5 Ways to Improve Your Customer Relationships

Business

Having a good relationship with your customers is essential if you want to be successful and achieve growth in your business. Improving your customer relationships should be high up there on your list of priorities when running your own business as it can either be the key to success or the key to your demise. There are many different features and software that are now available to help you improve your customer relationships, establish customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Customisation 

Customers like to feel special as this makes them feel appreciated and will make them more loyal to your company. A great way to go about this is to customise and personalise each of your customers experience with you. This can include sending individual emails out to your customers that address them by name so that they know you are making the effort to email them directly. 

You should also consider sending your loyal customers a newsletter using software like Mailchimp to keep them up to date on developments in your business. 

Build Trust by Being More Transparent 

It is important that your customers trust you and one of the main ways to build this trust is by being transparent. While many businesses tend to keep their operations secret, you can build trust with your customers by letting them see what happens behind closed doors. This way, they have a greater understanding of what it is you do and what your staff are doing daily. 

You should consider inviting them to your business headquarters and give your customers a chance to have a look around where you work and give them a guided tour. This will help your clients feel special and appreciative while giving them a better understanding of how your business functions. However, it also gives you the opportunity to build a personal relationship with your customers as you can spend time talking to them and getting to know them better. This personal relationship is often lacking in modern day business negotiations so can make for a great added extra. 

It Is About More Than Just the Sale 

Sometimes businesses make the mistake of focussing too much on just the sale transaction and neglect the opportunities available to improve their customer relationships. While it is important that sales staff meet targets and keep the sales coming in, sometimes being too pushy with customers can make customers feel like you don’t really care about them and just want their business. It is important to show your customers that you do care about them as just because they aren’t interested in buying your services or products today, this doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. 

Sometimes a customer will come back to you later when they have had some time to consider the purchase, so it is important that you make a good impression even if you aren’t making a sale right there and then. 

By focusing more on the overall customer experience when they interact with your business in any way, you can ensure that you are developing positive relationships with your customers. 

Offer Interesting and Helpful Content 

A lot of the internet is now full of content that is used to entice online traffic, in the hope of turning views into sales. Therefore, it is important that you carefully consider the sort of content your customers will find the most helpful and relevant. Offering information that may help them is a bonus reason why they should choose your business over any of your competitors. 

You should also make sure that your content stands out and is interesting enough to hold your customers’ attention. According to Mail Online, the internet age has made us have shorter attention spans due to ‘information overload’. Therefore, it is more important than ever before to offer interesting content on your website so that you hold the attention of visitors and customers. 

Monitor and Review Feedback  

Potential customers are likely to research your company before they do business with you in the form of previous customer reviews. Therefore, it is important that you ask previous customers to review their experiences with you and show these reviews online for people to see. This will help with transparency, as well as offer a way for you to brag about how good you are! 

However, not all reviews are going to be 100 percent positive, so be sure to respond to all feedback to show you keep on top of customer issues. 

Customer relationships are key to your success as a company, as the happier your customers are, the more likely they are to use your business again, and they may also discuss their positive experience with their friends as a way of a recommendation. So, make sure you consider customer relations as important as customer sales.

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Does Your Small Business Need a Lift?

Business

How well is your small business faring these days?

If you are seeing some troubles with your business, you do not want to wait too long to tackle them.

Money Will Oftentimes Be the Number One Challenge

For many, enough money around will oftentimes be the number one challenge they face.

That said do not feel as if you don’t have any options should money be tight these days.

One avenue you might want to travel down would be attempting to access a line of credit.

By seeing which provider is best suited to help you, you move closer to getting a big weight off your shoulders.

In searching to find the right line of credit provider, be sure you do your homework. The last thing you want or need is getting involved with a company not looking out for your best interests.

With this in mind, do some background research on any provider you think about trying to get credit from.

Among the things you’d want to learn about them:

· How long in business?

