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7/19/2005
Online Niche Marketing - targeting adsense
Filed under: General, Online niche marketing — keilo @ 2:36 am Edit This
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a strong interest in online, niche marketing. Unfortunately, my real world commitments usually keep me from too much experimentation.

Now however, I have launched a web site that squarely meets 2 important criteria: it concerns a subject that I love, and it provides a way of targeting adsense income.

I’ll write more shortly but for now why not visit the site and let me know what you think.

JulesVerneOnline

Comments (0)
6/15/2005
Easy Way to Get Links to your Web Site
Filed under: General — keilo @ 4:24 pm Edit This
Getting one-way links to your website can be amazingly difficult. Casey here has found a simple sure fire route - leave complimentary comments on my blog. You can see Casey’s original comment by scrolling down a few posts. I have repeated it here for ease of reading.

“Hi there,

Great blog for readers. Wow you really put your heart into it and give away alot of valueable content.

I hope your small business readers value what you’re writing - because it’s great.

Casey

The Business Growth Specialist “

Comment by Business Growth — 6/15/2005 @ 8:59 am | Edit This

Comments (0)
6/13/2005
Article factoring - Adapt your articles to target specific market niches for maximum effect with minimum effort
Filed under: General — keilo @ 2:59 am Edit This
It ought to be hard to find anyone marketing their business on the internet who does not know of the power of writing and publishing articles. Write an article on a topic of general interest pertinent to the theme of your web site and distribute it to lots of article directories.

Whenever your article is referenced or used in someone elses web site and you get a rush of traffic. Getting lots of one-way links is great for your google page rank too.

But how do you keep on producing articles? Where do you find the time?

Many authors write new content each time. Nothing wrong with that of course. Except that there is an easier way - article factoring.

In plain english article factoring is the process of tailoring each article you write for a specific niche market. There are 2 samples below:

6 steps to success for independent consultants
5 steps to success for small business owners
These 2 articles are in turn based on a root article, 4 Steps to Success to Life, the University and Everything

A cursory glance at all of these articles will show that the bulk of the content is essentially identical. The differences are the addition of a couple of paragraphs pertinent for the specific target audience. Oh, and a change of title to make the article more immediately appealing to the target market.

The opportunity for further factoring is pretty much unlimited:

5 Steps to Success for Journalists
4 steps to success for college students
How to achieve success in internet marketing
Secrets of successfully marketing small businesses online
And so on
No matter what niche you target there is sure to be a ready made audience for you article.

So why work harder than you have to?

Factor your existing articles to address specific niche markets pertinent to your web site theme. Distribute your articles to specialist niche directories. Sit back and enjoy an immediate traffic boost.

What could be easier?

Comments (0)
5 Steps To Success for Small Business Owners
Filed under: General, Small business articles, Breakthrough Growth Site Updates — keilo @ 2:37 am Edit This
Everyone wants to succeed in life. Most people want to succeed in business. And no one starts a business of any sort wanting to fail.

Yet the sad fact is that 80% of businesses will fail in the first 3 years of operation.

So what can you do to ensure your success?

Luckily these five simple (never confuse simple with easy), tried and tested steps dramatically increase your chances.

1. Vision
It might seem like management gobbledigook or newage psychobabble but all the evidence is that developing and articulating a vision for your business and life is a major key to success.

Take time out. Really think about what you want from your business and life.

Write it down.

A vision statement should not be long - it doesn’t even have to be in words. If you think graphically then capturing your vision in a picture or diagram could be just what you need. You are striving for a short, to the point description of where you want to be in 1, 2 and 5 years time.

In addition to your financial vision you need to ask yourself some questions:

What will our major products and services be?
What will be our target market?
Will we be market leaders, followers or niche players?
What will our unique competitive position be?
How will we ‘know’ our ideal customer?
How will we be perceived by our customers?
How will we promote your services to our customers?
An old Japanese Proverb says,


”If you aim at a tree and fall short, you may only hit the ground.
If you aim at the sky you may hit a tree.”

Make sure you don’t set your targets too low.

Just before leaving the subject of ‘Vision’ - the number one key to achieving your vision is to communicate it widely. Make sure you tell your family and friends. Make it a central pillar in corporate literature. Include it in job descriptions.

The more you communicate your vision the more you demonstrate your commitment and the more likely you are to succeed.

2. Set Out Your Goals
Success means something different to us all. A self-made businessman worth millions of dollars would be thought
successful by most. But if that businessman only rarely sees his family, never gets to play golf and spends all of his time on airplanes or in some exotic sounding (but usually antiseptic) hotel, is that really a success? Would that businessman think his life a success?

