5 tips to improve sales forecasting

Sales forecast is one of the most essential tools that help you to manage your business. It enables you to both identify the opportunities as well as the problems and act accordingly.

Try the following:

1. Define and qualify your lead.
2. Find out how many opportunities are there in your sales lead pipeline.
3. Figure out the value of each opportunity and multiply it with the number of opportunities to get the base value.
4. Based on the past history, predict the average time you expect your prospects to spend during various stages of sales cycle. 
5. Work on the conversion rate. Finally, subtract the value of those opportunities that wouldn’t close from the base value.

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4 tips to identify real prospects

All that glitters is not gold, right? In the same way, you got to understand that all prospects are not your real prospects. You got to identify the real prospects who are worth spending time with.

Try the following:

1. Get to know when she is going to make a decision. If she isn't going to take a decision for months then there is no point in spending time.
2. Does your prospect have a problem that you can help her fix it?
3. Is your prospect a decision maker or somebody else in the company?
4. What's your prospect's financial ability? Does she have the budget to buy your product/service?

Source: eGrabber Newsletter

3 Key Factors in Website Optimization

Source:eGrabber

If you are an e-marketer focussed on your website rankings in search engine results, here are 3 key factors you should know and work upon constantly:

1. Your inbound links: Links from quality sites/ authoritative e-sources related to yours , related articles on popular sites, blog posts, etc. will benefit you way more than reciprocal links or links from a site that is unrelated.

2. Your competitor's inbound links: As good as your inbound links might be, it must still outshine and outnumber that of your competitors.

3. Your keywords: How competitive and targeted are your keywords? Sometimes you might want to opt for less competitve variations to start with.

Get Prospects to Buy your Side of the Story

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

There are factors that can influence (persuade sub-consciously) the prospect to accept your side of the story over your competitor's.

1. For prospects with a sense of urgency or high motivation to buy - Present your product first and how it can resolve current issues. Once this part is fully delivered and understood, take very little time to talk about what your competitor has to offer.

2. For prospects who have no urgency or are not directly affected by the purchase decision - Talk about competition first, but very little. The second and larger part of your presentation should focus on your product benefits and how it can resolve their problems.

There are psychological studies to prove that the above tactics work. Understanding these can help you influence prospects to buy into your side of the argument and close the deal.

2 Tips for Successful Voicemail Messages

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

One of the ways to let your prospects know that you are a professional and serious about what you sell is to leave a well crafted voicemail message. A polished message can mean the difference between voicemails that are deleted or ignored and those that are returned.

Here are 2 tips for successful voicemail messages:

1. Leave a compelling reason for your prospect to call you back. State one major problem your prospect faces and that you can solve it.
2. Talk slowly and clearly. Avoid 'um..', 'ah..', etc. State the purpose of your call and your phone number clearly.

By scripting your voicemail in advance you can sound your best and give yourself the best chance to hear back from prospects.

Use Creative Re-packaging to Attract Customers in a Recession

Source: eGrabber Newsletters

Simply providing quality products and services at a reasonable price is not enough to draw customers during a recession. Slashing prices will affect your margins, especially when sales volume is low, and is not a financially sound strategy. By keeping the price constant, how do you then grab a customer's attention?

Re-package your product or service to create a distinctive offering; one that is enticing in its appeal and value. Though customers are looking at cutting costs, they will still be open to deals that offer real value for their dollar. A number of restaurants and diners have employed this strategy to great effect during this recession. They have been creating special combo offers and throwing a little more in the basket for the same price. Is this something you can adapt for your business?

Creative re-packaging always has the added advantage of letting you stay on top of your clients' minds.