8 Role Playing Tips To Increase Your Sales Success and Improve Lead Quality!

By Paul DiModica

Role playing is an underused sales tool by most technology and professional service companies. When employed correctly, it can increase your sales team success, improve your market lead to prospect conversion, identify sales skill gaps and allow you to develop an esprit de corps amongst your sales team as they experience sales education as a team.Conversely, when incorrectly used, it embarrasses your sales account managers, produces poor sales/management interaction, diminishes lead generation quality and hides sales training requirements from your executive staff. It is estimated that only 21% of sales teams actually role play sales issues and objections during the sales year. So, how should role playing be used? Role playing is a business tool to manage sales stress when communicating to prospects. As sales stress increases during prospect interaction, salespeople lose control of their verbal responses, shoot from the hip and simultaneously lose control of the sales cycle. Sales stress develops when salespeople are not prepared to respond to the weaves and bobs of prospect questioning. Managing prospect questioning through a trained process will reduce sales stress and increase sales success. Sales role playing, like any other training tool, needs to be a structured process with guidelines in order for your sales team to get the most out of it. The sales program should have specific goals based on written objectives. Pulling a salesperson into a corner office and grilling them as a CEO buyer may be as effective as focusing on targeted sales skill improvement based on increasing sales efficiency on sales techniques like prospect questioning, cold calling, demos, etc.   8 Role Playing Tips To Increase Your Success! Never make role playing easy. Salespeople must learn to be able to handle pressure (and stress) in the form of difficult inbound questions from prospects based on the prospect’s probing need to know about your value, price, competitive positioning and feature/function offers. Being tough in role playing makes salespeople ready for any outcome. Role play by title of buyers. Salespeople need to adapt to their sales verbal communication skills by buyer title. The way you sell a CFO of a Fortune 1000 firm is diametrically different than a president of a small private firm. If you are selling a VP of Marketing, than role play with someone who will act like a VP of Marketing. Create a Prospect Buyer Dictionary.  Catalogue the words that your targeted prospect buyer will use during your sales cycle and use them during your role playing practice. The more you sound like the buyer, the faster they will see you like themselves and as a peer. Split role playing between sales peers and sales management. Sales role playing should be carried out by both sales management and sales team members to allow for diversity of approach and experience. Have each team member take turns being the buyer or the seller. Make a list of your top ten sales objections and use them during your role playing sessions. Selling management is just managing their understanding of your value. Value is communicated based on your ability to show the prospect how you can help fix their business pain. Always role play your 10 toughest sales objections so salespeople can see how to manage value expectations with their most common objections and questions. When role playing with salespeople, redirect all conversation away from the sales process. Prospects (even qualified prospects) at times will change subjects and “steer” salespeople away from sales cycle conversation. To sell senior management, salespeople need to chit chat less and stay on the targeted goals of the appointment or conversation by qualifying the prospect and moving forward in the sales cycle. Role play with sales team members to see how quickly and succinctly they bring back the conversation to the discussion about relevant business issues. Tape record all role playing sessions. Role playing is a reusable, educational tool that should be listened to over and over again. By recording your sales role playing session, you can later document great sales objection responses and disseminate them in written form to your sales team. Document each salesperson’s role playing strengths and weaknesses. Role playing is a replicable, scalable sales tool. Understanding and managing your sales team’s skill sets will help them hit their sales quota faster. If a salesperson crumbles under the pressure of sales role playing with their peers or their direct sales manager, how will they perform in person? And how many qualified prospects are they burning through by saying the wrong thing? Through role playing, you can help individual salespeople increase sales quota success.   To Increase Your Sales Income and marketing lead quality – Role Play More!   To your success, Rick Erling

 

 

 

The Five Stages of Prospect Value Identification

 

  