Possibly, possibly not.

But if that man had set himself goals for his business, private and social lives he at least has some way of measuring his achievements.

Your vision is all about ‘what’ you are going to achieve. Goals are about the stepping stones to achieving that vision.

Before starting on any endeavour - set your goals.

Make sure your goals are specific enough that you know when you have achieved them. “I want to make lots of money” is weak. “I am going to make $100,000 next year and $200,000 the year after” is much stronger.

The more specific and well articulated your goals the greater your chance of achieving them.

Don’t forget to include your private and social goals. Many rich people complain that they have all the freedom that money can buy - but money can’t buy the time to enjoy what they have earned.

An old boss of mine from my days in corporate consultancy once observed, “You can’t buy back the years of your children’s lives”. He’s right.

Make sure you know what real success would mean to you.

3. Plan, Plan, Plan
If the number one key to success in retailing is location, location and location, the number one key to success in business
is plan, plan, plan.

Remember the 5 Ps success model - Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. (When I was taught this in the military there was a 6th P - for the sake of a mixed audience I have left this out. Use your imagination - you’ll guess what it was )

If you’ve done your goal setting you know what you are going to achieve. The point of planning is how you are going to do it. Break each goal down into constituent steps needed for its achievement. For each step decide what, who, where and when it is to be done.

Be realistic and make sure that every step is achievable in the time set. Be prepared - when you plan-out all that you need to do, the amount of work can be daunting. Better to know this up-front than sale merrily into a venture only to find it is a huge monster that is going to take you a lifetime to kill.

4. Action Counts
I’ve seen some beautiful plans. Highly researched, well thought out and presented. I’ll talk to a business owner and they’ll say, “We’ve got a plan” and pull it out of the bottom draw of a filing cabinet somewhere.

“So, why aren’t you using it”, I’ll ask. Nine times out of 10 the plan was produced to obtain
funding. Lot’s of really good work is done but once the money is obtained the plan is put to one side and ignored.

Big mistake. Taking action is the only thing that counts.

Every successfull business I have looked at has clear, current business, operational and marketing plans. It doesn’t matter whether your business is offline or online. It’s taking action that delivers the results.

5. Another 5 ‘P’s to Success
Passion - You have to believe in what you are doing. No where is this more obvious than on the internet. You can spot the ‘me-too’ advertisers in a second. The people who succeed are the ones in have passion, who truly believe in what they are doing. Do something that you love.

Push - No matter how good your plan you have to provide a big push to get it moving. Your plan inevitably involves change. Achieving change takes effort. Think of it as if you were trying to move a boulder. To get that boulder up and moving takes a lot of muscle and effort. Once it is moving though it becomes much easier.

Persistence - Getting started is relatively easy. Afterall, you are all fired up with energy and enthusiasm at that time. Few things worth achieving happen over night. Instead, there will be problems, hold-ups and frustrations. Don’t allow yourself to become disillusioned or demotivated. You need persistence.

Patience - Results don’t happen instantly. Allied to persistence you will need some patience.

Profit - OK, OK it’s trite. But follow the steps here, gear yourself to provide these 5 Ps and you will succeed. In
business, profit is a measure of your success.

No one can guarantee your success whether in life or in business. But you can dramatically increase your chances of success through these five simple, very well established principles.

The question is, “WILL YOU”?

—————————————————-








































Comments (0)
6 Steps to Success for Independent Consultants
Filed under: General — keilo @ 2:36 am Edit This
Everyone wants to succeed in life. Most people want to succeed in business.
And you certainly didn’t start your consultancy business wanting to fail
Yet the sad fact is that 80% of all businesses fail in the first 3 years of operation. Independent consultants have, if anything, and even blearker survival rate.

So what can you do to ensure your success?

Luckily these six simple (never confuse simple with easy), tried and tested steps dramatically increase your chances.

1. Niche, Niche, Niche
You have probably heard the phrase, “Get Niche, Get Rich”. Nowhere is that more true that for independent consultants.

Try a little thought experiment for yourself.

Imagine you run a car hire business. You are doing OK but not great. Your time is being absorbed by the day to day running of the business and you have no time for marketing. You decide to get some help from a marketing consultant.

A friend gives you the names of 2 consultants that you decide to meet.

Both of the consultants have great resumes - both show evidence of lots of success in helping businesses grow.

The only real difference is that one consultant has worked in lots of different industries and markets. The other specialises in vehicle hire.

