The Nexus Gulf

There are six steps to generating new business and increasing your company’s revenue, all this takes is a little profiling and you can make all subsequent sales actions more effective.

I run a sales forum in the UK (http://www.asalesforum.com/) we get many questions from new sales people, seasoned professionals and small business owners relating to new business sales campaigns. I firmly believe that planning is key and the answers to their questions often relate back to this simple sales planning method.

Step 1 – Get access to historical data on your existing customers and their buying habits and information about prospects who will not buy from you.

Step 2 – Find information on your major competitors, their products and USP’s.

Step 3 – Now take a look at your top customers (depending on the nature of your business and customer spend, this could be as few as 5 or as many as 50) take a look at why they buy from you. Do they like your customer service? Do you offer product features that are unique? Do you offer additional services they value? Are you a one stop shop for them? Do you fill a specialised niche? Also are there some common traits these customers have? Perhaps size, location or industry sector?

Step 4 – Next take a look at the prospects which do not buy from you and find some common traits with these.

Step 5 – From here you can easily see what it is your biggest customers like about you and why they buy from you, which business is being won by your competition and why, along with any existing gaps in the market.

Step 6 – You now understand why your best customers are your best customers and why your prospects are buying from the competition.

From here you can make informed decisions about who to target and with which products or services. Every time you speak to another prospect they will be similar to your best existing customers, so therefore, will have great potential to become a loyal customer too. An added benefit to this exercise is that you will learn a lot more about your competition.

Following these steps can be as simple or in depth as you wish, dependant on the level or information you want to get out of the exercise. It may be that you marketing department already hold a lot of this information, so check with them first as you don’t want to duplicate efforts.

Finally – Good Luck – Although you will not be relying on luck with your future sales as you have now stacked the cards in your favour.

With 10 years experience in selling for and into the UK technology sectors, Steve has worked his way up through the ranks to Sales Manager for a well known Software vendor and is currently launching a new business venture.

Steve Smith

Forum Administrator

(http://www.asalesforum.com/)

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A myth can best be described as somebody or something whose existence is or was widely believed in, but is in reality fictitious. Based on this description I have created a series of articles entitled: Sales Myths. Here is one of them.

Sales Myth: People with the greatest “gift of gab” make the greatest salespeople.

Belief: Our ability to talk clearly and present powerfully is the most important factor in getting people to buy.

Problem: You’re a good, or maybe a great presenter. Qualified prospects seem to be impressed with your presentation, but are not moved to buy.

Solution: Stop telling your prospects the reasons they should buy your product.

People do things, buy things and believe in things for their reasons, not yours.

When you’re telling, you’re not really selling at all.

Give up the need to tell, give up the NEED to sell (notice, I didn’t say give up the commitment to sell) and give up the need to convince and influence.

When you give up the need to tell, sell and talk you can focus on uncovering the issues, needs, problems and desired outcomes of the prospect.

The results of a communications study conducted at UCLA in 1967 showed that words as a communications device may be the least effective of all influencing tools.

The statistical breakdown of the study indicated that words make up only seven percent of an effective communication. Tone, posture, gestures and other aspects of our physiology make up the ninety-three percent that adds the emphasis needed to convince and influence.

In other words, how you say something may be more important than what you say.

Whether you agree with the premise of the study or not, one thing is perfectly clear from the results: Listening is not on the list of effective communication tools, and I think it should be.

I believe that listening is the most important communications tool of all.

By no means is this meant to suggest that you should give up talking or presenting entirely.

However, the idea that you can enter a sales situation with a canned presentation and a high “glibness” quotient and expect to come out with a signed contract is outdated and needs to be modified.

Most of us have been trained that to be a good sales person you have to be ready to give your prospect a lot of information that you think they need to know from your point of view or your company’s point of view.

I believe that you must only give your prospect information that they think they need to know – from their point of view.

How do you accomplish this? How do you discover what your prospect really wants to know?

The answer to those questions is contained in one of the main ingredients in my formula for selling success: Ask powerful Open-Ended Questions.

You will enhance your selling effectiveness and close more sales by simply asking powerful open-ended questions and listening carefully to the response.

Once you get that information from your prospect you can customize your reply. You’ll be ready to deliver information that focuses clearly on the prospect’s specific needs instead of your “best guess” perception of those needs.