By Paul DiModica    Prospect value identification is an integrated process of perceived and actual value delivered based on your offering and your customer’s perception of that offering at various stages of your sales cycle. There are five steps of prospect value identification that take place during your sales cycle and they include:    The Vendor’s Perceived ValueThis is a vendor presented value and is based on how you see your value and how you communicate its status to your prospects or existing customers during the pre-sales cycle through your firm’s marketing communication and sales step process.  The Customer or Prospect Transitional ValueThis value happens in tandem during the discovery process where the prospect matches or rejects your perceived value (vendor’s perceived value) with their perception of your value. This is a value conversion step during the sales cycle.  The Prospect’s Perceived Value of Your OfferingThis value happens when your prospect or your customer finalizes their perception of your value relative to your competition and makes an assumption (correctly or incorrectly) of the value of your product or service relative to price, the business results it produces and the alternative options they have for purchase or non-purchase.  The Prospect’s Actual ValueThis is the alignment by the prospect or customer during their post-sale decision process to determine if the perceived value communicated by you in the pre-sale matches their perception of your actual value in the post-sale.  The Value GapThis is the measurement or gap between the vendor’s perceived value believed during the pre-sale steps and the prospect’s actual value calculated after the first sale.  Prospect value identification by its very nature is a layered, intricate process that must be aligned with your sales and marketing communication as an integrated approach. Prospect value observation starts at the beginning of your sales cycle and your position is often determined based on your entry point into the organization.Enter into a prospect’s organizational chart below the title of Vice President at the beginning of your sales cycle and you are entering into the commodity zone of buying. Prospects below the title of VP generally make business decisions based on your offering’s features, functions or price.  When you sell management at the Vice President level and above, they buy based on their perceptions of your business offering’s value. This is a variable option that you can manipulate if you can sell correctly. Vice Presidents and Abovebuy based on their impression of your business value.  —————————————————————    Commodity Zone  —————————————————————   Directors and Below   buy based on your features, functions and price.  Often there is a gap between what firms believe in themselves and what their prospects actually experience.  It is not what you sell, but how your prospect positions the value of your offerings against the alternative buying options they have that must be managed.    To sell more, sell above the commodity line, manage the prospect’s perception of your business value, and control the value gap between their perception of your value and your perception.  What the customer demands is last year’s model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs, you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it. Nicholas Dewolf, Founder Teradyne Corp  <!–  –>     To your success,                    Rick Erling

Use Geo and Spatial Marketing Segmentation to Grow Your Business

Think Small to Grow Large Use Geo and Spatial Marketing Segmentation to Grow Your Business By Paul DiModica

When working with clients, we often help identify new business market gaps to launch into as well as existing markets to exploit using a segmentation model based on multiple variables including, but not limited to, the client’s core competence, competitive position, corporate financial capabilities, market demand, business assets, and risk tolerance.    Are looking to open a new office in another city? Should you sell overseas? Will prospects in London, Las Vegas and Chicago buy your offering based on the same marketing characteristics? Should you increase your offering’s price? Should you set up a channel partner program to expand? These are all relevant business growth questions that CEO’s ask on a regular basis. When trying to expand, it is important to know the best practices needed to grow your business. To answer these questions, consider enrolling in one of our coaching programs. Segmentation marketing is one key business driver to understand how to maximize top line revenue growth. To answer these questions correctly, management teams must understand the basis for business growth. Two types of segmentation marketing methods are: Geo-marketing segmentation Spatial marketing segmentation Geo-Marketing Segmentation When building your business growth plan, there are different marketing propositions that must be developed for the geography that you market to. Prospects are not rigid, stone-like clones of each other. They have unique value identification demands based on the geography they live in. Prospects in London, Tokyo, Boston, Chicago and LA all have different drivers that make them acquire. Do southern people in the U.S. buy different from people in the midwest? Geo-marketing is the subsegmenting of these unique buyer variables around the traditional 4 P’s of marketing — Price, Promotion, Position and Product. Geo-marketing can: Subsegment for you geographic opportunities within larger geographies (Dallas within Texas) Help identify new markets to enter Refine sales and marketing budget allocation Personalize your marketing messages   Spatial Marketing SegmentationSpatial marketing goes even further than geo-marketing by helping you analyze not just the geography of where your targeted prospects live, but also the intersection of buyer value based on your offering’s distribution capabilities, competitors, buyer lifestyle, communication capabilities, buyer financing capabilities and even weather, all within the same buying zones. When creating your value forward marketing programs, remember to build value uniquely, not globally, based on the spatial buying characteristics of the prospect you are trying to sell (i.e., well-to-do retiree buyers in a waterfront community may perceive value for the same offering differently than prospects who live in a midwest farming community). Spatial marketing can help you: Forecast demand Profile your customers Minimize marketing investment mistakes Increase customer satisfaction levels by understanding the demographic flow of complaints (who complains and why) Use spatial and geo-marketing segmentation methods as business tools to increase the return on investment of your marketing programs and as a foundation to make premeditated business decisions based on logic, not emotion. “If you want to be a big company tomorrow, you have to invest and start acting like one today.” Thomas J. Watson, Jr., Founder IBM To your success, Rick Erling About Rick Erling and The CxO Group Rick Erling is CEO and Founder of The CxO Group, LLC. We are a managing partner of the Value Forward Network and have business coaching partners in five countries making us one of the world’s largest management consulting groups focused on helping companies increase corporate revenue capture. We work with senior executive teams to integrate sales process, marketing methodology, corporate strategy and financial management into one outbound revenue capture program to increase corporate revenue. We do this by assessing the value your customers see and the value you think you have and then measure the “value variance” gap between the two. Once we have identified the “Value Variance” between the two, we then make appropriate strategic and tactical recommendations on your corporate strategy and marketing programs to close the gaps. When this is completed, we then train your sales team to sell to management more effectively using techniques that are linked to our recommendations. Top-performing organizations are increasing their companies’ revenue, within a constricted economy, by investing in revenue growth acceleration strategies, For more information visit www.thecxogroup.com