Which one would you choose?

For most business owners it’s a no-brainer. They will always pick the consultant that specialises in their industry. You see, we all perceive our problems as unique. They can only be understood by someone who really understands our business.

Whether you like it or not your success will be immeasurably enhanced if you specialise in some particular vertical niche. Before you take any other steps on your way to success in life and business - pick a niche and stick to it.

2. Vision
It might seem like management gobbledigook or newage psychobabble but all the evidence is that developing and articulating a vision for your business and life is a major key to success.

Take time out. Really think about what you want from your business and life.

Write it down.

A vision statement should not be long - it doesn’t even have to be in words. If you think graphically then capturing your vision in a picture or diagram could be just what you need. You are striving for a short, to the point description of where you want to be in 1, 2 and 5 years time.

In addition to your financial vision you need to ask yourself some questions:

What will our major products and services be?
What will be our target market?
Will we be market leaders, followers or niche players?
What will our unique competitive position be?
How will we ‘know’ our ideal customer?
How will we be perceived by our customers?
How will we promote your services to our customers?
An old Japanese Proverb says,

”If you aim at a tree and fall short, you may only hit the ground.
If you aim at the sky you may hit a tree.”

Make sure you don’t set your targets too low.

Just before leaving the subject of ‘Vision’ - the number one key to achieving your vision is to communicate it widely. Make sure you tell your family and friends. Make it a central pillar in corporate literature. Include it in job descriptions.

The more you communicate your vision the more you demonstrate your commitment and the more likely you are to succeed.

3. Set Out Your Goals
Success means something different to us all. A self-made businessman worth millions of dollars would be thought
successful by most. But if that businessman only rarely sees his family, never gets to play golf and spends all of his time on airplanes or in some exotic sounding (but usually antiseptic) hotel, is that really a success? Would that businessman think his life a success?

Possibly, possibly not.

But if that man had set himself goals for his business, private and social lives he at least has some way of measuring his achievements.

Your vision is all about ‘what’ you are going to achieve. Goals are about the stepping stones to achieving that vision.

Before starting on any endeavour - set your goals.

Make sure your goals are specific enough that you know when you have achieved them. “I want to make lots of money” is weak. “I am going to make $100,000 next year and $200,000 the year after” is much stronger.

The more specific and well articulated your goals the greater your chance of achieving them.

Don’t forget to include your private and social goals. Many rich people complain that they have all the freedom that money can buy - but money can’t buy the time to enjoy what they have earned.

An old boss of mine from my days in corporate consultancy once observed, “You can’t buy back the years of your children’s lives”. He’s right.

Make sure you know what real success would mean to you.

4. Plan, Plan, Plan
If the number one key to success in retailing is location, location and location, the number one key to success in business
is plan, plan, plan.

Remember the 5 Ps success model - Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. (When I was taught this in the military there was a 6th P - for the sake of a mixed audience I have left this out. Use your imagination - you’ll guess what it was )

If you’ve done your goal setting you know what you are going to achieve. The point of planning is how you are going to do it. Break each goal down into constituent steps needed for its achievement. For each step decide what, who, where and when it is to be done.

Be realistic and make sure that every step is achievable in the time set. Be prepared - when you plan-out all that you need to do, the amount of work can be daunting. Better to know this up-front than sale merrily into a venture only to find it is a huge monster that is going to take you a lifetime to kill.

5. Action Counts
I’ve seen some beautiful plans. Highly researched, well thought out and presented. I’ll talk to a business owner and they’ll say, “We’ve got a plan” and pull it out of the bottom draw of a filing cabinet somewhere.

“So, why aren’t you using it”, I’ll ask. Nine times out of 10 the plan was produced to obtain
funding. Lot’s of really good work is done but once the money is obtained the plan is put to one side and ignored.

Big mistake. Taking action is the only thing that counts.

Every successfull business I have looked at has clear, current business, operational and marketing plans. It doesn’t matter whether your business is offline or online. It’s taking action that delivers the results.

6. Another 5 ‘P’s to Success
Passion - You have to believe in what you are doing. No where is this more obvious than on the internet. You can spot the ‘me-too’ advertisers in a second. The people who succeed are the ones in have passion, who truly believe in what they are doing. Do something that you love.

Push - No matter how good your plan you have to provide a big push to get it moving. Your plan inevitably involves change. Achieving change takes effort. Think of it as if you were trying to move a boulder. To get that boulder up and moving takes a lot of muscle and effort. Once it is moving though it becomes much easier.