· What kind of track record they have when it comes to working with small businesses such as yours.

· If they have a top-notch record of customer service with small business owners

By doing your research, you could get that line of credit you need sooner than later.

Finances May Not Be Your Only Need

As important as money is to run a small business, you may have some other needs that you do not want to overlook right now.

For example, how much time and effort are you putting into marketing your brand?

Some small business owners are very adept at marketing their companies. For others, it can be a big mess.

If you do not have the time or expertise for that matter to promote your brand, it would behoove you to find those who can.

One option is to look for an SEO agency.

If you are not familiar with search engine optimization, know that it can do wonders for you.

The right SEO pros can help you with the following:

· Stellar content for your website

· Making sure you use keywords that rank high on Google with such content

· Quality backlinks

· Driving traffic to your website

· Promoting your brand on social media

· Better referral marketing

Those are but a few of the things SEO pros can bring to the table for you and your business.

Last, it is important to promote your business outside of SEO and other such options.

One that should come to mind for you is networking dates, trade shows, community events and more.

By showing consumers what you have to offer, you can be lifting your brand to new heights.

Look at the beginning of the year to see which events locally and in other locales are worth your time to attend. When you set aside time and money to be there, you open the doors to potential business.

When you have a sound business plan in place, chances are that plan will be lifting you and your brand to success.

So, does your small business need a lift before it is too late?

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Important Tips For The First-Time Manager

Business

There are numerous situations in which people just end up promoted to a management position because of the skills that they show at their job. Unfortunately, being good at a job does not mean you are going to be a really effective manager. This makes people have to learn so many new things that can easily become overwhelming. Because of this, German Trujillo Manrique highlights the following really important tips that first-time managers have to always think about.

Always Keep Learning

If you are promoted to the management position even if you have no management training, there is a pretty good possibility that upper management knows it. This means you are often given the benefit of a doubt and room to learn.

One thing that is not often highlighted about management is that you always need to keep learning. This is practically the only way to keep thriving. You have to be patient and build the skill level in practically all management areas. A great way to do this is to get help from mentors.

Start with learning all that you can about time management and how to deal with the stress associated with the new position. This can do wonders to help you to effectively manage whatever happens.

Work With Your Team

Because of the overwhelming nature of being a first-time manager, it is common to see beginner managers break contact with the team. This is one of the worst things that can be done. You cannot simply use a management strategy that you see somewhere and expect great results. This is because what works great for an organization or an individual does not necessarily work in other situations.

Remember that the manager is the liaison between employees and upper managers. This means that you have to take into account what both of these sides say, with the main purpose being adaptability. The way in which you communicate with the team and other important people in the company dictates results.

Some of the things you absolutely have to remember include:

  • Make sure services are properly budgeted and funded.

  • Never ignore problems and try to solve them as soon as possible.

  • Do create urgency when it is needed.

  • Analyze past practices. You want to question them and see how they can be improved.

  • Do research absolutely all things associated with the issues that appear.

  • Make decisions and stick to them.

  • Take initiative.

Offer Constructive Feedback

As a manager, you need to offer feedback. However, if something goes bad, so many first-time managers fail to talk as they are afraid critique will make them less popular. Management has nothing to do with popularity. It is vital that you offer both negative and positive feedback. Whenever a project is over, you need to discuss positives and negatives. A failure to do this can easily lead to two unwanted situations:

  • Staff members only receive negative feedback so they end up feeling like nothing they do is right.

  • Staff members only receive positive feedback so they gain false confidence.

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Becoming A Trader – What Are The Steps?

Business Money

Thanks to the Internet, becoming a trader has never been easier. Previously the exclusive premise of trained Wall Street brokers and professionals, the trading industry has been blown wide open by the range and reach of information available for amateurs and newcomers online. Trading is lucrative, it’s (reasonably) simple, and it’s enjoyable, too, especially if you like your work to be varied and exciting.