How to Use CIA Tactics to Sell More

Managing Your Prospects Using CIA Philosophy

 

7 Stages of Prospect Commitment

by Paul DiModica

 

I have four brothers in my family . . . I am the quiet one. Years ago, one of my younger brothers Mark was an airborne ranger in the U.S. Army attached to an intelligence unit at Fort Lewis. Every day, he would get up and follow around Russian sailors in Seattle to see who they talked with when they came ashore off of their “fishing trawlers.”

 

After doing that for several years, he was then transferred to work at the White House, where he and other paramilitary types like Navy Seals and SF (Special Forces) commandos were co-mingled with secret service agents for presidential security. During his tenure, he often worked with Caspar W. Weinberger, the secretary of defense at that time, traveling the world.

 

To be honest, I wouldn’t give my brother a sharp pencil, but he was always carrying around automated machine guns in a bag, a locksmith license, and a bullet proof vest. A long time before 2001, it took him hours to get through airports because he had to check in ahead of time with airport security to show his “hardware”.

 

Then he left the secret service and kind of disappeared for a while. My family and I thought he went to work for a black bag division of the Pentagon, training counterinsurgency and intelligence tactics to Fortune 100 CEO bodyguards — but, we never really knew.

 

Then he resurrected again and went on to work in technology security (one of the three things secret service agents monitor) for a global accounting and consulting firm and often traveled to Moscow to help a national truck rental company set up Russian transportation distribution channels.

 

I know this is hard to believe . . . but it is all true.

 

Through his travels and his adventures, he often talked about how he and his cohorts always managed the environment they were operating in. They never assumed that people (even those who had appropriate authority) knew what they were doing regardless of what they said or did. He often stated, “It’s really up to me — to manage . . . not to be managed. Being managed can be dangerous. When dealing with people, you need commitments . . . not just intentions.”

 

And this is the point. You need to get commitments.

 

Spending time with prospects who are supposed to be qualified, but never buy depletes and wastes your available selling time and effort. In IT marketing and sales, you must force prospects to take parallel action steps with you to prove that they are qualified buyers – not professional lookers.

 

The 7 Stages of Prospect Commitment You Should Manage to Accelerate Your Sales Cycle
 
It is important to manage prospect expectations. Selling is a profession where you must subliminally drive the prospect to appreciate the time limitations you have in moving them through the seven stages of client commitment and helping them fix their business needs.

 

The buying cycle and the selling cycle are always different.
Nobody has a two-year sales quota!

 

So, to sell more, you must manage the prospect’s buying expectations.

You can combine some of these expectations (listed as stages below) and shorten your sales cycle even faster, but if you do not manage ALL of these expectations, you will not close the deal.

 

7 Stages of Client Commitment

1. Prospect Attention — Capturing the prospect’s attention happens when you successfully cold call, network, or respond to an inbound lead by making contact with an appropriate prospect who has economic approval to buy.

