Is Direct Sales A Good Business?

Direct sales increase profits for companies. It is one of the strongest forms of marketing that will make you the most money. Another key factor in direct sales is having a great product to sell to the public or to sell at whole sale prices to distributors. The wellness and fitness industries are one of the strongest marketing industries and are continually growing. Now is a good time to get into direct sales for either wellness or fitness.

Having a terrific product will make direct sales a breeze. People will automatically want to purchase your items because they will virtually sell themselves. This makes direct sales much easier because the product will speak for itself instead of you having to try and talk it up. Products in both wellness and fitness really attract the attention of customers.

The first thing to know about both wellness industry and the fitness industry is that people like to get healthy and to feel better. A great deal of money is spent on exercise and nutrition. Also, beauty and skin care products have increased in popularity. This means that you have an abundance of products that you will do well with in direct sales.

The best approach to direct sales is to provide people with a reason to buy. Customers are more likely to purchase a product if you create a strong need for the product. You want them to see the potential benefits that they can receive from the products. They will be willing to pay slightly more for a product that will help them in the short and long term. This is a strong direct sales point that can increase profits very quickly.

Another great approach to direct sales is getting to know people in the industry. You can meet a lot of people at wellness and fitness trade shows and exhibitions. This is a terrific way to network and talk with other distributors. Often you can find someone that has a complimentary product to what you are selling. You can cut them a deal and the two of you can actually benefit from the sale. Networking with other people is a terrific way to build some direct sales.

With fitness products you can direct sale to gyms, fitness instructors, and to the general public for home equipment to help with their workouts. It is important to offer DVDs, VHS tapes, and audio tapes as complimentary products. You can also offer free samples of sports drinks or complimentary energy bars when you do direct sales for fitness equipment.

Wellness products range from all types and sorts on the market. Direct sales should be fairly simple in this area. It is good to offer a sample product that your customers can have as a bonus with their purchases. You can direct sale at trade shows, flea markets, gas stations, health stores, malls, and other places to have the highest potential profits.

Direct sales increase profits because you have the potential to get repeat customers. You do the best with products that virtually sell themselves. Offering a sample product or bonus product will also help to increase sales.

People vs. Products: How To Boost Your Home Business Party Sales

Home party businesses have existed for decades. Stanley Home products, for example, began with door-to-door salesmen in the 1940s. By the 1950s this business had moved to away from front doors and took a seat on living room couches, surrounded homemade punch and cake along with a lovely hostess. While women have moved out of the home and into the corporate world since the inception of the home party business, this genre of work is still booming. Those who find success in the home party business have found a few simple methods that help them boost their home business party sales.

Attitude matters. Home business owners must learn to not just sell their product but to sell themselves. This means they should prove the product's usefulness with their own use of the product. Imagine a Mary Kay agent who uses Cover Girl products. It just would not make sense, and it says little about the product. Those who are willing to invest their time into selling a product via a home party understand that they are selling more than the product. Their own testimony matters.

Consumer care matters. Successful business partners of the home party business will look at their customers as more than a meal ticket. They learn to engage in friendly conversation at the part and learn about their clients needs. They also learn to gear their presentations and recommendations to the client's specific needs. Are the clients young moms? Empty nesters? Retired grandparents? A great salesman will be able to boost her home business party sales by presenting the best product for her potential clients' needs.

Caring about the client also means spending some time on paper work after the party. Great home party business entrepreneurs know the importance of follow up. They send out notes inquiring about the customer's needs and even thank you notes for the customer's purchase. They take the time after hostess has wiped the last crumb to remember what made the home party successful in the first place: willing customers.

Finally, a successful home party business person will maintain rapport with her clients and hostess by paying attention to them outside of the party environment. Great business people understand the importance of a kind word when bumping into a potential client at the grocery store. Even if the individual did not place an order, the successful entrepreneur will express a warm attitude towards that person and call him or her by name. Who knows? This may even lead to an eventual sale.

Home party sales have existed for decades. Great sales people understand what they must do to successful boost their home business party sales. By following these few, simple tips, they experience success which not only keeps them in business but allows for a hefty commission at the end of each party.

Why Sales People Lose Business

In my time as a sales director in the IT industry I spent a lot of time and effort trying to understand why we won and lost business, with most of the effort on the latter. In sales reviews, reading lost business reports and raking over the ashes with ex customers I compiled a comprehensive list of reasons. Top of the list was price! “The competition offered a lower price, bought the business or gave more for the same” were the usual suspects. Next was product, “they had this widget, or used newer technology or had a better roadmap for the future of their offering”. Hard on the heels of these compelling reasons was “they went over the IT managers head, blew him out of the water and changed the basis of decision”. Other reasons included “they had a better unique selling proposition (USP) than us”, i.e. our marketing people are useless; “the customer has decided to write the software as they have people with little to do” and of course “they have decided not to progress the project as they don’t have the budget”.