This calls for a dramatic shift from “Days Gone By”.

This is an entirely different day.

To be a truly successful salesperson you need to communicate through the information filter provided by your prospect. The best way to identify this filter is to ask open-ended questions and then listen carefully to the answers.

Today’s advice: Focus less on “smooth” talking and more on “hard” listening.

© 2005 Ian Krieger

Ike Krieger is the founder of BusinessSuccessBuilder.com. He is a nationally known business language expert, mentor, speaker, radio and TV talk show host, educator and author. He is a former communications instructor at Ohio State University.

He has served as business makeover specialist for the LA Times and writes for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He is the current Chairman of the Board of the North San Fernando Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce. Ike’s business success builder programs have helped thousands of entrepreneurs, executives, salespeople, consultants and professionals get an even bettershot at networking, selling and business success.

Ike can be reached at 800-700-4334 or by e-mail at ike@businesssuccessbuilder.com.

BusinessSuccessBuilder.com. Build it Big, Build it Bigger!

http://www.businesssuccessbuilder.com

818-997-7575 – 800-700-4334

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Want to increase sales within your company? It’s not as hard to do as some might have you believe. Though we as a nation are in the midst of an economic downturn these past two years, your company does not have to be. What follows are three simple steps to increase sales, no matter the economic conditions.

1. Simplify your advertising

Consumers today are inundated daily with advertising campaigns and solicitations. Frankly, most of these advertising campaigns are not worth the money spent on them. Why? Because they continue to use the same methods as their competitors (direct-mail, billboards, internet advertising, television advertising, and radio advertising) and in the same manner. What has resulted is a society immune to “pitches”, “angles”, and “tricks” that get them to become consumers of your products. Some tips to simplifying your advertising:

-Avoid cliches. Most are overused anyway.

-Be better, not best. Most products are pitched as “the best” of their kind. Consumers don’t always need the best, however. They just need products that are better than most.

-Less is more. Don’t allow your message to become lost in the tidal wave of stimuli thrown at consumers. Shorter, succinct messages work well.

2. Target the few

Once you have begun to simply your advertising, focus your message on those few people who begin trends rather than follow them. Perhaps you have friends like this-they revel in finding new products to love. They enjoy having the “newest” product, the “coolest” ideas, the “different” gadgets. These types of consumers become walking billboards, and should be the focus of your advertising. They actually do most of the advertising work for you. Some tips:

-Know what makes your product better. Make it the theme of your advertising message.

-Know what makes your product different. Emphasize this.

-Worry less about those who are apathetic towards your products. Worry more about those that are extremely enthusiastic. Cater to them.

3. Build the relationship rather than the sale

Becoming a better salesman is easy: improve your relationship skills. Most consumers are looking for peace of mind rather than products anyway. Seek to first build trust and understanding in your relationships with consumers. There are over a dozen hair salons within five miles of my house, yet I always drive twenty minutes longer to get my hair cut each month. Why? Because I enjoy my relationship with the individuals that cut my hair at this particular shop. We talk, we laugh. I enjoy the experience. Thus, I return, even though it is over ten miles from my house, and somewhat inconvenient. I don’t pay for the haircut as much as I do the relationship. Im a loyal consumer.

Some tips:

-Focus on producing value more than selling products. Make quality products, hire quality people.

-Learn about your customers at every opportunity

-Talk price last, not first. If price is the determining factor for buying your product, you’ve lost control of the sales conversation. Focus instead on the consumers needs and wants, then seek to meet them.

Copyright (2003) Leif H. Smith, Psy.D. All rights reserved.

Performance expert Leif H. Smith, Psy.D, is the president of Personal Best Consulting, a consulting firm located in Hilliard, Ohio. To learn more tips and techniques to immediately improve performance in your life and to sign up for his FREE monthly advice newsletter, visit http://www.personalbestconsulting.com

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In my life I have the joy and pleasure of helping others to achieve their goals and ambitions. I regularly get calls from people who have attended one of my seminars or who have bought one of my products telling me that they have doubled or trebled their sales. Whilst this is personally gratifying I have long wondered what it is that actually changes for these individuals that propels them to get these phenomenal results…

As many of my seminars are purely mindset / motivation based it’s not the skills (important as they are) so it has to be some element of mindset, but what?