    

2. Prospect Disbelief — Prospects automatically tend to disbelieve you on the first pass for this simple reason: You’re a salesperson. Use your knowledge of their business model and business pain to break through their disbelief filter and “prove” that you sell a business tool which can help their business.

    

3. Prospect Value Identification — Based on your firm’s unique sales value proposition, you must position yourself and your firm differently from your competition and get the prospect to verbalize the difference.

    

4. Prospect Action Step Commitment — To sell more prospects, you need to drive them to take “action step” commitments not just “verbal” commitments. Has a prospect ever told you “we are going to sign the purchase order next month” and then not respond to any of your calls or email inquiries until 6 months later? Prospects need to show action steps that move your sales cycle forward to prove that you should spend time with them.

    

5. Prospect Time Management Commitment — To close deals, management must commit their time for project scope development, demo’s, executive briefings, and contract negotiations. If you have a prospect who will not commitment their time, then they are not ready to buy.

    

6. Prospect Financial Commitment — There is an old Sicilian saying that my grandfather (a successful entrepreneur) use to say — “No money? Call me when you have a nickel in your pocket.” Spending too much time on a prospect because they “should” buy or “will” buy sometime in the future will not help you hit your sales quota now. Prospects must make a financial commitment by giving you their budget or by confirming your investment is affordable, otherwise you are just making friends — not customers.

    

7. Prospect Decision Commitment — The goal of every sales cycle is for the prospect to make a decision commitment. It’s one thing to take a prospect through 6 steps and at Step 7, they buy from someone else. It’s another for the prospect to decide NOT to buy from you or your competitors. You must force prospects to make a decision or else you are wasting your time with professional lookers.

 

Prospects must prove they are buyers through commitments . . . not just words.

 

Many salespeople “project” these steps as being completed before they have actually occurred and end up incorrectly making an assumption that the prospect is going to buy.

 

Once you have networked or cold called your way into the beginning of your sales cycle with a prospect and established there is a business need for your product or service, give the prospect a “Client Briefing Document” (after Stage 3) as a preliminary sales tool. It is a quick way to establish and manage prospect commitments.

 

A Client Briefing Document is a written outline of the expected sequence steps for the prospect to buy. It should identify dates, action steps, and timelines for each part of the sales cycle that should be completed by you including forecasted time for demos, contract negotiations, etc. In short, it lists each step so both the vendor and the buyer know what is expected.

 

It is a sales tool called an anthropomorphism.

 

Anthropomorphisms assign human characteristics or actions to be taken by non-human things like the theory of sales steps.

By listing human steps in a Client Briefing Document, you can gently “push” the prospect through the 7 steps of commitment.

 

Use Client Briefing Documents to manage prospect commitments.

 

Remember, the faster you premeditatively manage sales commitments by prospects, the shorter your sales cycle will be.

 

So, act like a special agent and manage your prospect selling environment . . . instead of letting it manage you.

 

 

Regards,

 

Rick Erling

(972) 727-6880

 

Case Study — Ibertech Gets 300 Qualified Leads in Two Days

by Paul DiModica

Some years ago, I was walking the floor of the National Restaurant Association Show (NRA) in Chicago on one of the lower floors of the convention. I was looking for a technology company to buy in the hospitality market space.

As I walked through rows and rows of vendors, I came upon a company called Ibertech-Aloha Systems who was sharing a booth with a hardware manufacture. In the booth were two engineers from a military airplane manufacturer who had developed the first restaurant computer system that was a Windows-based touch screen point of sale system. Over the next couple of months I tried to buy them but they were not interested. Instead, they hired me to develop their strategy, marketing and sales and their national expansion plans. Ultimately they offered me 5% equity in their firm and made me their VP of Sales to implement my recommendations.

Having a great technical product and one customer (like they did) will only take you so far. So, at the next big industry tradeshow, we decided to launch bigger than we really were. So, we rented a 20 X 20 foot both in the middle of our global 1000 competitors like NCR, Micros and IBM and brought in family and friends to fill the booth with “employees”.