One day one of my best sales people came to me and said he had just lost a piece of business. Out of morbid curiosity I asked why and checked my trusty list of reasons. To my surprise he came out with a reason I had never heard before. “I was outsold, their guy was better than me”. This unprompted piece of honesty caused me to amend my list; I crossed out ‘reasons’ and replaced it with ‘excuses’. Exploring this situation further, our offering was competitive in every area so the classic excuses were not relevant in any case. What was relevant though was the competition’s sales person; he was their USP, because he added more customer value during the sales process. This was a really interesting lesson and led to another question. Why would this sales person adopt a very open position, when others blamed third parties? The answer was quite simply confidence. Unlike many of his colleagues he did not suffer from the fear of failure (or the sack) as to him losing was a lesson to learn from, not a disciplinary issue.

There are a few practical steps that can be taken to increase the confidence of your sales people and reduce the incidence of lost business.

• Firstly create an environment where the fear of failure is reduced and that engenders honesty. In turn this will help reveal the real reasons for failing to win business.

• Ensure that these causes and how to resolve them are written into the sales person’s development plan and are followed up by the individual and their managers. Make sure the rest of the sales team know and that they learn from it.

• Celebrate success; speaking to companies and individuals this is something which seems to have got lost in today’s business world. Success is infectious and builds confidence in individuals and sales teams.

People will always lose business, it is not a crime. Failing to understand why and not learning the lessons is a failure of both individuals and their management.

Using Squidoo To Skyrocket Your Direct Sales Business

New and seasoned direct sellers need to stand apart from their competition particularly if you're with a direct sales company that offers cookie cutter websites. If you're looking to build online business specifically, you need to find a way to show your potential customers and recruits that YOU are the expert in your field.

You could spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a marketing plan specifically designed for you and your company. You could spend another large amount on advertising and PR. But what I if I told you there was a way to set yourself apart on the internet - and also told you that it's free? Would you stop and take notice?

I hope so because there's a wonderful tool on the Internet that's just perfect for direct sellers to strut their stuff and establish themselves as the expert in their field and it doesn't cost a penny - and even the time element is minimal. You set this up in about 5 minutes and it's easy. It's called Squidoo!

Squid-what? Squidoo - I like to call it a blog on steroids. Squidoo doesn't call them blogs though; they're called "lenses" because each lens helps you to focus in on specific information on one area.

What can you do on a squidoo site that will help you maximize your position as the direct sales expert for your company?

1. Have a web identity separate from your company sponsored replicated website. It's great to have a company site, but having a squidoo lens will help people find YOU and not just your company.

2. Confirm your expert status. You can give details about your products and how customers can use them in real life. You can go beyond the product descriptions and really help your customers see the benefits of the lifestyle that your company's products promotes.

3. Links to your company site. Within the squidoo lens you can link to your company website too. It's a great lead generator for you.

4. Video and tutorials - show your customers how to sign up by displaying an online video of the process right on your lens (some special software may be required for this part). Even if you don't do video you can type out a step by step tutorial on your sign up process so the shy ones feel better about jumping in.

5. Book and resource recommendations - recommend books and other resources so your customers can become educated. Just another service to help set you apart from the crowd. This option allows you to also earn a little side income for yourself. Not bad!

Zig Ziglar Sales Training Business Opportunity

Zig Ziglar has opened his sales training into Australia. To grow the busienss and share the success of the Zig Ziglar business, Ziglar Australia are looking for people and companies that would like to resell the Ziglar sales training services.

To further drive the success of the Ziglar franchise in Australia, Ziglar is looking for resellers across Australia to market the sales training classes in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.

As a reseller you have access to marketing materials and content, access to the sales training and Zig Ziglar products. Expected income is $1000 to $10,000 per month, with no reseller fees.

For further information on our sales training in Australia visit www.ziglar.com.au or for specific details see

Secrets of Closing the Sale http://www.ziglar.com.au/salesclosingtraining.htm and the Ziglar Sales System http://www.ziglar.com.au/salestraining.htm.

Contact Ray Schroder for further information at http://www.ziglar.com.au/Contact.htm

Direct Sales Tips: Take Control Of Your Business Finances

Whether you joined your company for the additional income, the fun and products, or the tax benefits, taking the following steps will enable you to get control of your business finances for higher profits and greater peace of mind.

· Control your spending. Write down in advance what you will need for your business in the coming month. First, focus on business essentials such as catalogs and show supplies. Then be conservative for additional expenditures like buying equipment for your office or supplies for organizing.

· Be creative. Necessity is the mother of invention. Find ways to reduce unnecessary expenses by thinking creatively. Invite a prospect to your home for dessert and coffee rather than taking her to lunch at a restaurant. Make long distance calls to customers and hostesses on your cell phone if your plan includes free long distance minutes. Find new ways to save!

