Take an Analytical Approach to Recessionary Tactics

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

An analytical approach to a problem involves trying out a mix of solutions, tracking the outcome of each solution implemented and ultimately finding the most effective remedy. Given that we live in a time of cutbacks, not many companies are taking the same analytical approach to their sales and marketing recessionary strategies.

Knee-jerk responses are likely to cause not only short-term damage, but also hurt your company in the long-term. The key here is to rigorously measure the performance of various strategies and tactics as a way of tracking what works and what does not. Offers, promotions, discounts, selling techniques, etc. should undergo a sustained performance measure. This can help you find effective solutions relatively quickly.

Move or Copy Items in ACT! Tabs between Contacts

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Have you ever wanted to copy or move items from the Notes/History, Activities, Sales/Opportunities tabs of an ACT! contact / group to another? Here's how you can do it:

1.	Lookup the contact or group that contains the item you would like to move and select the appropriate tab (Notes/ History, Activities, or Sales/Opportunities).
2.	Highlight the item you would like to copy or move by clicking on the grey box to the left of the item. (Note: You can select multiple items in a range by holding down the Shift key while selecting them. Select multiple items that are not in a range by holding down the Ctrl key.)
3.	From the menu, select Edit >> Copy (or Edit >> Cut if you are moving the items).
4.	Lookup the destination contact or group.
5.	From the menu, select Edit >> Paste.

The item will now be pasted to the destination ACT! contact or group.

Lead Sales Discussions with Prospects

Source: eGrabber newsletters

One of the keys to become a successful seller is being able to lead a business-focused sales discussion. This creates a favorable impression in the minds of your prospects. Right questions at the right time enable you to lead the sales discussions.

Plan your questions ahead of time. Many sales people tend to make the mistake of assuming that they will be able to frame questions based on their conversation with prospects. But, you will not be able to both listen and figure out what to ask at the same time. So, in order to increase the effectiveness of your conversation, it’s essential to write down at least 5 key questions prior to every meeting. What you need to focus on in your questions will depend on where your prospects are in their decision cycle.

Leverage 'Reciprocity' to Increase Sales in this Recession

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

'Reciprocity' means to give and take mutually. When you give your prospects something, they feel an obligation to give back.

Ask questions that will educate you about your prospects and their needs. One question could be “What is the biggest challenge that you are currently facing in your business”? The objective is not necessarily to fix the problem, but to provide them support. Refer them to an article or white paper that can assist them in their area of challenge. Look for opportunities to provide information that is helpful to your prospects.

You’ll find that reciprocity brings down your prospects' resistance and often makes it easy for you to negotiate, build relationships or ask for referrals.

Expand the Decision Making Circle for Faster Conversions

Source: eGrabber Newsletter

The current economic situation has forced a change in decision making scenarios across almost all organizations. Gone are the days when a single person could make a buying decision. Today, with the stakes so high, companies have resorted to consensus-based buying. You need to get OKs from multiple stakeholders to close a deal. This means you have to change the way you sell.

Train yourself to get better at selling to multiple stakeholders. Save time by involving others in their company right from the start of the selling process. Depending on what you sell and who is interested in it, you might suggest meetings with your prospect’s boss, coworkers (peers), financial executives, technology evaluators, etc.

Locate Customers Not Contacted in the Recent Past

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Have you ever wanted to get in touch with all clients who were not contacted in the last few months? You may want to send them an email or just call to see how they are doing.

ACT! enables you to quickly locate all such contacts. Here's how:

• Select Group >> New Group from the menu. Enter the Group Name (for example, Clients_3 months).
• In the Contacts tab, click on the Add/Remove Contacts option and a dialog box appears.
• Under the Dynamic members section, click on the Edit Criteria button to open the Group Criteria dialog box.
• Use the options (And/ Or field contents) in the grid and construct a query to locate customers who have not been contacted in the last 90 days.
• Click OK.

This Group can now be checked regularly to ensure that you are communicating with clients falling under the specified criteria.

Expand the Decision Making Circle for Faster Conversions

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

The current economic situation has forced a change in decision making scenarios across almost all organizations. Gone are the days when a single person could make a buying decision. Today, with the stakes so high, companies have resorted to consensus-based buying. You need to get OKs from multiple stakeholders to close a deal. This means you have to change the way you sell.

Train yourself to get better at selling to multiple stakeholders. Save time by involving others in their company right from the start of the selling process. Depending on what you sell and who is interested in it, you might suggest meetings with your prospect’s boss, coworkers (peers), financial executives, technology evaluators, etc.

2 Proven Ways to Increase your Sales Credibility

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Any business prospect or decision maker would want to work with smart sales persons who have a good understanding of their business. In the current business climate, they would not want to waste time with those who are otherwise.

Here are 2 ways to get them to rapidly make positive judgments about you as well as your company’s credibility in the marketplace.
- Show them that you thoroughly researched their company: When prospects know that you’ve invested time in understanding their business prior to the meeting, your credibility immediately rises. Make sure to highlight any piece of information that you found relevant.
- Mention how you solved similar business problems: The more your experience with comparable companies, the better it is for your credibility. State in specific terms, the business objectives you helped your other clients achieve.

By establishing your credibility at the start, you can easily advance through the sales cycle.

Use a Value Proposition that Sells Best in Recessionary Times

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Recession or not, a compelling value proposition will definitely help you sell better. So, how do you build a value proposition for the recession?

Remember, prospects today are more open to hearing from you, if you can show how they can increase revenue rather than cost-cutting advantages. If the value you provide increases their sales, in addition to slashing costs, then you have a winner on your hands.