It’s not easy to know exactly where you need to start, though. Trading might be more accessible than it’s ever been, but it can still sometimes seem a little “closed off” to those who aren’t in the know about the steps they need to take. We’ve put together a useful list of steps you need to take to get you started as a trader.

1. Know yourself

Unfortunately, the first step doesn’t actually involve getting started on trading, or at least not right away. Put simply, you need to know who you are before you start trading. Do you have the skills required to make this a full-time job, and to commit yourself to it as though it were any other form of employment? When you become a trader, the onus is all on you. There’s no employer looking over your shoulder and making sure you complete that assignment on time, and there’s no punch card you slot through every time you clock in.

If that sounds attractive to you, then that’s a good start, but you’ll also need a very good head for numbers, a sense of self-worth that doesn’t get knocked during periods of downtime (which there will be), and a working knowledge of the ins and outs of finance. If you’re confident that you have all that, or that you can acquire it, then congratulations: you’re the right kind of person for trading.

2. Research markets and brokers thoroughly

The Internet isn’t just a great resource for trading in itself; it’s also a fantastic place to simply learn more about your chosen subject. In the case of trading, for example, it’s imperative that you understand the difference between the various kinds of securities you’ll be trading in, as well as the dynamics of how these different securities trade and how they will impact your capital.

Depending on the kind of trading you want to engage in, you’ll also want to research your brokers thoroughly to get an idea of the best services available to you. Websites like Forex Trading Expert are fantastic for this. Forex Trading Expert collates all the top foreign exchange trading brokers and rates them based on independent research and community review, so you’ll always know you’re getting the best service available.

3. Build up capital before you start

During your time as a trader, it’s inevitable that you will have downtime. Whether you make a mistake in terms of investment or the stocks you’ve invested in simply don’t perform too well in a given period of time, it’s no reflection on you that there will be times when trading doesn’t make you the profit you’d like it to. During these times, it’s really important that you have a bed of capital you can fall back on.

This also depends entirely on the scale at which you intend to trade. If you’re a small-scale trader and don’t want to enter too heavily into the market, then you’re probably safe with a smaller amount of capital (say $25k-50k). If, however, you want to trade as a full-time job and don’t intend on having any other supplemental income, then you should have at least around $100k-$150k before you begin.

4. Keep an eye on strategies – and don’t be afraid to switch

There are a number of tailored trading strategies available to both novices and experts, and they’re great ways to get started. It’s wise to have more than one strategy under your belt so that, should one strategy fail, you can easily switch to another one without too much loss of capital or time. There are plenty of books and articles online which can help you to devise or adopt optimal trading strategies.

There will also be times when a strategy which has served you well for months suddenly doesn’t work any more. When this happens, it’s time to switch. Find yourself more than one trading strategy, preferably from different sources, and switch between them depending on the state of the markets. You should also be continually looking for new strategies – keeping on top of the markets and how they’re moving is crucial for a trader.

We hope these initial few steps help in getting you started on the road to becoming a trader. It’s unpredictable work, but it can be immensely exciting and – more importantly – extremely profitable for you.

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Using Your Blog to Win Over Clients

Business

If you’re in business, then you probably have a domain and website. If you don’t, you can find one here. Many businesses also have a blog that’s been dormant for quite a while or are just starting out. Many business people don’t always know how to utilize their blog effectively, whether that is to win over their clients or to gain more organic traffic to their website by ranking higher in search engines.

While there are many ways to utilize your blog, one of the most important is to win over clients. Your blog can take potential customers who are on the fence about who to use for a service or what product to purchase and make them your customers for life. Here are just a few ways to help you convert prospective clients into buying clients.

Ask Open Ended Questions and Ask for a Response

Asking your audience their opinion goes a long way toward creating a relationship with your client. It healps them feel connected to you when you show that you truly care about them and their ideas. Create surveys and post them on your blog.