· Get Organized. Disorganization not only costs you time; it costs you money as well! Avoid wasting money on too many copies or duplicating forms by organizing your files. In addition, have a place in your wallet and a file in your desk where you place receipts for business expenses. Imagine the thousands of dollars in tax-deductions you may have missed simply because you did not keep a receipt.

· Track every business expense for the month. At the end of each month, total what you have spent on your business. Consultants who are maximizing tax benefits keep two totals: “Essential Expenses” and “Maximized Write-Offs” so they can see the additional benefits they are enjoying from their legitimate home-based business expenses. Write the highest total on the outside of a 9X12 envelope for each month.

· Track your income. List all your income for the month on the outside of the envelope as well. These will include Retained Profits (the 30-36% you keep from each show), Overrides (the amount earned on your team’s sales volume), and Bonuses (kit and volume bonuses).

· Compare income to expenses. Subtract your expenses from your income and evaluate the results. Keep in mind that if you are maximizing your tax benefits by writing off every legitimate expenses you would incur whether you had a business or not, you may show a loss that does not truly reflect the profitability of your business. This saves you tax dollars!

· Make necessary adjustments. How can you reduce expenses next month? Are there expenses, such as mileage that you are not taking advantage of? How can you increase your income next month? These questions will help you get greater control of your business finances and give you a feeling of confidence and success!

Improve the Efficiency of your Business with Sales Training Programs

Proper sales training is crucial for the success of any business! The efficiency of your sales depends on various interrelated factors such as the efficiency and the skills of your business members, the ability of your company to create and explore new sales opportunities, as well as the ability to close potential sales. In addition, a proper customer relationship management can maintain the clients’ interest in the products or services offered by your business. Considering the fact that the profitability of a company is determined by its members’ relations with clients, a successful business should focus on better understanding customers’ needs, enhancing the communication with clients by providing good feed-back and also on improving interactions with clients. With the means of effective sales training programs, you will be able to strengthen the relations between clients and the members of your business.

Whether you are the owner of a large, prominent company or a small business, proper sales training of your team members is the key in achieving and maintaining a strong position on the market. In order to strengthen the relations with your loyal customers and to attract new clients to your products or services by increasing the exposure, popularity and credibility of your business, you have to make sure that your business team has a solid sales training. A proper sales training program can help you boost the profits of your business by familiarizing you and your team with a wide range of strategies for attracting new customers. In addition, sales training programs offer you effective solutions for selling more to your already existent clients, by maintaining them interested in your products or services.

There are various online professional services that offer a wide range of effective sales training programs for companies. By attending to the latest, cutting edge sales training programs, you and your business team will be able to quickly assimilate an extended package of knowledge, skills and abilities that are vital for achieving success. Sales training programs account for all the features of a successful business, ranging from customer service and sales skills to sales management and leadership development. By attending to a set of specialized sales training courses, your sales staff will be able to improve their overall sales skills, negotiation skills, communication skills and conflict resolution abilities.

Advanced sales training programs also include executive coaching, sales management coaching and leadership development, courses suitable for your team members that occupy higher positions inside your company. Thus, sales training programs are appropriate for all the people in your business, regardless of their role and position inside the company. By attending to a set of specialized, professional sales training programs, your team will learn new, effective solutions and strategies for promoting and selling your products.

Regardless of the success of your business, there is always room for improvement! After following a set of reliable, effective sales training programs, lots of businesses have been able to increase their profits by up to 30 percent! Sales training programs are strongly recommended for all business owners who wish to enhance the efficiency of their company.

Improve your Business Cards and Enhance your Sales

In this digital generation where information can be easily obtained within seconds, business cards still have retained their importance in the achievement of increased business exposure and business sales. If your business already has a bunch of printed cards distributed to a number of potential customers and yet you do not see any improvement in your market reach, then it’s high time to revamp your old business card.

Take out your business card and look at it in an objective point of view. If you were the customer, would you want to keep the card, or throw it away? Are the fonts on the card too diminutive for clear reading? Or is your design reflective of what your company is in business for? Most businessmen have their company cards printed based on their own subjective preferences, never really taking into consideration if the business cards deliver the necessary message for maximum business impact in such a minimum space.

Online connectivity has made it possible for businesses and clients to communicate without hassle, yet it is the business cards which reinforce the presence of the business even in the absence of the Internet. Thus, even when your clients are vacationing in a deserted island, or have gone camping on a mountain side where Internet connection is hard to come by, they are still able to access your business information through the business card, and even better to give your card to a prospective client.