To increase our tradeshow success, we deployed Value Forward strategies and techniques that included handing out sales objection white papers to every booth attendee, and stress balls that said “DOS IS DEAD” with a ghost buster symbol over it and our company name on it (at that time our competitors were only selling Microsoft DOS-based systems). We left the message stress balls in the show break rooms, snack bars, restaurants and in our competitor’s booths and ended up handing out thousands at the show.

Using our sales objection white papers as talking points along with other prospecting techniques, we created a stampede of traffic between our booth and our competitors across the ten foot aisle as prospects were forced to see our value three dimensionally through our marketing methods. Our methods challenged our larger more established and better funded revenue stealers to be perplexed and undecided on how to respond because all they wanted to do was tell their booth prospects about their brand name and current market share penetration.

As the trade show continued on, we started to create lots of PR because of our marketing methods and walked out of the show with over 300 leads from C level executives of restaurants chains U.S. wide.

After that tradeshow, Ibertech-Aloha grew year over year in revenue until they were sold to a public company called Radiant Systems for $30 million.

So why did this tradeshow approach work?

Most companies just go to tradeshows year after year with no pre-show planning, specific messaging, competitive positioning, or marketing strategies other than just having sales reps stand in the booth and hopefully look refreshed.

• Don’t go to tradeshows because you went last year. 
• Don’t go to tradeshows because you have no other lead generation methods that work. 
• Don’t go to tradeshows because your competitors go. 
• Don’t go to tradeshows because your sales team says you have to.

Tradeshows cost too much money. Costs are going up, attendance by qualified prospects is down and in a down economy, tradeshows can be your greatest opportunity to increase your revenue or . . . just another alcohol and binge party event for your sales and marketing team.

It is up to you, but in an economy like today, you can grow your business quickly and economically if your  tradeshow strategy uses a premeditated process . . . not a reactive course.

But if you go to a tradeshow, follow these guidelines:

• Create a pre-show marketing plan to tease qualified prospects to come to your booth . . . or don’t go. If you can’t afford pre-show marketing, then you can’t afford to go to the show. 
• Don’t just go to tradeshows — create an event that forces your  value to be experienced not just heard. 
• Develop specific handouts with unique messaging that forces prospects to listen and competitors to fear you. (Brochures are not specific handouts.) 
• Do market brand, but sell value. 
• Understand that it is better to go to 2 tradeshows a year that are planned than 6 tradeshows where you just show up.

If you are looking to increase your success at tradeshows and maximize your qualified lead generation right now using a proven method like I used at Ibertech, then learn more about our business coaching  here.

It’s up to you!

To your success,

Rick Erling

Growing your Business in an Economic Downturn

Growing your Business in an Economic Downturn

Special  Report – 10 Tips to Grow Your Business in a Recession or Economic Downturn

by Rick Erling

 

While there is widespread disagreement as to if the U.S. economy is on the edge of a depression, a recession or is just experiencing an “anxiety economy”, no one can argue that the financial crisis is not having a huge ripple effect and its going to take years to work out.

 

Rick Erling, President of The CxO Group, LLC, a Dallas, Texas CEO Coaching, Sales Training and Business Performance Improvement firm adds “Today’s uncertain economic times are forcing all executives, managers, and business owners to adopt new strategies for navigating through the current business downturn. At times like these many companies prefer to move into a survival strategy to ride out the storm. Survival strategy, while conservative, has one underlying problem. In today’s hyper-connected economy things can unravel quickly, and when your business is not growing and improving it is falling behind and headed for extinction. Keep in mind that even though your business may be slow today, your business will return to profitability in the future, IF you do what is necessary to survive today. “

 

So, what are you going to do? Let employees go?  Cut back on marketing?  Squeeze your current clients for more money? Yes, you can do all of this, but is that going to help? What can you specifically do during a recession to grow your business profitability?

 

Rick adds, “Now is the time for you to re-evaluate your strategies. The CxO Group has published a complementary Special Report, 10 Tips to Grow Your Business in a Recession or Economic Downturn.  In the report we’ve listed ten effective, proven, practical keys for maintaining profitability-with the latest, best information and advice direct from one of the world’s largest management consulting groups focused on helping companies increase corporate revenue capture that will help you answer those questions.”