What is that empowers some individuals to walk out and double their sales virtually over night?

My opinion is that the ones who get the instantaneous results are the ones who manage to locate and destroy sales loser beliefs
that are holding them back from what they want to achieve. This 10-step exercise will help you to find and remove any limiting
beliefs that are stopping you from achieving the success that you deserve….

1. Consider different sales situations e.g. cold calling, presenting, negotiation…

Think about your job on a day to day, week to week and month to month basis. Think about different sales situations that you get involved in, particularly ones which you may find difficult or
challenging. Examples might include cold calling, making sales presentations, negotiating, closing, prospecting, dealing with awkward customers, managing service level issues, handling
complaints, fielding sales objections…

2. “What emotions do you experience?”

Get in touch with how you really feel about these situations. If you feel bad it will effect your approach, pace, tone, pitch, words, body language and therefore the results that you get. Our
society is focused on repressing emotions and managing behaviours but ultimately your behaviour will stem from your emotion so it’s important that you reclaim this valuable information.

3. Does this support or limit me? Help or hinder me? Drive success or failure?

Is this emotion useful in this situation? If you’re walking into a major negotiation and you feel scared is that the emotion that you’d like? If you need to cold call and you feel nervous or
devalued does that help? Not likely. Be as honest as you can be here. Everyone experiences unresourceful emotions from time to time. The question should not be whether you do or not but
whether you do anything about it or not!

4. “What do I believe that causes me to feel this way?”

Our emotions are mostly driven by our beliefs about a situation. Two salespeople in the same situation will often feel entirely differently. This is down to their beliefs about that situation.
If sales person 1 thinks that their product is too expensive, when the client says, “It’s very expensive!” they’re likely to think, “Damn it! I knew it!” They’ll probably get depressed and
either walk away or give away their product.

If sales person 2 thinks their product is absolutely worth the money and the client says, “It’s very expensive!” they’re likely to think, “Yeah! But it’s worth it!” and set about asking questions to start to build up the value again in relation to
the client’s business situation.

5. Is this true? Is this absolutely true?

Most of us see our beliefs as reality so once you capture this little bug you need to question it’s reality by asking whether it’s true or not. Often you’ll get the answer that it is true so
keep asking yourself over and over and ask like you mean to get an answer. If it’s not absolutely true then chances are it’s a belief.

6. Has there ever been a time when this wasn’t true?

Your objective now is to find just one time that this wasn’t true. If you can, it’s a belief. Let’s say for example that you believe that cold calling is a waste of time. This belief might
well cause you to feel unmotivated and down when forced into cold calling. Ask yourself if there has ever been a time when this wasn’t true? One time when either you or someone else got
something out of cold calling? If there has then it’s a belief and not a reality.

7. Would a sales superstar believe this?

Still struggling to shake the little critter? Try an out of body experience…. Imagine the best salesperson you can envisage standing next to you. Would they believe this to be true? When
negotiating some people are consistently more successful than others when defending revenues and profits. Much of the reason for this is down to belief.

Try spending some time with the best negotiator you can find and elicit their beliefs. Next time you enter a situation and you find yourself thinking, “We’re going to
have to offer X here to get this?” try asking yourself if your sales superstar would truly believe this? If they wouldn’t, what would they believe?

8. What’s it costing me to believe this?

One powerful way of getting leverage on yourself is to work out the cost to yourself of holding your belief. I once worked with a chap who believed that selling at a 20% margin was the most
that he could ethically commit to. After considering his ethical reasons we studied the performance of the rest of his team who were selling at 25-30% margin. We calculated the personal
financial cost to him of this lost commission over 6 months, 12 months and 10 years! When he realised that 10 years of holding this belief would cost him a villa in Spain he was far
more willing to let it go!

What is your belief costing you… personally, financially, emotionally and spiritually?

9. What evidence contradicts this?

Search for evidence to contradict your beliefs. Most people spend most of their lives collating evidence to support their beliefs. This is fine if they’re superstar beliefs but totally
unproductive when they’re not. Find people who don’t believe the same as you. Study top performers. Listen to clients. Create your own loser belief rebuttal programme. The more evidence that you
have to contradict a belief, the easier it is to let it go.