Once the survey has closed, you can review the answers and create a blog about the results. For example, If you run an appliance repair business, you can create a survey asking your blog readers how long they’ve had their appliances and which appliances they have in their home.

Once you’ve collected all the information, you will better understand your clients and be able to focus on their needs. These answers may also interest them, and inspire them to explore repairing old appliances instead of buying new ones.

No matter what your business, you can apply the principle of asking open ended questions to engage and convert your readers.

Communicate about Deals and Sales

Everyone likes a bargain, and communicating through your blog about latest sales and deals will keep customers coming back to see what you are offering next. You can even create a special sale activated by a code or coupon only shared on your blog. Encourage readers to share it through their social media channels and offer them incentives to do so.

At the same time, share your blog across your social media outlets as well. This will drive traffic to your blog, and can gain you both blog readers and e-mail subscribers, another place to share unique deals that help convert browsers into clients. Users also may browse other articles you have written, and at the same time learn about your business. Make the deals personal and those you use them feel like a privileged, part of a community, and they will keep coming back over and over.

Tell Your Business Story

People by from you because of why you do what you do, not because of what you do, or because you offer the cheapest product or services. Customers want to feel a deep personal connection with the people they do business with.

It’s not about how cheap you can sell something. All businesses have a mission statement and you can tell the story of why what you do is important to you and what you’re doing to connect with your community.

Share what you are doing in the area of community outreach. Write about your passion for creating viable living spaces for the homeless. Find those passions that push you to do better in your business and highlight them by sharing them on your blog.

Blog Regularly

Regular blogs are important. People these days are inundated with so many communications that they are likely to read or watch only those that engage them right away. If you regularly post on your blog, your clients will come to expect and anticipate your blogs and willingly interact with you on social media.

Even if you don’t get interaction at first, keep at it. Most businesses require months of blogging before their clients and potential customers start to interact. It doesn’t mean they’re not watching, they could be reading all your posts and not yet engaging.

Also, know that to spread the word about your blog, you are going to have to spend money. Boost posts, take out Twitter ads, and advertise on LinkedIn. You will gain attention, readers, and clients, and that will make it worth the cost in the end.

Post Case Studies and Guides

A great way to gain client trust is to create case studies and offer them on your blog with a synopsis. These easily read documents can come as small e-books or white papers. Creating how to guides for your clients to do small do-it-yourself projects activates the principle of reciprocity, and case studies prove that your products or services work they way you say they do.

It’s subtle, but by giving away information, how to guides, and useful documents inside case studies proves your expertise. And because you’ve given your knowledge to those you serve; the client feels indebted to your for sharing your expertise.

That client will think of your company when she’s ready to tackle those hard projects or buy that big-ticket item. If you have a service business, this technique is important to creating a connection along the buyer’s journey.

Even if the person who is using the information on your blog does not buy from you right away, they may. share it with someone who is ready to buy, or may introduce you to a connection or client that turns in to something bigger.

Whether you’re just starting your businesses blog or you’re restarting it, these tips for using your blog to win over clients will help you get a jump start on the process. many businesses use a blog of some sort to communicate with their clientele. If you want to win them over, you’ll need to create a blog that people will want to read and that continues to create value for your clients. In the end, it’s about giving the client these small values and they’ll give you big returns in gratitude.

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How to Use Salesforce Event Monitoring Software

Business

For many years, companies would need third party experts to come in if they wanted an event organizing. Their methods were hugely expensive, with some even calling them exploitative. The costs of organizing events were so high, in fact, that many businesses had to significantly limit the number of events they held. However, thanks to salesforce event monitoring software, which is now available online, there is no more need to do this.

What Is Salesforce Event Monitoring Software?

This type of software is incredibly easy to use. It is a type of SaaS (Software as a Service) and it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection and the right credentials. No extra hardware has to be installed and if you opt for the cloud-based solution, you don’t even have to download software. You also don’t have to worry about downtime because of upgrades and you don’t need any specialized training to use it.

