|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com : "Sales" Home Page |
|
|
< The Top 10 Ways to Add Extra Value
Everyone wants the best possible value in every transaction, but each of us defines "value" in different ways. Some customers want the lowest price, while others will place a higher value on reliability, convenience or things like color, popularity (think Pokeman cards!) or durability. The challenge for business is to provide extra value for every customer, at the lowest possible cost of doing business. The following "Top 10" suggestions are particularly suited to service businesses such as coaching or consulting, but can easily be adapted to other environments. 1. "Try before you buy." Give clients a free sample, taste or experience before asking them to commit. This can often be done in groups or teleclasses. Done correctly, it gives you a low-cost opportunity to expose large numbers of potential clients to the value of your service, while giving the potential client a safe, easy way to sample your work. 2. Follow-up after the sale. Much like allowing prospects to sample your work, groups or teleclasses allow you to follow-up, add extra value and potentially sell additional services after the original commitment is over. Many coaches combine these pre- and post- groups into weekly or monthly teleclasses that are open to past clients forever! 3. Client newsletters. Use a weekly newsletter to keep past and current clients informed, add extra insights, techniques, tips and solutions to common problems. Published by email, they are free, and very easy for clients to forward to friends and colleagues, providing you with potential additional marketing. Extra: Insert a quick 1-page newsletter with your monthly billing statement! 4. Let clients share their skills. Invite your clients to share their experiences, their own tips, discoveries and enthusiasm with each other. Host a monthly forum and invite guest speakers. Often a client will have particular expertise or a skill they are willing to share with your other clients either in person or in your newsletter. Everybody wins! 5. Public newsletters. In the "information age", the value of information is rapidly approaching zero, so capitalize on this trend and give away what you know! Display your skills, expertise and wisdom in either electronic form or on paper and invite past and present clients to participate, pass the information along, and provide a marketing forum for your business at the same time. Again, everybody wins! 6. Use your website. Ask your webmaster to add a newsgroup or set up a chat-room on your website. As you develop written material for your clients, post it on your website and make it available to other clients (you can password protect it) or to the general public. Let clients know that your information and experience are available to them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! 7. Celebrate with your clients. This ranges from sending flowers or champagne when they win the big contract, to sending birthday cards and holiday greetings. Everyone needs more hugs than we receive, so give your clients recognition whenever possible. Let them know you care. 8. Commiserate with your clients. Sometimes things don't work out well, they lose contracts or miss the big promotion. That's a great time to "gift" an extra session, to pay for the lunch or pick up the tab for the phone calls. Again, it's about caring and building personal relationships that add real value and go far beyond minimum expectations. 9. Use your network for your client's benefit. One of the most astonishing "extras" is to provide your client with the name of the perfect accountant, lawyer, chiropractor or web designer based on your rolodex of contacts. As your team of resources grows, use their combined talents and strengths to make appropriate referrals and put people in contact with each other. This is a huge extra that costs you nothing! 10. Ask your clients what they need. Routinely, ask your clients how you could go further, provide better service and be more effective with them. Almost always, they are delighted to be asked, they know the answer, and the request they make will typically cost you little or nothing to fulfill but will mean the world to that client. © Copyright 2003 by Philip E. Humbert. All Rights Reserved. This article may be copied and used in your own newsletter or on your website as long as you include the following information: "Written by Dr. Philip E. Humbert, writer, speaker and success coach. Dr. Humbert has over 300 free articles, tools and resources for your success, including a great newsletter! It's all on his website at: http://www.philiphumbert.com