10. How would I benefit by letting this go now?

Consider what you could achieve by letting your belief go now and adopting a sales superstar belief. How will it benefit you financially and personally? How will you benefit in your career?
How will others see you? What will it do for your relationships? Your morale? And your long-term health? What about your security and your happiness?

For the last 10 years, sales motivational speaker and author, Gavin Ingham has been helping sales people to explode their sales performance by turning self-doubt, fear and lack of motivation into self-belief, confidence and action. With his inspirational approach to sales performance and motivation Gavin combines commercial experience, personal excellence and communications technologies in delivering personal and business sales success.

Visit http://www.gaviningham.net now to join Gavin Ingham’s free newsletter Real World Sales Tools ~ tips, tricks & techniques that will help you to outsell, out-manoeuvre and outclass your competition! Refer us to your friends & colleagues but never to your competition!

Gavin is also founder of http://www.salesessentials.net the online sales resource packed full of top class sales tips that will help you to increase your sales results right now!

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Another key reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon subjective information. Think about it:

• What are resumes? They are an individual’s subjective portrayal of their capabilities and experiences.
• What occurs during an interview? Interviewees attempt to package their responses to questions in a manner that will make the best impression. Meanwhile, interviewers are forming personal opinions about candidates’ qualifications for the position.

I’m not suggesting that subjective information is useless. Subjective information is a valid and valuable component of any “people decision”. However, if decisions based solely upon subjective information produce an undesirable result 80 percent of the time, doesn’t it make sense to consider making a change?

One way to introduce objective information into the sales recruiting process is through specialized sales assessment tests. I’m not referring to personality or behavioral tests like Myers-Briggs or DISC. Those types of tools can be useful for learning how to communicate more effectively with someone. However, I have not found them to be useful for predicting whether someone will succeed in sales.

The specialized sales assessment tests that I’m referring to identify an individual’s strength or weakness in the following areas:

• Sales Drive: Does the individual enjoy presenting, persuading, negotiating, and motivating others?
• Emotional Toughness: How rapidly does the individual rebound from rejection and sales cycle roadblocks?
• Reasoning Ability: Does the individual ask good questions? Can they dissect answers and pick out the pieces that will help advance the conversation toward a desired end result?
• Service Drive: How interested is the individual in building relationships and helping others?
• Assertiveness: How self-assured is the individual? How effective are they at convincing others to take action?
• Attitude: Does the individual perceive a glass to be half-empty or half-full?
• Communication Skills: How precisely does the individual communicate, both verbally and in writing?
• Competitiveness: How competitive is the individual?
• Energy: Is the individual always “on the go”, or do they need to be prodded into action?
• Independence: How readily does the individual accept direction from others?
• Learning Rate: How rapidly does the individual learn new information?
• Tolerance for Administration: How willing is the individual to perform administrative activities?

Specialized sales assessment tests can also help existing salespeople that are struggling. How? First, they can be used to determine whether these individuals should be in sales. If an individual doesn’t have the talents required for sales success, there may be other roles in your organization where their talents and interests can be applied to mutual benefit. If no such positions are available, the kindest thing you can do is let them go. Why? Because it is no fun to continue to struggle in a job that is a poor fit!

Second, specialized sales assessment tests can help identify each salesperson’s unique training needs. Here is an example:

Two salespeople, Beth and Bill, work for the same company. Beth is weak in Sales Drive, which makes her reluctant to ask for orders. Bill is weak in Emotional Toughness, which makes him sensitive to rejection and limits his prospecting effectiveness. If Beth and Bill go through the same sales skills training course, how much improvement in performance should their employer expect to see?

The answer is little or none. Why? Because Beth and Bill have completely different training needs that will not be addressed by basic sales skills training.

Beth would benefit the most from attending an assertiveness training class. She also needs coaching to help her recognize that failing to ask for orders denies her customers valuable solutions to costly business problems.

Bill needs to learn to not take rejection personally. He could also benefit from training that teaches positive thinking and other motivational techniques.

Unfortunately, unless Beth’s and Bill’s unique training needs are identified, and targeted training is supplied to address those specific needs, there isn’t much reason to expect their performance to improve.