A Brief User Guide

In order to make sure you get the greatest benefits of this type of software, you need to make sure that you understand the different tools and functionalities that it offers. Some of its key features include:

  1. Online event registration, which means you can add numerous events with standard templates. You can also incorporate graphics and content into these templates, so that you develop forms that are just right for you. They are uploaded onto your personal portal automatically and can then be accessed 24/7 by those who can register for the event.
  2. Online payment management, which includes a variety of payment gateways supported by the Payment Card Industry. They are SSL certified, which means they are completely secure. This means that people can pay for their attendance with ease.
  3. Automated emailing, which is a really robust system. It enables you to send out bulk emails to stakeholders and end users, thereby improving communication. It ensures that you can send communications about the event that people have signed up for, but also to keep them informed of new events as and when they happen.
  4. Group registrations and promo code engines. This means that you can offer people special prices and discounts to attend events. Additionally, you can include group registrations, which makes it much easier for people to book as an organization, for instance.
  5. Social media promotion and other forms of online marketing. These tools, including things such as online catalogs and calendars, enable you to send information about events all across the internet and therefore the world. You can link it to your own social media accounts to further spread awareness of events happening.
  6. Name badge printing services, so that those who attend can have their name badge waiting for them at registration.
  7. A lead retrieval system that is smartphone compatible, so that you don’t need expensive scanners anymore.
  8. Report creation, which is a great tool to make sure that you can review how well an event went once it has taken place.
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Corporate Innovation Labs – A Combination of Art and Science

Education

Everything around us comes from us, humans. This is the focal point of innovation: driving us, as humans, to come up with new things. That is only possible if we question and think about our experiences, believing everything is possible. Through corporate innovation labs, it is possible to bring together the artistic (from humans) and the scientific (from experimentation).

Corporate Innovation Labs Bring Together and Differentiate Progress

Art is about making changes. It is about evolution, about bringing together studies of and perspectives on that what already exists. This is true for both what is in the mind and the physical. Science, by contrast, is a lot more constrained because it has to follow linear rules. There is an important place for that, but innovation labs are about bringing those two together. It is about exploration, with art being about coming up with ideas, and science being about turning those ideas into reality.

Science and Art – The Cornerstones of Innovation

Art is known to drive scientific innovation. Similarly, science is an inspiration for art. Essentially, they are innovation’s bookends, their cornerstones. They work together to change how we see the world. One cannot exist without the other, and that is something to be celebrated.

However, people continue to see the two as separate things. Metaphorically, they are the bookends, one being on the right and the other on the left. But we forget that the things in between the two bookends are what actually brings them together. This is where the real breakthrough ideas happen.

How to Get Art and Science to Fuse

Science, engineering, design, and art all have to come together if we are to experience great innovation. Design and art is about getting the compelling stories and analogies together. This is about challenging knowledge and methods, inspiring techniques, and creating alternative structures. This is what then makes people push engineering, technology, and science, who will translate the art and design into reality. It is about pushing boundaries, going beyond what is expected, and that is how the future will be shaped.

At the same time, the digital age has made the world more complex and it is important that innovation tools are in place to benefit from this complexity, rather than make it stop innovation. What corporate innovation labs can do is provide that platform in which art and science can be blended, converged, integrated, and exchanged. Some say that we are in the Renaissance period of innovation. Real progress is currently being made and these are exciting times. The original Renaissance truly changed the world, teaching us so much as humans that the pace of advancement was almost unheard of. But, at the same time, the Renaissance was destructive as well, rather than solely constructive. It is hoped that the new Renaissance, which is as much about art and science as the original one, will be even more constructive in nature, using lessons learned in the past to really drive improvement.