 

Anyone wishing to receive the complementary special report titled “10 Tips to Grow Your Business in a Recession or Economic Downturn” can visit this special link http://growth.thecxogroup.com/  to download this invaluable special report. Alternatively, you can contact us by email at info@thecxogroup.com, or call (972) 727-6880 to request a copy.

 

The CxO Group specializes in CEO coaching and business performance improvement by integrating financial management, strategies, marketing, and sales to maximize corporate revenue growth. We use a copyrighted methodology to advise CEOs on action steps to take to grow revenues, consult with management staff on sales and marketing best practices and train sales and marketing teams on tactics and strategies that put your business value in front of you so your prospects see you differently than your competition and take action steps to buy. 

 

“A recession is when your neighbor is out of work. A depression is when you are out of work.” Rick Erling – President The CxO Group, LLC.

 

P.S. Sign-up for our FREE Sales, Marketing and Strategies e-Newsletter – The CxO News – http://www.thecxonews.com/

 Sales Training Workshops

Sales & Marketing Metrics Balanced Scorecards Improve Performance

by Rick Erling

It’s been said that money hides mistakes. Corporate earnings are down, the market drops and gains triple digits on multiple days, housing prices continue to fall and foreclosure rates are skyrocketing. It’s no question that we are in an un-stable economic environment. Are we in a recession right now, if not today will we slip into one next week, or perhaps next month?

With economic uncertainty looming, many of our clients are asking: How should I position my firm in the months to come?

We are fast approaching the end of the first quarter. Today, we cover a topic that just might contain the insight you need to uncover any hidden mistakes and help you surpass your 2008 goals.

The “Balanced Scorecard” is a strategic management approach developed in the early 1990s by Dr Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School, and Dr David Norton.

Much like the “Balanced Scorecard” of the 1990s, that focused on linking business performance to department metrics, The CxO Group uses a “Sales Balanced Scorecard” (http://www.sales-scorecard.com/) with a similar approach, but designed for today’s economy.

Today’s scorecard creates interaction and links between five sales management pillars as a packaged team to help drive performance.

– Sales

– Marketing

– Strategy

– Operations/Development

– Partners/Alliances

First, we create identifiable tactical measures or Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for each of your sales team members and contributing departments. Then, we develop and help you implement the scorecard into a living, breathing business tool to proactively manage and link strategy, marketing and sales.

This tool becomes a leading business driver that when used correctly, increases corporate cash flow, accelerates operational success, and allows companies to manage their business model by proactive metrics, not reactively by emotion.

With this linkage, the sales and marketing scorecard provides clarity in strategic and tactical goals that can be readily monitored to understand where performance is coming from and where remedial attention is needed. As I mentioned, we are regularly asked about the best improvement initiatives to be made in this uncertain economy. We always suggest companies look towards sales metrics as the way to grow their business and uncover those “hidden” mistakes.

Start with the foundation. If your sales and marketing organization doesn’t have clear objectives and metrics for accountability then you probably have a few mistakes hiding in your process that are costing you money. Clear sales objectives that are aligned with company strategy is one way you can be assured of hitting your goals in uncertain economic times.

At The CxO Group, we believe the entire company, not just the sales department, is responsible for revenue capture! Visit us online at http://www.thecxogroup.com/, give us a call today at (972)727-6880, or email info@thecxogroup.com to chat about how we can help you create a sales & marketing metrics scorecard that is custom fit so your firm’s business assets are centralized on revenue development and all departments are linked to the performance.

Sales Training * Marketing Advisement * Strategy Consulting * Website Marketing Strategies * Growth Strategies

by Rick Erling, President and Senior Thought Leader at The CxO Group, LLC
http://www.thecxogroup.com/
info@thecxogroup.com
(972) 727-6880

Recommendations provided are to be used at your discretion and are provided solely as an independent opinion.

8 Ways to Get More Sales Leads From Your Web Site

by Rick Erling

Does your website create website traffic and generate enough sales leads? If you are like most CEO’s, sales and marketing management I speak with on a daily basis, the answer is probably no.

If you perform a Google search on “sales and marketing strategies” you’ll be pleased to find over 62 million web pages devoted to helping market a business and increase sales. Spend just five minutes looking at the search results and two items become very apparent . . .