Conclusion

Many “80/20″ sales performance differences result from relying too heavily on SUBJECTIVE information when hiring and managing salespeople. Adding OBJECTIVE information (gathered by specialized sales assessment tests) to these “people decision” processes can dramatically increase the proportion of top performers on your sales team and improve the performance of existing sales team members.

Copyright 2005 — Alan Rigg

Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don’t Perform and What to Do About It. His company, MySalesTest.com, provides specialized sales assessment tests that help business owners, executives, and managers DOUBLE sales by consistently hiring top sales performers. For more information and a FREE special report, visit http://www.mysalestest.com.

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I am not the world’s most organized salesman. In fact, I may be the least well organized sales person you will ever know.

However, I do know one very important organizational fact regarding success in sales. If you don’t set aside time for Prospecting on a regular basis, that is daily or weekly, you will pay a price.

I recently wrote about the hills and valleys of sales. These are the times when you are really flying high and then the times when you are down in the valleys trying to climb up and see some day light.

The reason we get into those valleys is because we let “things” prevent us from doing what we need to do to stay on the hills. In my case, that is virtually always Prospecting.

I let myself get involved in other work and don’t Prospect. And this stuff is legitimate – really. I am working with someone else, working on a presentation, making speeches, or some other very important and worthwhile activity.

That doesn’t prevent the problem of a valley in my future however.

So what do we do? We make a sacred time each week that is just for Prospecting. Nothing short of death gets in the way.

Our BLITZ CALL® Prospecting System is designed specifically for regular periodic Prospecting. Not a “big deal” Prospecting event, but just a regular activity to keep your pipeline of Prospects full. If you try to make Prospecting an “event” then it will get too complicated and you won’t do it.

Once your Prospecting system is set up and running you will be able to Prospect without needing to do anything to prepare. Just do it. Nothing will get in the way.

That way you can spend your other time doing all the other things that must get done, while not avoiding the essential – Prospecting.

We have heard it all our business lives, but it is still true, time really is money.

Sell Well and Often.

Bill Truax Bill@BlitzCall.com 800-253-1214

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Secure instant messaging is something to be concerned with since
instant messaging has become a popular business tool for
communicating with customers and suppliers as well as for
collaborating with colleagues.

If you’re an internet user, you are probably familiar with
instant messaging such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and
AOL Instant Messenger, and ICQ. These are all public instant
messaging tools that enable internet users worldwide to
communicate back and forth online in real time using text
messages.

Some of the public instant messaging programs also have video and
voice capabilities. Through instant messaging, multiple people
can be invited to join in on a conversation and users can even
transfer files to one another instantly.

You can imagine how convenient this technology is for business
communications, but as business use increases, so does the need
for secure instant messaging.

Because of the confidential nature of most business transactions
businesses generally are not too crazy about the idea of
transmitting sensitive data and communications over the internet
without proper security, authenticity and encryption.

There is definite concern about data being intercepted or viruses
being exchanged when using public instant messenger programs.

Industries with highly sensitive data have moved toward the use
of private, closed instant messenger programs that encrypt data
and record communications as a solution for secure instant
messaging.

While this is a good option for businesses to handle internal
communications, it isn’t necessarily a solution that will enable
businesses to use instant messaging securely as a sales, customer
service or technical support tool because in order to communicate
through a private, closed instant messenger program, all users
that are collaborating must have the specific program.

Undoubtedly, the communication, collaboration and file sharing
capabilities that instant messaging presents is highly desirable
for businesses. As a sales tool, instant messaging enables
potential customers to ask questions and to have them answered in
real time.

A sales presentation can be made via instant messaging and more
than one person at a time can even be invited to join the online
sales presentation. Customer service and technical support can
also be provided via instant messaging and if support from a
colleague or supervisor is needed in the midst of a conversation,
they can be invited to join the conversation online.

Another advantage of using instant messaging technology as a
sales and service tool is that the text conversations can be
easily saved and referred back to as needed or archived as a
permanent record of communications.

The main disadvantages of using public instant messenger programs
are vulnerability due to the possibility of malware distribution
through messenger programs and the potential for data leakage.
Instant messaging can also be a hindrance to productivity because
it is so quick, convenient and easy to contact a user of instant
messaging.