Persistence - Getting started is relatively easy. Afterall, you are all fired up with energy and enthusiasm at that time. Few things worth achieving happen over night. Instead, there will be problems, hold-ups and frustrations. Don’t allow yourself to become disillusioned or demotivated. You need persistence.

Patience - Results don’t happen instantly. Allied to persistence you will need some patience.

Profit - OK, OK it’s trite. But follow the steps here, gear yourself to provide these 5 Ps and you will succeed. In
business, profit is a measure of your success.

No one can guarantee your success whether in life or in business. But you can dramatically increase your chances of success through these five simple, very well established principles.

The question is, “WILL YOU”?

—————————————————-



































Comments (1)
5/31/2005
Online Marketing Tools - Link Manger Assistant
Filed under: General, Online niche marketing — keilo @ 4:24 am Edit This
This weekend I have been busy updating one of my online marketing sites. My very first online niche marketing site was My Prom Hairstyle purchased from Dr Mani. To be fair, I wasn’t overly impressed with the site as bought. That was OK - I always expected that I would have to customise the site to make it stand out from the crowd.

Instead I have used that site as my sandpit. You know, the place where I try different techniques to see what happens. To date I have tried various adwords campaigns (never spending much money), blog and ping and some links from my other reasonably highly ranked pages.

Now I have decided to shoot for links. Duncan Carver is unique on the internet (in my opinion). He offers his ‘Link Manager Assistant’ software as a free download. Other suppliers provide similar software for up to $197.

Link Manager Assistant is different. While it may be free it is immensely powerful. It will certainly take a while to get to know all its online nich marketing capabilities. For now I have simply added 30 to 40 hair style directory pages. Almost all of thes pages come directly from DMOZ.

When I have a bit more experience with Link Manager Assistant I will write a full review.

Suffice to say that I have added Link Manager Assistant to My Prom Hairstyle. Most of the time has been spent in customising the directory templates so they have the same look and feel as my other pages. This is not for the faint hearted. I am not a computing whiz but I have a pretty good background knowledge. It took quite a lot of time to figure out exactly what I had to do to customize the template.

Take a look. Let me know what you think.

Comments (0)
5/28/2005
First Niche Marketing Web Site Created With Xsitepro
Filed under: General, Online niche marketing — keilo @ 7:59 pm Edit This
I have just posted my first web site created with XsitePro. It took a bit longer than the 2 hours claimed by the XsitePro people. In fact it took something more like 3 days.

In that 3 days Ihave

identified a niche,
researched the site content,
learned how to use Xsitepro, wrote the content for the pages,
identified and joined suitable affiliate schemes
chosen and ordered a domain name
transferred that domain to my hosting service (Thirdsphere)
Uploaded the web site files

The actual site building bit was simple. It took a couple of hours to go through Xsitepro’s tutorial - time well spent. It then only took about an hour to build and publish the web site. As always - it’s the preparation that takes the time.

All in all I am pretty happy with the result to date. Still plenty of work to do but why not have a look at Choice Lift Chairs and tell me what you think.

I have spent much of the last week promoting the site through goodle adwords. Only time will tell how well I am doing. I’ll let you know.

If you want to take a look at Xsitepro click here now

Comments (1)
5/22/2005
Niche Marketing and Web Site Building Tools
Filed under: General — keilo @ 2:26 am Edit This
21 May 2005

Look anywhere for making money on the internet and you will be inundated with information about niche marketing. Somehow there is some idea that the internet invented niche marketing. The truth is that most small businesses would benefit from identifying and dominating a niche.

If you have spent any time looking at my main site, Business Growth Solutions You’ll know that I am passionate about small businesses using the internet to promote their businesses. So, while I would usually argue for a wider consideration of niche marketing, this time I am going with the crowd. This post is all about internet niche marketing.

One of the great difficulties is knowing the best way to get on line. Web site designers charge large sums for highly variable work (if you find a good one stick with them). One alternative is to build your own web site. Lots of tools claim to help you to do this with no knowledge of the web, html, search engines or any other related topic. Perhaps the only one that really does do this is the one Business Growth Solutions is built with - Site Build it (try the link at the bottom of the page).

Until now.

Recently I bought a copy of XsitePro. It came with a 365 day money back guarantee so I thought I’d give it a try.

In all honesty, I have been blown away. XsitePro is not only easier than SiteBuilIt to use, but it also offers much more flexibility and control.

To start with I have used it to collect a whole bunch of my articles together in one place. Now, I can publish them all on a web site at the touch of a button.

But that’s not the point.

