion Rate!

There are at least 80 ways! Want to know the best ones? Here they are...

1. Learn DISC profiles. DISC profiling has to be the most unknown method of understanding people there is, yet in business it’s the most powerful tool you can learn and use. DISC is an insight into 4 major differences in people's behaviour. When you learn DISC profiles you understand some people want to be friends with the person they buy from, while others find friendly sales people annoying and don't buy from them. Some people (about 50%) make all sales decisions very quickly, usually on the spot. While 50% of people always want to think about it, usually over a day or two. DISC is something I teach to all my clients and all who learn it from me increase their sales (turnover and profit) by 20%-300% in weeks!

2. Offer guarantees in writing. Everyone has some level of apprehension about parting with money, so a guarantee helps to overcome that apprehension and helps people to make confident decisions. What can you guarantee in writing that you have not be offering now? What about not to leave a mess if you're in a service business? What about being completely happy with your purchase of you will gladly allow refunds? Retailers often don't want to refund so they scare away dozens of potential customers for the sake of a very few possibly wanting refunds. (To learn more about DISC see the article 'How to Build Rapport in 7 Seconds' by Tim Stokes at www.ezinearticles.com)

3. Make your business appear unique. This again is a powerful tool as when you "appear" unique or different you stop losing sales to price shoppers. It's not hard to do, in fact when you use guarantees like those above it makes you very unique!

4. Learn body language. Body language is responsible for 55% of what you communicate before you open your mouth! Everyone has heard of it but how many people use it? Almost none! Go read a book on it and try it. Body language is a form of flattery and people buy from people they like or relate to.

5. Try different words you use to greet people face to face or on the phone. Retailers are notorious for saying things that elicit "no thanks just looking". That's because they set up that response by what they say. Try saying different phrases on greeting and see what happens. Its the same on the phone, if you finish off your greeting with "name speaking" you often get people who think you're a dummy and respond with, "I'd like to talk to someone about..." In other words you can't help me so can you get me someone who can. Try not using speaking and see what happens.

Are you starting to get the picture there are dozens of ways you to improve what you're doing now with your conversion rate? First you have to measure it, before you can improve it. Collate it over a day, then a week then a month. When you do you will have a powerful Key Performance Indicator. 

Working with business owner’s conversion rates I have had dozens and dozens of fantastic profit improvements in weeks and months. My record is a blind manufacturing company that had a conversion rate of 3.5% and then 6 months later we took it to 75% and that was with a 35% increase in prices along the way! What percentage increase it that in profit? I don't know, but it’s massive!

I did the same with a retailer. They had a conversion rate of 68% and using a sales system I wrote with them they hit 100% conversion rate the week we started using it. It never dropped under 82% again.

If you don't increase your conversion rate your marketing will rarely make you a good profit return, or enough to pay for itself with profit from the sales from the promotion. When you double conversion rates you double your turnover and advertising responses, so you can run your ads half as much saving you profit as well.

I'll leave you with this thought... You can't improve something if you haven't measured it. Measuring is the secret to all of your success in business.

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7 Ways To Advertise Your Business For Free

1. Free directories: directories are perfect for customers that are searching for a particular topic. What’s great about them is that you only have to post once and they are good for long periods of time. It saves a lot of your time when you don’t have to resubmit your information every week or every month. The bad news is most of your traffic won’t come from here. I still feel it is worth it to get your link out there. Just take one day and set it aside for posting to free directories. You won’t need to do it again for at least 6 months.

2. Classified Ads: These are great for work from home businesses. Think about it. Where do people go when they are looking for a job? That’s right-the classifieds. The only downside to classified ads is that you have to resubmit them quite frequently. Once you find which classifieds bring you the most traffic you can concentrate on them and weed the others out. So it is really more time consuming in the beginning, and doesn’t have to be later on when you get the hang of things.

3. Free article submissions/ezines: The best way to inform others about your product or service is to write an article about it. In your authors resource box, you can tell readers about yourself and where they can go to check out your product or service. This is also an excellent way to get free links to your site if you have one. There are a lot of webmasters out there who are looking for good articles they can post on their site. If they post yours, that is another site that is doing the advertising for you. All for free.