This ease of instant communication can interrupt a person’s work
causing them to waste time online. These disadvantages lead to
the concerns regarding the use of public instant messenger
programs as a sales or service tool.

For an intranet or for businesses that have the same private
instant messenger programs secure instant messaging is possible;
but in communicating with the standard consumer through public
instant messaging, that is not the case.

If you use instant messaging as a sales or service tool, be aware
that you may be open to vulnerabilities and data leakage if the
communications are not accomplished via secure instant messaging
technology.

Because of the potential for data leakage, credit card
information, proprietary data and so forth should not be
exchanged via public instant messenger programs or services. If
you and your customers can accept the risks of using a public
instant messenger program, it really can be an incredible tool
for sales and service.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your
rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled marketing advice
you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or
website owner who wants to make more money from your website,
learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet
business at http://BiznessTips.com.

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Sales Training – Great Sales Success for Women (and Men Too!) Key #2

In this 10 Key article series, learn how to catapult your career, your sales and your life through learning superior ‘Saleswoman-ship.’ Key #2 is Avoiding Self Deception

Self Deception

Bob Broadley, one of the top insurance salesmen in Australia puts it in strong terms. He says that the single biggest failure sales people make is self deception. He said he wasn’t ‘born with success.’ He had to study the most successful sales people he could find.

His advice? “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re selling when you’re not in front of the right number of people every day.” Working eight hours per day is not the point. It’s what you do those eight hours that counts.

If you’re not in front of enough prospects, you won’t sell enough to make your target. And how do you get in front of enough prospects? By making enough appointments. It’s that straight forward. “Yet many people fool themselves thinking they are selling when in fact they are doing busy work,” says Bob.

“You must know your daily targets for finding prospects and do that first. That means making appointments and seeing prospects. All else is secondary.”

Look at the list of success preparation points at the beginning again. All of them have to do with planning your targets and workloads so that you put yourself in front of the necessary number of prospects.

Remember, the difference between success and failure often is neglecting to break down the overall target into daily targets and tasks.

Let’s look at advice from people who succeed year after year. How do they put this principle into practice?

One salesman with a world-wide reputation for success is Ove Sjgren from Electrolux in Sweden. He has calculated his yearly target and broken it down to a daily figure. He knows exactly how many sales he must make per day. He knows how many prospects he must see each day.

He stresses that staying at the top is easy if you know how much you must do every day and you do it.

Not me!

“Oh, daily targets don’t relate to me,” many people argue. That’s the biggest misconception we hear from seminar delegates. They really believe they can’t break their activity into daily targets.

This is the first mental adjustment change we must all make if we are to succeed in selling. Sales come about from methodically carrying out the right practices, day in and day out.

Whether we sell large systems to governments which require three years to close, or retail products to customers which take three minutes to close, we still have to calculate which daily component parts will lead us to success. Even if we only want three customers per year, we’ll have to be negotiating with six, nine or twelve prospects constantly. We need to know how many and keep this running orderly and constantly.

In the research undertaken for Secrets of the World’s Top Sales Performers, we found that every single top sales performer in every industry knows their daily sales target and daily activity schedule. Did their companies tell them? No. They’ve calculated it themselves. It’s exactly what we all must do if we want true and lasting success.

There are 10 Keys in the Great Sales Success for Women Series.

Visit http://great-sales-training.com/ for more information

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Using a sales letter is a great way to get the attention of people that might not otherwise hear about you. Sales letters can be used as copy for web sites, sent to other businesses that might have a use for your product or service, or even just distributed to individuals.

The hardest part about getting a great sales letter, though, is coming up with fast selling words to sell yourself without sounding too pushy. One way to get your creative juices flowing is to simply pick a word and run with it.

All you need to do is let go and see where your thoughts take you. It doesn’t really matter where you start; all that matters is that you did!

Put your pen on paper and start writing anything that comes to mind. Don’t let your critical voice take over. You’re not allowed to change anything, just write the first thing you think of.

Think of a blind date. It will probably be awkward, but you will find SOMETHING to talk about. Writing is exactly the same.

Once you get started, the words start to help you. The page will create its own rules telling you to know what to write next.