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Get Face To Face Over The Phone One disadvantage of selling by telephone is the lack of face to face contact. Sales Brochures - 9 Steps to Success Even in this day of websites, many customers want to look ata brochure or other form of hard copy. It's importanttherefore that your brochure tells the customer all theyneed to know. Can You Use Hynotic Like Statements To Sell More Products? As I become more successful with my internet business I have become interested in ways to move my business to the next level. Recommending Products Vs. Selling Them Some of the best sales people I have ever met, were able to meet all of their sales goals without ever selling a thing. They simply recommended their products to their customers. Dont Let Rattlesnakes Scare You Recently I was out trail running along the South Fork of the Yuba River. The Yuba River is in a beautiful canyon running east-west through the middle of Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The terrain here is rocky, hilly and rugged, and is covered with a mixture of pine, oak, and manzanita trees. The History of Sales: Dale Carnegie is Still with Us I've recently been hearing sales companies talk about how they are 'helping their buyers buy' with a system that is the 'next thing' after Consultative Selling. After becoming familiar with their concepts and methods, I've come to believe they are correct: they are definitely on to the next iteration. But of what? Five Deadly Sales Letter Mistakes To be effective your sales letter must be opened, read, believed and acted upon. In order to do this it must attract attention, warm the interest of the reader, create a desire for your product or service and cause your prospect to take positive action. Pinging for Success: Creating Search Patterns One of my first internship jobs as a college student was working for a defense company who, at the time, developed a highly sophisticated torpedo for hunting down submarines and destroying them. The operation of the torpedo was pretty fascinating. The torpedo was launched from the deck of a ship or dropped from a helicopter into the water. Customer Loyalty in the Technology Industry For technology companies, service after the sale has emerged on equal footing with innovation as a competitive advantage. What Successful Sellers Know - Others Dont ... The Subtle Art of Closing Ask any salesperson, "At what point in the selling process does the 'Close' take place?" Eight out of ten will answer, "at the End". To be fair, they are not totally incorrect but they are, nevertheless, more wrong than right proving in principle and in practice, Perado's Law: Twenty percent of the sales force make eighty percent of the sales and profitability. Selling Abilities - Part 1 Selling "-abilities": Reliability Cracking The Billable Hours Ceiling How many of you made as much money as you wanted to last year? Don't be shy; raise your hands. Hmm, I don't see too many hands out there. What would you say is the cause of this gap between your goals and your earnings? People Buy People So Sell On Relationships (Objection handling tips excerpted from Objections! Objections! Objections!) Sell More Products and Services with Testimonials Testimonials are all-important to sell anything. You may already have testimonials for your new book and service, but do you have testimonials for other promotional pieces? How to Generate Leads on the Internet In the last decade, the Internet has become a major commercial force. Not only do online sellers like Amazon.com have huge sale numbers, but nearly all successful businesses must utilize the Internet in order to stay competitive in the modern market. There are many ways that the Internet is used to generate leads. The most obvious way that a company uses the Internet to generate leads is by creating a website. Other Internet lead generation methods include taking advantage of search engines and doing co-registration. Why People Use Long Sales Copy Have you ever wondered why some people use long sales letter? An Introduction to Store Fixtures Everybody is familiar with the old retail chant, "Location, location, location!" It speaks volumes about making the right decisions from the start to make your retail establishment a success. Once you've decided what it is your store is offering to the general public, the next step you'll take is finding the right location. Once you've found it, the next step is to decide how to dress up your establishment; you'll need to decide what retail store fixtures will properly display your product. At this stage another invaluable cliché applies, "Presentation is everything!" Health Insurance Lead and Health Insurance Leads Health insurance lead generation systems provide a stead stream of potential clients for health insurance brokers. Health insurance leads are considered to be people who may need health coverage to supplement the health coverage provided by their employer. A health insurance lead can also be someone who is self-employed and needs to obtain coverage for themselves or their entire family. Health insurance brokers rely on health insurance leads systems to supply them with enough potential clients to keep their business going. There are a large number of people who either need additional coverage or are in business for themselves and need an individual or family health insurance plan. Do You Want to Know the 8 Tips to Selling More Products? So often sales men and woman are the very people that prevent themselves from obtaining additional sales and increasing their commissions. It doesn't matter if it's counter sales or door-to-door. Restaurant Pressure Washing Many pressure washing companies try to stay away from the restaurant pressure washing business, while other specialize in it. One reason some do not like it is due to the all the grease, which gets on their hoses and equipment, which in itself is difficult to clean off. Another reason is due to the difficulty in retaining the waste wash water. Sometimes the jobs can be tough as I remember one where in a Chinese Restaurant the owner finally leveled with us that the place had not been cleaned for 20-years. Needless to say we killed our share of cockroaches that night indeed.
|
 |
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
