Do you have rules and procedures that your employees are trained to follow consistently?

Are your employees tracking every phone call and treating each call as a sales opportunity?

If your business is like many other, you probably don’t know the answers to these important questions.

The following secret is a great technique to find out if your employees actually are following the procedures that they have been trained to follow. (You do have a training program in place, don’t you?)

Have a family member or an associate call your business and ask a few simple questions about your products/services.

You may be shocked and appalled at the answers that they receive. You may begin to realize how much business you are losing every day.

Make test calls on a regular basis, record them, and play them back to your employees. Then, have your employees help you to develop telephone scripts that answer all of the “frequently asked questions” that they receive from your clients and prospects.

You also should train them to sell “accessory” or “add-on” or “back end” items. These could add up to an additional thirty percent or more in sales.

“Would You Like Fry’s With That?”
“Would You like one fork or two with your desert?”

Develop a tracking system to find out whether or not your marketing efforts actually are profitable.

Be very careful, your employees can intentionally or mistakenly sabotage your marketing campaigns by not properly tracking incoming phone calls, on-line orders, or walk-in customers.

You may have a winning marketing idea, but if you do not have the data to support its profitability, then you may think that it isn’t working and cancel it.

Do you encourage your employees to read or listen to basic sales and marketing information? It’s amazing how many businesses do not talk to their employees about these important subjects. Not doing so is a big mistake.

Many of my clients have made it mandatory for their employees to read various sales and marketing materials.

When these employees have finished with the materials, they are directed by my clients to take a small test that confirms that they have actually read, understood, and will implement the marketing ideas.

Ultimately, this basic training will help your employees to understand your marketing methods. This should improve their understanding of how you run your business and lead to increased sales and profits.

Make all of the training courses and use of the training materials mandatory to remain an employee of your company.

If you need outside help with training, get it. This training will pay for itself with lots of additional business from both new and current customers.

If you need help locating good training for your staff, try your local library or give me a call at (248) 335-8080.

What are you doing to train your employees properly?

What Makes Your Business, Products, And Services Unique?

It is very important to think in terms of what your business can do for the prospective customer.

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the first marketing effort that you should think about for your business. Your USP is written to separate your business from your competition. It does this by telling the world what is unique about the product/service that your business offers.

Your USP should create tension, desire, and urgency in the reader’s mind. Written in one clear, concise sentence, your USP should be the essence of what you are offering.

Your USP should come immediately to your client’s mind when s/he thinks of your products/services.

Can you provide three compelling reasons for doing business with your company? For example, “Fast, cheap, and good” or “Simple, easy, and lucrative.” Your USP then should answer these questions: “How fast?” “Why is it easy?” “What’s so cost effective about it?”

Your USP should be good enough to be used as a headline in any of your marketing efforts. The best USPs are written so tightly that not a single word can be changed.

Here are some examples of great USPs:
“Good to the Last Drop;”
“Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking;”
“Fresh Hot Pizza Delivered in 30 Minutes, Guaranteed;”
“Because So Much Is Riding on Your Tires.”

I bet that you can name the companies to which these USPs belong.

Does your business have a concise, unique, and effective USP?

Why should someone buy your products/services?

Dan Kennedy, the author of many marketing and business books, including How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneurs Guide (Plume, 1996), asks an important question: “Why should I choose your business/products/service over any/every other competitive option available to me?”

This question should help you to open up your mind and get you thinking about your USP. It should give your customers a complete answer to this question.

Does yours?

If you have a problem answering the vital question of why someone should choose to do business with your company, then it will be even harder for your clients and prospects to answer it. This will make it hard for him/her to buy whatever it is that you are selling.

Do you know if your customers realize why they should be buying from your company?

What are the benefits of your products/services?

Sometimes it’s hard to come up with anything unique about your business, so it may be easier for you to express the benefits that you offer to your clients.
H. Brad Antin and Alan Antin, the authors ofSecrets from the Lost Art of Common Sense Marketing (Antin Marketing Group, 1992), have devised an alternative to developing your USP.

They call it a “Statement of Benefit,” or SOB.

Ask yourself, what are the real benefits that people get when they buy from me? Dig deep. Try to identify the biggest benefit of, or the hidden benefits in, doing business with you.

Only after you learn the real reasons why people decide to buy from you can you package and present your information to your buyers from their own perspective. When you do this, you can crush the competition.

When your client or prospect is looking for an answer to a specific problem, your SOB should be able to answer it. Here are two examples of great SOBs: “When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight” and “Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand.” Your SOB should lead your client or prospect to you.

What “benefits” solve your client’s problems?