Although good writing begins with a single word, there is a little more to a sales letter than just letting words leak across a page. In the past few years, many writers have found that there are certain types of openings in direct mail that are more effective than others. These work just as well for email letters and for web sites.

Here are some of these ideas to keep in mind when you are trying to structure your opening.

1) State the offer. This is so simple many people never think of it. Put the offer right at the top of your page in a headline or bold type. The offer includes the product that is for sale, its price, the terms of the sale, and the guarantee.

2) Announce it! If you have something new, start your letter with this important information. Nothing gets attention and builds excitement like the word NEW. I always put it in all capitals to give it added excitement.

3) Flatter the reader. There is nothing a customer likes more than to feel as though they are set apart from “the crowd”. Describe the type of person who would probably be one of your best customers. Tell why the way they feel, work, think, or play is important and deserves attention. Use the word “YOU” as often as you can.

4) Use a provocative quote. Quote a famous person or a customer. The quote should arouse curiosity. It should make the reader want to find out more about your product.

After you have your opening, good copy will usually follow suit. Just remember to use catchy phrases and not over hype the product. If something seems too good to be true, most people will probably disregard the offer. Ending with a PS is a nice touch, but remember that many people read the PS before they read the actual letter.

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When someone walks through your door, it is quite likely that a sales person is available and able to assist them with any questions. At that moment in time, specially in a leather oriented business, many aspects of the human sensory spectrum are in full swing. They can smell the unique scent of genuine leather, they can see and touch the smooth buttery leather and most importantly they can hear and understand what you have to say about your leather product offerings. Put all these things together and there is a very good chance you are going to make a sale! … Now try to accomplish this on the Internet.

It goes without saying that the Internet can enhance the bottom lines of many, if not all, leather oriented businesses, however, did you know that there are obstacles associated with selling online that can literally sink your leather business if you are not prepared?

For the purpose of this article, let us define the term “online commerce” as “the electronic selling of leather and leather products through an online shopping cart environment”. There are certain issues that a business should take into account before even contemplating opening up an online shop.

First let me start off by asking you a simple question. When was the last time you fired up your computer and said “I am going onto the internet to do some shopping?” I am willing to bet, that’s not too many times, if any. Most people hop on the internet to do research, or if anything, to do a little window shopping! That’s right … to look around and see what’s available. Very few people hop on the internet looking to buy something, but this does not mean you can’t sell to them! All this means is that you need to treat them a little differently to ensure they buy from you.

Here are some strategies to help you get started.

1. Develop your online catalogue with the first time shopper in mind all the time.

I can’t begin to count how many leather industry sites out there that are falling short in this department. Your company website has to take on the roll of your top sales person. It needs to provide as much information as possible to your potential customers. What we are talking about here is not only information on how to reach you, but detailed product specific information, product uses, methods for payment, shipping options, refunds etc.

You need to position your leather company as a mentor or teacher and educate your potential customers about your product offerings and their applicable uses. When writing your website content, pretend that every potential visitor will know very little about your offerings. Ensure that your content is as informative as possible. You will win over more leather consumers this way, trust me. Use this strategy whether you are selling a jacket, a pair of boots, a can of adhesive or a sheepskin. Once you convert that casual visitor into a customer, and you deliver on your orders, you’ll have gained a lifetime customer.

Now, if you’re thinking about selling say upholstery hides (or other finished hides) online, let me give you a piece of advice. Do so only with customers that have bought from you before or who have received one of your sample swatches. Why? Remember online customers are going by what is on your website; they don’t actually get to touch your upholstery leather or hide. As we all know, every hide is different and each carries its unique imperfections. So forget about trying to display the true representation of the colors or textures of hides on their monitors. With the many different monitors and graphic cards available it is an impossible task. A simple comment like – “If ordering our XYZ upholstery hide for the first time, please request a sample cutting or swatch to confirm specifications before ordering.” If you make this offer; ensure you get the samples out! Potential first-time customers will appreciate the heads up and second-timers will be unfazed as they have bought the product from you before. The alternative is an unhappy customer, restocking fees, shipping fees and the loss of a potential lifetime customer.

In the next three articles, Frank will address three additional strategies that will not only help you keep your customers, but increase them as well. Learn how a $300 order can generate in excess of $120,000 of business.

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