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Understanding the Best Material Handling Equipment Financing

Business

Lots of businesses can benefit from the best material handling equipment financing. This equipment includes such things as industrial shelves, forklift trucks, and various other pieces of equipment that allow for the moving, storage, and transportation of items. Unfortunately, all this equipment is incredibly costly, which is why financing options are so important. Most businesses do not want to invest capital in equipment that do not have a direct link to production revenue, and that is if they have the capital in the first place.

How to Recognize the Best Material Handling Equipment Financing Option

There are lots of financial institutions, banks, and individual companies that offer a range of different programs for those who need to finance their equipment. It is important to look into the different terms and conditions they offer, as well is into their interest rates. Usually, the application process is very straightforward, although that does not necessarily mean that you will be accepted. It is important, therefore, to properly do your research first.

There are different categories of material handling equipment financing as well. These include small value loans, term loans, bill discounts, hire purchase, and operating lease. The latter is perhaps the most popular of all, because it has so many benefits, the greatest of which is that it ensures businesses can use the equipment they would otherwise never be able to afford.

When a business leases equipment, they do not have to make a down payment. Rather, they simply make monthly payments towards their equipment, which is not theirs for that duration. In essence, they rent the equipment, although there are some different terms and conditions associated with it. Namely, a lease generally has a lengthy minimum time period associated with it and, at the end of the lease, there is the option of purchasing the equipment or returning it for an upgrade. There are some key benefits to leasing, including:

  • That no down payment is required.
  • That monthly payments are affordable.
  • That payments are tax deductible.
  • That the company that leases the equipment does not hold any responsibility for the machinery becoming obsolete.
  • That the equipment can sometimes be purchased at the end of the agreement, or upgraded.
  • That payments usually include such things as insurance and maintenance.

A lease is a type of financing agreement, however, which means that it will not be give to anybody. You will need to meet the terms, conditions, and other qualification requirements as set by the financing company. This will usually include passing a credit check. However, the requirements are generally a lot easier to meet than those for a bank loan. Mainly, however, a lease is far more advantageous than a bank loan because of the fact that you do not own the equipment for the duration of your finance agreement. While it may sound strange that not owning something is better, it makes sense when you consider it also means you never have to have responsibility for continuously using it and maintaining it.

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Why You Need To Embrace Live Interactive Broadcasting For Your Business

Business

We’re all used to sitting down on our couch and turning on the TV, only to be greeted with a news segment where the broadcaster is going over the latest news from the day. Can you imagine, instead of sitting on your couch as a passive viewer, if you were able to have a conversation with the broadcaster about the current segment?

That’s the promise of live interactive broadcasting for most of your customers, and it’s up to your business to turn that promise into a reality. After all, most of your customers are already familiar with live interactive broadcasting, as social media apps like Periscope and Snapchat already allow them to record live video easily and stream to friends and followers.

Your business can take advantage of live broadcasting too, and while 84% of businesses successfully utilize video for their marketing campaigns, you can go one step further and broadcast directly to your customers. There are plenty of reasons to set up a live interactive broadcast, but here are a few of our favorite reasons to use this trending technology.

Host Real-Time Product Trainings

Managing your expenses is a big part about running a lean business, and while onboarding customers is important, you don’t have to run those client onboarding sessions in-person. Using live interactive broadcasting, you can host video onboarding sessions in an instant, and that doesn’t just help your bottom line. When you transition to using live interactive broadcasting, you’ll be able to host onboarding and training sessions easily, no matter where you are in the world. This also allows you to host more product trainings than you normally would, improving client service, while keeping your costs low.

Stream Live Events

If you host any live events already, then you’ve got a great opportunity to bring more customers or prospects to your event instantly by adding live broadcasting to the mix. There are a few ways to do this, but one of the best would be to set up a high definition stream of your event, while including some form of live feedback. For smaller live broadcasts, you could have a direct video feed that allows streaming viewers to ask questions over the video. For larger events, you may want to set up an alternative mechanism for taking questions and answers, so that you can filter the questions before presenting them to the event host.