Using XsitePro’s search engine optimisation tools, each and every article is now optimised for the key words it features. I have continued to place these articles with article and ezine directories. I will wait to see the results.

Of course, SiteBuildIt could be used to do this. But to be fair, SiteBuildIt’s block building approach is pretty slow and clunky in comparison to XsitePro.

As confidence increased I decided to have a little experiment with a niche web site myself. You can see the early results here Choice Lift Chairs. Using XSitePro’s built-in templates, a couple of hours research on the internet and a few hours writing the content, and you have a pretty good looking web site in 2 evening’s work.

Click here to view the “7 Reasons Why You Need XSitePro Now!” video

Comments (0)
5/21/2005
Affiliate marketing for small businesses
Filed under: General — keilo @ 3:12 am Edit This
Anyone who has visited my main website Business Growth Solutions cannot have failed to realise that I am passionate about the appropriate use of the internet to market small businesses. So much so that I am actively investigating the use of affiliate marketing. You might like to have a look at my latest effort at Choice Lift Chairs.
No what do you know about lift chairs you might ask. And the answer a couple of days ago would have been, “not a lot”. However, a few hours of research on the web, a bit of personalisation of the results and a few hours with a word processor and presto Choice Lift Chairs. The plan now is to use a variety of traffic generation techniques - including this blog - and see how we get on. I’ll keep you informed.

Comments (0)
5/12/2005
Work SMART and Transform Any Business Into a Go-Getting Power House
Filed under: General — keilo @ 2:30 am Edit This
We’ve all heard the phrase: “work smarter not harder”. Well, the SMART acronym contains all you need to know to make it a reality.

If there is one key to turning busy, ineffectual organisations into models of streamlined efficiency then this is it. Probably as well known as SWOT, SMART turns weak, aspirational goals, objectives and tasks into concrete deliverables.

More accurately SMART ought to be SMARRRT. There are at least three equally valid definitions for the ‘R’.

OK, the one minute introduction to working smarter:

Specific: Be completely clear on the outcome expected of the goal, objective or task

Measurable: Phrase the statement of what is to be achieved so that the achievement of that outcome can be clearly measured.

Achievable: The idea is to clarify and motivate. There is nothing more demoralising than carefully constructed, but utterly impossible, goals.

Realistic: Given your current situation: is your goal realistic? Relevant: Is this specific task or goal relevant to the overall aims of the company or plan? Resourced: Are the relevant time, people, facilities and equipment available to deliver the desired outcome?

Time bound: Make sure there is a claim time limit on the completion of the activity.

Properly applied, SMARRRT transforms your business.

An example:

I specialise in helping owner-managed businesses grow. One of the first questions I ask is “Just how much do you want your business to grow?” Pretty typically the answer is something like “we’d like a few more customers” or “a lot”.

Even at this early stage I start to apply SMARRRT.

What does growth mean to you? More income, more profits, more customers, more staff, bigger premises…. Usually we settle on income and profits.

OK, just how much more profit would you like? What would you be delighted with, what would just make you happy and what is OK but not very exciting? (I use stretch goals in a balanced scorecard type of approach - more on this in another article).

Now we start to get some real thought and progress.

“I’d be happy if we could get 50% more in profits each year”.

So far so good. When do you want to achieve this level of increased profit by?

Usual answer is immediately - pretty unrealistic. So maybe we settle on within 12 months.

It’s certainly more specific. “To increase profits by 50% within the next 12 months”. And it’s got a time frame.

Is it measurable? For most small companies you would certainly expect them to be able to measure an increase in profits. Tight controls on expenditure may have to be agreed though. Profit can be badly damaged by unplanned expenditure. In general it is much more positive to use precise measures. Instead of a 50% increase it would be better to say “Increase profits from $500,000 per annum to $750,000 within 12 months.

Is it achievable. This is what I do. And I have never seen a business where it isn’t possible to increase profits by at least this much. All that holds businesses back is the lack of commitment and will from the top management. So let’s assume it is achievable - for now.

Realistic? Good products. Poor history of marketing and promotion. Stable market with ongoing demand for the product. Certainly ought to be realistic.

Relevant? This would be a top level goal. As long it genuinely represents a part of the owner’s strategic vision it is relevant by definition.

Resourced? Hmm, this is a difficult one for top level goals. Exactly how much work will be required? How much investment would be needed in terms of marketing or capital investment? How much time will the owner need to put in? Lots of questions which can only be answered as more detailed SMARRRT planning takes place. For now we must take an educated guess. In my experience, if the owner is sufficiently committed the rest of the resources will be found.