Ask yourself: How can I provide my customers and prospects with more sales in a shorter time-period? Can I help their business fight through this recession and survive? Can my products / services help them get more customers; if yes, am I focusing on those aspects?

Answer each of the above questions by way of product features and capabilities. You can then craft your sales pitch based on this value proposition.

Lead Sales Discussions with Prospects

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

One of the keys to become a successful seller is being able to lead a business-focused sales discussion. This creates a favorable impression in the minds of your prospects. Right questions at the right time enable you to lead the sales discussions.

Plan your questions ahead of time. Many sales people tend to make the mistake of assuming that they will be able to frame questions based on their conversation with prospects. But, you will not be able to both listen and figure out what to ask at the same time. So, in order to increase the effectiveness of your conversation, it’s essential to write down at least 5 key questions prior to every meeting. What you need to focus on in your questions will depend on where your prospects are in their decision cycle.

Conduct Targeted Follow-up Campaigns for Customers

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

The key to winning a life-long customer is remembering who they are and translating that memory into a positive/ happy experience for them.

Here are 3 reasons why you should be able to conduct a targeted, improved follow-up campaign for your customers:

You know what your customers like, based on their past behavior and buying pattern. You also know their budget/ price range. And finally, you have their trust, because they had bought from you before.

Use this information to run a tailor-made marketing campaign. The important part is to make your customer feel special. This will help you increase the chances of repeat sales without having to spend much.

Move your Focus to Inbound Marketing

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Today, a majority of customers are buying products and services through Inbound Marketing (SEO, blogs and social media). Surveys show that inbound marketing has a lower cost per lead; nearly 60% lower than other popular marketing methods.

What this means for you is to ensure that you are found in all these places - blogs, organic search engine results and social networking sites. It is time to move away from techniques that are becoming harder and harder for you to reach prospects (direct mails, email list rentals, online ads, etc.). So leverage the inbound marketing techniques to be in places where people are actually looking for and in mediums that they are using more and more.

Ask yourself: what am I doing online (particularly Inbound Marketing) to attract more and more visitors to my website? If you are doing nothing or doing less, then it is time to move your focus to inbound marketing techniques.

Ref: HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Do Not Buy Lead Lists – Use ListGrabber To Quickly Build Your Fresh Marketing Lead Lists

Generating fresh marketing leads for your business can be a difficult task. Most Marketing Professionals buy or rent lead lists. This option could be expensive and you can never be sure if you are getting the exact customers that you want. Also, there is the issue of outdated contact data since contact information may change at any time. Additionally, buying rights on commercial lists place restrictions on how you use those lists.

One of the best ways to start looking for the leads is to search the Internet. The Internet has many sources of free sales and marketing leads. On line directories such as yellow pages, white pages, association websites, membership directories, Chamber of Commerce Lists, MLS listings are some of the free sources that you can use to build a list of fresh marketing leads. An advantage in building lists on your own from the Internet is the greater accuracy of the leads that you build. Information displayed on websites and online directories can be updated in real time; therefore, the contact data is always current and up-to-date. However, the biggest pain marketers face here is having to manually enter the contact lists from more than one source into their database.

If you are to build lead lists from all the afore-mentioned sources, all you need to do is choosing the source (website / online directory) you think that would be the most appropriate for your business / offering and enter your search criteria to have matching listings displayed. Its also possible that your search results are spread over multiple pages. Then, you would have to copy manually and paste each piece of contact information -name, postal address, email, phone, fax, etc -into a column in an Excel Spreadsheet or a field in your database or CRM.

For Marketers, the process of collecting leads on a daily basis and entering them into an Excel Spreadsheet or a database or CRM is a time-consuming task. As a result, time which should have been productively spent contacting customers is used in performing a repetitive, manual task of copy-pasting data from a source to a destination. For example, it takes about 2 minutes to copy all the information about one contact into a destination. Assuming you need a 50 contacts to start calling, you would take 100 minutes before you can pick up the phone.

One solution to this problem is to get someone else to do the task of collecting leads. However, this approach may not be feasible on a cost-per-lead basis. Another problem with this approach is the errors caused by manual data entry. During the copy-paste process, the person has to switch constantly between two windows and pick up data one field at a time. Fields may be not be copied completely and some fields may get missed out altogether.

eGrabber's ListGrabber provides an easy and effective solution to all these problems.

About ListGrabber

ListGrabber is a one click solution to collecting leads from various sources and transferring the leads to an Excel Spreadsheet or a database or CRM of your choice. All you have to do is open the Online Directory (like Superpages, Yell, Yellow Pages or craigslist, etc.,), Web Site, or document where you get your leads from and click ListGrabber's “Grab” button. ListGrabber instantly captures the data from all the fields and transfers it. All this can be done in under a minute.

ListGrabber supports transfers to popular databases such as Excel Spreadsheet, ACT!, GoldMine and Outlook. ListGrabber also exports to Salesforce.com, BullHorn, PCRecruiter, cBizOne and others.

Typically, Online Directories like Yellow-Pages display 10-25 contact records at a time. ListGrabber comes together with eGrabber's AutoNext technology which automatically navigates to the next page and continues with capturing the next pages' contact information as well. So with One Click you can build your list of leads!

ListGrabber incorporates patented contact capture technology, that has been perfected over many years, and is tuned to work with all popular web sites, directories and listings in USA, UK, Canada and Australia. Use ListGrabber to build your list of fresh marketing leads. Download the 10-day free trial version of ListGrabber today.

To download the free trial version, Click here

To know more about ListGrabber, Click here