4. URL Submissions: Probably the quickest and easiest thing to do to advertise your site. Just type “Free URL submission” in your search engine. When you get a list just enter the URL you are promoting and click submit. That’s it. It only takes a few seconds and your done. Just set a day aside once every 3 months and do this.

5. Forum Posts: Put your product or service website in your signature file when you sign up on some forums. It will be displayed every time you make a post. Try to look for topics that you have some knowledge on, and can give a relevant answer too. Do not spam anyone, you will get kicked off the forum and you will get a bad reputation. Get involved asking and answering questions that pertain to your area of business. Forums are great because once you make a post it stays there forever. It will get moved to the archives eventually, but someone could still find it if they were searching the archives. Yes, there are many people who do.

6. Traffic Exchanges: Probably the most time consuming way to advertise for free, but definately the most effective. Most forums I have visited have said in many posts that they received a lot of their profit from traffic exchanges. If you don’t want to spend the time surfing for credits, you do have the option of buying them. I would look into a program that lets you surf multiple websites at once like crazy browser. There are others and they are free to download. That way you can just spend one hour a day and get all your surfing in at once.

7. News-groups: Become involved in a group that has to do with your kind of business. You can usually mail the group once per day, but I would encourage you to find something fresh to talk about each day. People will tune you out if they see the same message all the time. Remember to never Spam anyone. Only join groups with the same interests as yours. In other words, don’t sign up for a recipe swapping group when you are advertising shaving cream.

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3 Simple Business Opportunities Review

Honest Business Opportunities Review. Finally an honest way to make money online.

Tired of business opportunities that do not deliver what they promise? We have reviewed the top selling programs on the Internet today. Below you will find a link to reviews of the top 3 opportunities that actually work. 

The key to making money online is knowing how and where to start. 

Without the right starting point you will waste precious time and a ton of money. The following products guarantee your online success, all you have to do is read them and follow their expert advice! All programs provide a 100% money back guarantee, require little or no experience, offer a step by step guide, and use proven strategies that will make you money. 

These programs are simple to use, have a small investment price, and you are able to see results usually on the first day! Now you won't make millions overnight, like some programs promise, but you will build a nice part-time income that can certainly help with the bills (everyone I know wouldn't say no to an extra $500+ bucks a month). 

You might even consider using all the suggested programs and over time replace your existing income. That's what I did, and lord knows i'm no "guru", actually i am a journeyman carpenter from Canada that just wanted a nice online hobby business. I wasn't expecting great things, just some extra cash, some "FUN" money. Now these programs have really taken off, I spend more time with my family and playing in my shop. I never expected this business to explode for me!


Source: Warm Regards, 
Dwayne Armstrong

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3 Million Items and Counting, Bidville Becomes Big Business

Since their introduction, online auction sites have been making e-history as some of the most popular destinations on the Internet. From designer-label clothing to grandma's jewelry to cars and even houses, anything and everything imaginable can be auctioned off online.

People who place items for sale on auction sites are attracted to the prospect of building a business from home with no morning traffic jams and little required capital to start. And bidders are drawn to the unique shopping opportunities and the potential to purchase hard-to-find items from all over the world. 

Increasingly, buyers and sellers are discovering the unique benefits of using emerging sites rather than the giants of the industry, such as eBay. Bidville.com is one such site that has been quietly gaining momentum in the wake of eBay's ongoing fee increases.

Bidville started in 1999 primarily as a sports card auction site, but began expanding its merchandise base in late 2003 to take advantage of burgeoning market opportunities. Throughout 2004, its membership base increased to nearly 1 million members and the number of items listed daily reached 3 million. In addition, the site now has more than 600 "storefronts" that sell anything from collectibles to electronics at a fixed price. 

Bidville markets itself as "the alternative auction site" because it does not charge listing fees. Rather, sellers pay what's called "final success fees" after their items sell. These fees, at no more than 5 percent of the selling price, are lower than what other sites charge. 

