There are many ways to market yourself and your company online just as you would if you were a 'real world' sales person. Don't be afraid to 'knock on some doors' and ask for a sale now and then.
Social networking is an often used technique by sales professionals to network themselves, 'get out there' and 'be seen.' But how do you do that when you are an on-line business? There are many different social networking sights available today that will help you remain visible and allow you to place your website or a link to your WebPages within your profile.
Try social bookmarking as well. What is social bookmarking? Social bookmarking is based on the idea that anything you bookmark, anyone can see, and you can see who has bookmarked the same website and so on. It's a great idea to have a social bookmarking tool on your website to allow those who use social bookmarking to bookmark your website as well. It also gives you the opportunity to see who has book marked your webpage and a way to communicate with them!
To stay on top, you need a philosophical understanding of customer focus and a sales process that allows you to implement this philosophy on a day-to-day basis. The Impact selling system will allow you to do just that. It's a principles-based, customer-focused, strategic process that will empower you with the selling skills necessary to keep your focus where it needs to be. In our case, on the 75 percent of our time marketing to customers and 25 percent of time working on our websites.
Thinking about the way you sell, on your website, do you use the word "we?" Such as, "We offer [insert product or services]. The "we" should be changed to a word about your customers, take the focus off yourself and place it where it belongs, on the customers.
Things like how much money "they" will make with your products. How much "they" can save using your services. You can use "I" but not "we" begin to substitute the words "you" because "we" is for selling and "you" is for buying. And you should be saying (or writing) things in terms of the customer.
This is more than 'knowing your customer,' this is improving your services and "wowing" your customers enough for them to say, "This is the best service I've ever received!" Much better than you before, perhaps when you were just beginning or your competitors. Remember, you don't need to cut prices to give better service, before, during or after the sale.
Spend some time with your customer. This can be done on-line through networking sites, invite the customer or potential customer to join you at the site for a 'chat' and spend a little time getting to know the person. Make sure you truly understand them, their businesses and their concerns. You can do this by repeating what they 'say' in the on-line chat, but in your own words so they know you understand them. It's called mirroring.
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