Take People Behind The Scenes Of Your Business

An excellent way to foster greater customer engagement is by showing your customers that your business is more than just a suite of products and services. Live video is a great mechanism to bring people behind the scenes of your business, introducing them to the people and environment where you work. When you incorporate an interactive component of that live stream, you can give your team a chance to connect directly with customers, something that they might not usually have the opportunity to do.

Host Q&A ‘Office Hours’

If you’re regularly getting questions from customers about a particular product or service, one way of handling a lot of those questions at once is to host regular ‘office hours’, where you go through and answer customer questions for a set period of time. This will let customers join to get their questions answered, or to get a quick walk-through of a specific issue that they’re having, and they can leverage the live broadcasting to ask you questions that may come up during the Q&A session as well.

Live interactive broadcasting is a great new technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way that you interact with your current and future customers. While having access to live video is a great way to increase customer engagement and to grow your business, it’s important that you make sure that your video feed is fast, high-definition, and lag-free. The last thing that you want is for your video feed to cut out or buffer during a heavily attended event, but you can get around that by using a video chat service like Agora.io to stream video all over the world. Regardless of the technology that you use, it’s essential that your video quality and video connection speed leaves your business looking great, and not like an old, stodgy firm that has trouble with technology.

How are you thinking about using live interactive broadcasting to reach more customers? Let us know in the comments.

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Turning the Tables: How to Evaluate Sales Prospects

Business

Knowing How to Evaluate Sales Prospects can make a big difference in your business

(Image Credit: 123RF / liravega258)

Salespeople are accustomed to prospects evaluating them and may assume that is the sole purpose of their meeting. However, sales professionals should get into the habit of evaluating their prospects as well. This helps them determine the worthiness of each one based on how much time, resources, and attention he or she will require throughout the sales process. After weighing this against the potential return, the sales representative should have a better idea of which leads to pursue and which ones to thank for their time and move on.

Questions to Help Determine the Most Valuable Prospects

Both parties should ask questions of each other during the initial meeting. This is the only way they will know whether it’s a good fit. It can be more challenging for sales representatives to know what to ask since they’re usually the one answering the questions. Here are three questions to help them get into the right frame of mind for every meeting:

  1. What problem are you trying to resolve with the product or service my company has available? Most company leaders don’t even consider spending money until a problem becomes too significant to ignore. The salesperson should sense at least a little bit of desperation for a solution during the initial meeting. Without a significant problem to resolve, the sales prospect could be doing little more than window shopping. Unfortunately, this isn’t a good use of the salesperson’s time or resources.
  2. How have you tried to resolve this problem in the past? If the prospects answers that he or she hasn’t done anything about it until now, the salesperson may need to work a bit harder to find the ideal solution. By probing what hasn’t worked as an effective solution, he or she can steer clear of the same mistake and present a more targeted resolution. The sales professional should also ask the prospect to envision what would happen if he or she did nothing about the problem.
  3. Have you prepared a budget for this project or do you expect to soon? It’s a big waste of time to go through the qualification process only to learn that the prospect hasn’t been authorized to spend the required amount on the product or service. There’s nothing wrong with asking whether a budget has been approved or when the prospect expects to receive approval for the expense.

Create a Winning Pricing Strategy

All customers want to receive the best value for the lowest price. It’s the salesperson’s job to convince his or her prospect of the value in the product or service and minimize the focus on cost. A business that continually sells at the lowest price in the industry may not remain profitable for long. When considering selling price, company leadership needs to consider whether it encourages structures that ultimately prove unprofitable.

For example, selling at a volume discount brings in customers but not necessarily as much profit as the company would like. What sales managers can do instead is create incentives that align with pricing realities. Taking control through customer value-based pricing means looking at ways to reduce the cost to serve customers while still exceeding their expectations. Customers who don’t feel like they are getting their money’s worth may not say anything, but they will send a loud message by taking their business elsewhere.

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