You can’t expect to compete in business today without leveraging your reach with online digital marketing tools and having a Web Site Marketing Strategy. If you’re not appealing directly to the person who is reading your ad, you risk them seeing it without realizing how it relates to them. Considering there are over 65 million pages devoted to “sales and marketing strategies” validates the importance of creative writing and how to appeal directly to your customers’ need to increase traffic and conversions.

Keep in mind that when people meet in a live in-person business meeting, we introduce ourselves with some statement about what we do, and why we should work with one another. In a live meeting it’s important to show very quickly that we understand their issues and needs, and that we have ideas and solutions to address these.

Your website is a virtual meeting tool. It must accomplish the very same objectives of an in-person meeting. It must convey common points of interest, whether personal or professional. The virtual visitor must begin to feel that they can relate with you, and this helps to build the beginning of a business relationship. Studies show you have 8 seconds to build this relationship before they click to the next site listed in the search listings. If the visitor doesn’t feel they can relate to you, if they’re overwhelmed, confused, can’t easily navigate your site or simply not interested in your site, they’ll leave in very short order — 8 SECONDS!

Keeping the above strategy at top of mind, here are the top seven smart ways to get your business noticed on the Internet.

1. Keep it simple.

Get rid of Flash and fancy intro pages! Studies today show you only have 8 seconds to convince a prospect how you can help. Does your website describe your product or service in a succinct, compelling and visual fashion in that timeframe?

With thousands, perhaps millions of Google hits for a given search term, prospects are looking for exactly what they’ve typed in or they move on to the next search result.

2. Value First, Brand Second

Don’t make the mistake of dragging your business value behind you by leading with the brand name of your product, service or company. Push your business value out in front of you and set yourself above the competition by using “Value Forward” methodology!

3. Call to Action

Once you’ve got their attention you must have calls to action like an offer of a free white paper, webinar, or newsletter to harvest prospect contact information.

4. Easy Navigation

Your website must be easy to navigate with less than 7 navigation buttons on the home page.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Make sure your site appears high on search engines’ results pages. By including the right keywords and phrases, your site will appear higher up on Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.

The key to keywording is translating what your product or service does into appropriate “Value Forward” keywords and phrases that will turn your visitors into qualified sales leads.

6. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Your sponsored or PPC listing on a search engine results page (SERP) must call out to the person reading it. If you’re not appealing directly to the person who is reading your ad, you risk them seeing it without realizing how it relates to them.

In many situations it may even be necessary to develop new landing pages to help increase site level conversion.

7. Podcasting and YouTube

Podcasting and YouTube are new and simple technologies that you may want to take a look at. All you need to get started is a decent microphone, a digital audio or video recorder and editing software.

This is a great strategy for many small businesses for several reasons. A voice, or video reference or testimonial rather than words on a website can convey conviction, credibility and personality.

8. Track Your Customer Conversation Ratio or C.C.R.

It is not how many unique visitors come to your website that is important. It is how many you can identify as prospects. Most companies today spend large amounts of marketing dollars on tradeshows, advertising, email marketing, corporate branding and direct mail driving thousands of potential buyers to their website . . . yet they don’t know who is there and don’t have engagement devices to capture their name. To generate more leads, track your C.C.R. through your daily audit logs as well as the names of those who sign up for your free information.

Are you interested in insuring your solutions, products and services are conveyed in a compelling fashion on your website? Yes, your web designer will provide the actual website design and artwork, BUT it’s up to you to know what the content should be. Most importantly, you need to supply content that will trigger search engine hits and drive qualified traffic to your website.

When you’re not experienced or don’t have the budget to have web strategy, marketing, sales or systems people on staff, or simply don’t have the bandwidth, get help! Smart business owners surround themselves with consultants that are strong where they are weak. Please consider having us help with your sales, marketing, and website strategies improvement projects.

Rick Erling, is the President of The CxO Group, LLC in Dallas, Texas. The firm specializes in sales, marketing, growth and website strategies to improve revenue and they can be reached at info@thecxogroup.com , http://www.thecxogroup.com/ or 972.727.6880. The CxO Group is a managing consulting partner of the Value Forward Network, one of the world’s largest management consulting groups focused on helping companies increase corporate revenue capture.

Sales Training * Marketing Advisement * Strategy Consulting * Website Strategies * Growth Strategies