Many sales people tend to always be chasing the next customer and worrying about the next paycheck. The good news is that this is unnecessary and can be fixed forever in two years or less. Sales people can eliminate future sales and income anxiety once and for all.
What’s the key to creating freedom? It’s marketing. If you are a sales person who is waiting for your business to provide an endless funnel of prospects and buyers, you are living in a fantasy land. Even with a ton of leads and traffic provided to you, you must have a marketing plan to utilize the traffic, leads and power of your customer base.
Write down everything you are doing to market yourself. Your goal should be to add to this list every month and strengthen or add dimensions to everything you already are doing. Eventually, you will begin to integrate your message from all your sources of marketing and the power of your marketing plan will begin to grow tremendously. You will appear to be everywhere at once. Your goal is to appear bigger, better and even more successful than you already are. Perception becomes reality.
All sales people should have direct mail in their marketing plan. The direct mail campaign should contain marketing letters that are geared towards multiple approaches, including: holidays, special events, news, new residents, existing customers, inactive customers, residents that surround existing customers, potential customers already using your service, newsletters and lead generation letters to potential customers offering a free report or service.
In your letters, utilize a consistent theme. You should, over time, make yourself a quasi-celebrity with your marketing. Always have a photo or caricature of you, or your family or staff int he marketing pieces. Make your likeness, theme and messages take on a status of recognition. Your marketing should grow legs and take on a life of its own that is enduring. Market share of mind creates greater market share.
Talk to people in your marketing in a personal and conversational tone. A great advertising person once said, “You must enter into the conversation they are already having in their head.” Don’t be afraid to be unique and conversational in your marketing. The worst mistake you can ever make in marketing is to be boring. there are way too many advertising messages today for you to put our just another look alike, same-old marketing piece that gets lost in the shuffle. Unique, bold, consistent and personal get rewarded today.
Don’t allow yourself to get caught in the excuse trap of saying, “I tried that once and it didn’t work.” You may not have done it right the first time; most don’t. That’s not a reason to quit.
Always think of the 3Ms – Message, Market and Media. What is your message? What is your marketplace you are delivering the message to, and does it match? What media will you use to reach the market?
The more you can target your message to a targeted audience, the better your results. There are list companies that can provide demographic, socio-graphic or just about any other filter your desire to qualify your potential and desired market. The old saying is that the best way to have a successful restaurant is to find a hungry crowd. You must also find your hungry crowd. Once you find them, you must bring them to you, gain them as customers, build a fence around them and never let them go.
The best way to create a sell-able marketing approach in your message is to study copy-writing and the masters of the craft. Writing copy for ads, letters, marketing pieces and newsletters that get people to take action is a learnable skill that will make you more money than robbing a bank. Study, practice and test your copy-writing skills everyday. Nothing will teach you as much about skills everyday. Nothing will teach you as much about sales, marketing and business as copy-writing skills.
Learning to write copy, plan marketing sequences, doing the grunt work or hiring someone to do it certainly isn’t sexy. It won’t cure your traffic, lead or sales woes over night. But in the long run, they will be the things that make you successful, wealthy and free.