Perhaps the most certain aspect of this hypothetical situation is the clear time scale.

A little re-wording of the original goal statement, “In the next 12 months we will grow our profit from the current $500,000 to $750,000,” and we have something that is SMARRRT. Note: All the answers to these questions should be recorded as part of an overall strategy document. For public consumption the statement we have used here is generally sufficient.

Time bound? Within 12 months.

As you can see, the goal is defined in the ‘Specific’ element of SMARRRT. The MARRRT are essentially checks to ensure the goal makes sense for your business given current business context, strategies and constraints.

As you get more sophisticated with your use of SMARRRT you will probably want to start recording not just your goal, but exactly how you will measure progress and achievement, how this goal fits in with your overall organisation, the resourcing implications,…

For now, you will be astonished at how much more you achieve simply by constructing your goals to be SMARRRT.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith Longmire is the owner of JKL Business Growth Solutions. JKL specialises in bringing main stream business improvement and marketing solutions into the reach of smaller businesses.

Copyright 2005 Keith Longmire.

Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends. It may be used in your ezine or newsletter as long as this resource box is included intact.

Comments (0)
5/11/2005
Cross-selling for increased sales, profits and customer satisfaction
Filed under: General — keilo @ 1:48 am Edit This
Cross-selling - the art of selling for non-salespeople

Cross-selling is the act of selling related products at the time and point of sale. Here’s a couple of examples:

You buy trousers, the salesperson offers you the shirt, tie, cufflinks, shoes…
You buy a computer, the sales person offers you a printer, scanner, software…
When done well cross-selling will dramatically improve your sales, profits and customer satisfaction. Done poorly it will drive customers away in their droves.

The first time I told my wife about this concept she was scathing – “all those *£$% sales people trying to sell you something you don’t want” (She doesn’t really swear – much). We chatted for a while without too much meeting of minds. So I told her a story.

In days gone by you used to be able to walk into a hardware store, walk up to a counter and be greeted by a real person (this is before the days of big supermarkets and anonymous self-service). The conversation might go something like this:

You: 5 litres of white exterior gloss paint please.

Sales: Certainly sir, here you go. The finish from this paint is helped a lot if you use good brushes – how are you fixed for brushes?

You: Well, I haven’t looked for a while – I am really not sure.

Sales: What are you going to paint?

You: 3 doors and a couple of window frames.

Sales: Umm, for window frames you are probably going to need a 1 inch brush for the detail and a 2in brush for the rest of the frame. The 2 inch brush would be good for the doors too if they are not too big. Tell you what, why don’t you take a couple of brushes. If you find you don’t need them you can always bring them back later.

You: Great – good idea.

Sales: You’ll need some white spirit to clean the brushes– do you have any?

You: No – you better give me a bottle.

Sales: What are you planning to do on preparation? We have some pretty good packs that contain wire wool, assorted grade wet and drypaer, and some soft soap. Soft soap is much better for cleaning up old paintwork than detergents as it doesn’t leave any residues.

You: I hadn’t thought about preparation – I’ll take one of those packs as well.

Now that salesperson probably didn’t even think what they were doing was ’selling’. They were simply ‘helping’ a customer.

But look what happened - you have been cross-sold into spending 3 or 4 times the price of a tin of paint. But when you get home you are ready to do the job. And if you don’t need the paint brushes you know you can take them back (but you probably won’t).

In the end my wife agreed that it wasn’t the cross sell itself she found objectionable – it was the way in which it is done.

Good cross-selling provides a service to the customer. It is nothing to do with pressure selling. It is not a tool simply to help salespeople hit their targets. And it has noth whatsoever to do with pushing products that the customer will never use.

And the really good news?

I haven’t yet seen a company that could not benefit from training its staff in the art of cross-selling. Notice I said staff. Cross-selling is not just for sales people.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith Longmire is the owner of JKL Business Growth Solutions. JKL specialises in bringing main stream business improvement and marketing solutions into the reach of smaller businesses.

Copyright 2005 Keith Longmire.

Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends. It may be used in your ezine or newsletter as long as this resource box is included intact.

Comments (0)
5/6/2005
Adsense and Blogs
Filed under: General — keilo @ 6:04 pm Edit This
So far I have not placed any advertising on this blog. Now it is time for the blog to pay its way. For the moment I am experimenting with Google’s adsense. I want to see how google copes with placing ‘in-context’ adsense ads on a page which is constantly being updated.

Let me know what you think