So what is the key to Bidville's success? The company is striving to expand its growing community of loyal members and makes it a policy to give them personalized attention. While most auction sites answer questions with an automated reply, Bidville has live customer service representatives who respond to all queries within 24 hours. 

In its extensive community section, there is ample opportunity for member interaction via the Member to Member Help Desk, the Bidville Cafe, where members can share stories and make friends, and the Sellers Forum, where members can discuss successful selling tips and offer suggestions for site improvements. A special charity section allows nonprofit organizations to use Bidville to raise money for good causes.

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3 Lifesaving Tactics to Stay Afloat In a Constantly Changing Marketplace

Let’s face the facts... old-fashioned marketing tools aren’t going to keep your business a growing and prosperous entity in today’s marketplace.  Hey, this month’s hottest techniques and information will be obsolete in six months.  Now, I’m not saying that old marketing principals can’t be upgraded and incorporated successfully, but as a rule marketers have to stay on top of the latest marketing trends. 

If you’re wanting to stay ahead of your business savvy competitors you’ll need to implement 3 tactics to stay one step ahead.

1.  Watch For New Advertising Methods

You never know what will work for you unless you take the time to experiment!  Who knows?  The next marketing experiment you test may be a million dollar idea.  Keep your eyes peeled for the latest marketing news.  

It never pays to put all of your eggs in one basket.  Don’t neglect the tried and true marketing tools that have been successful in the past.  Invest about 20 percent of your advertising budget and time into testing for new marketing strategies that will increase your profits.

2.  Spruce Things Up

Don’t get stuck in a rut.  Yeah, you have products that have been successful for years, but what would happen if you gave them a “face lift?’ Would you attract new customers?  Would your old customers enjoy the change?  You’ll be surprised at what a new packaging will do for old product sales.

Sprucing up doesn’t have to stop with your products.  A few minor changes in the store appearance can bring new life to your place of business as well.

3.  Diversify

The more products you have to offer, the more insulation you have against the decline in popularity of one particular item.  Don’t go out on a limb, when you’ve got a good thing going.  Look for products and services that compliment your current products and services.  

Don’t let the speed-of-light changes in the market take your business under.  Stay afloat with these proven tactics.

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3 Key Secret Components For Wholesale Profit Success

Everyday it is getting more attractive to start selling wholesale items online and offline because of the profit potential many products carry. Now a days if you plan to make a part-time income or make a full-time living by selling wholesale items, you need to know three basic components that almost every seller online and offline do not use to their advantage.

In order to have success within the wholesale business you need to follow the three steps key components 98% average Joe marketer does not apply and fails to recognize as vital important factors for company short-term and long-term success as competition is getting heavier every day, such key steps are:

Key Component Number 1: 

Research. Product and market research both online and offline is a must for the initial start-up success of a potential profitable wholesale business.

You need to discover what wholesale items are profitable, which items are viable and saturated, item acceptance-nationally or worldwide, market population, item conversion rate, return on investment and competition research to name a few.

Know how to make this research before deciding to sell a product and more importantly, a wholesale item. Since when we sell wholesale, profits are less since we sell to merchants, retailers or clients and therefore need more research time to enjoy possible future profits.

Key Component Number 2: 

Test. Most successful businesses test their product and system before even starting to sell the main item both online or offline.

One of the tools you can use for your immediate advantage is the use of surveys. By using and completing a survey to a potential customer, you obtain valuable rapport on customer likes and dislikes about your idea, product or business concept. Use this free survey resource to your advantage before selling for immediate feedback.

Key Component Number 3: 

Take Action. Start offering the wholesale item for a fee and gather final conclusions if your item will or will not sell. By doing the proper research, testing and getting into an action process mode, you will win or lose money. No matter what happens in your sales experience with your new item, you earn profits or you gain considerable knowledge and experience.

Very importantly, you must take action with your new idea or recurring wholesale business venture as doing so will increase your experience and potential profit success within your niche and industry.

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