Postcards are also viable ways to generate increased contact for your business but because business cards are handier and easier to fit into a wallet or a business file organizer, they are more certain to be carried anywhere and anytime. Moreover, what is printed on the card is as important as to how the information is printed. A business card should have the name and the logo of the company or business, the slogan or motto of the company, the contact person, contact numbers or cell phone numbers, the business website, and if possible, a physical address.

Any business should never underestimate the power of business cards. It is able to provide quick information, is easy to keep, and if optimized to the fullest, can generate impressive sales increase. Even the empty space at the back of a card can be utilized to hold additional information like a map or an attractive freebie. Business cards can surely help any business to be more well-known and profitable in the long run.

Are You Writing Articles to Boost Your Business & Explode Your Sales?

For many years search engine marketing has been the most popular advertising strategy on the Internet. But, as you know, strong competition makes it extremely difficult to get high rankings in search engines. So, what is the solution to get placements in the top 20 listings in search engines?

To get the top ten rankings which receive the lion's share in attracting traffic to websites has almost been impossible for most businesses because of the insane competition. That's why online business owners and marketers are striving hard to find solutions to this problem.

Finally, they have found one affective strategy to get top rankings in search engines. They are now writing informative articles on any subject they know well. Then, they send their articles to hundreds, even thousands of online and offline publications, including newspapers, magazines, newsletters, e-zines, journals, online portals, websites and weblogs.

Utilizing this marketing strategy helps marketers expose their offers to multi-millions of target audience in related categories worldwide, attracting tens of thousands of potential customers to their websites, helping their target audience receive information, learn many things in their favorite categories, or learn the most powerful advertising
methods to grow their businesses fast.

So, articles provide the authors with opportunities to expose their offers to millions of target audience, having many of them visit their websites. You know, more traffic generates more sales. Their readers get information on the subjects they have interest in, getting answers to the questions they have in their minds, learning many methods to boost their businesses.

In fact, both authors and their audience benefit from articles in many ways. This makes articles valuable tools serving millions of people online and offline.

Because great number of people benefit from articles, search engines evaluate articles as valuable tools, too, giving them high credits when evaluating websites. This way, articles play a great role in getting higher search engine rankings.

But, most probably you are a busy person, don't have enough time to send your articles to hundreds of distribution points including magazines, newsletters, e-zines, journals, weblogs, websites. Besides, you don't know how to submit articles to those publications, you have no idea about their rules.

How could you possibly benefit from article marketing when you are unable to send your articles to any publication. To reach herds of people, millions of target audience you have to send your articles to thousands of popular publications, high traffic websites, and you are simply unable to do it!

Don't worry. There are many nice people out there to distribute your articles to hundreds of best places and popular publications for you to reach millions of target audience in a specific category. Most of these wonderful people would even do it without any cost on your part.

These are the links to the websites of free article publisher and distributors:

1. Ezine Articles.com   
2. ZapContent.com
3. ArticleRich.com
4. iSnaire.com
5. Marketing for Success
6. The News   
7. New Free Articles

Your original articles sharing useful information with the readers will enhance your credibility and reliability which are essential values to keep your existing customers in your business, while attracting many more potential customers to your website. Keep writing.

Building A Strong Downline Relationship In Your Direct Sales Business

Congratulations! You've got a strong direct sales downline or are beginning to build one! This is one of the best parts of being a direct sales consultant, - the fact that you can share your passion for your business with others, help them to earn a little extra money and get paid for helping grow your company as well.

Now that you are a leader of a team, you'll need to build a strong relationship with downline members to not only help them stay strong in their business, but to help your business grow stronger as well. A strong downline relationship will be one that's mutually helpful and everyone benefits.

But you may be wondering how to insure that downline members feel cared for while still maintaining some type of balance with the rest of your life. Here are 5 easy tips for maintaining a great upline/downline relationship.

1. Start off with a bang. When a new recruit first signs up, it's vitally important that you communicate often with her. One thing that I have found very helpful here is to develop a series of emails to send to new downline that talks them through those first days "on the job".

It will help them feel like they are connected to the company and to you. Each day while your new recruit is waiting for her kit she should hear from you. This is very easy to do with an autoresponder system, but can also be done by just copying and pasting into an email message every morning.

2. 15 minutes a day. Set aside fifteen minutes of each workday for downline phone calls. Use those minutes to call one to five members of your group for a quick "just checking in" call. Leave a message if you get voicemail. The idea is to let them know that you're thinking of them and giving them a chance to hear your voice. This is a great time to ask how they're doing with their non-business life as well and get beyond your direct sales company to show you care about them.

3. A downline website. Creating a simple website for my group has been the best thing, by far that I did to keep communication open and strong with my group. We have weekly topic discussions, contests, upload important files and just have fun with the whole group. Through this many relationships between members of my group have blossomed just because the website allowed them to "break the ice".

4. Meetings and/or conference calls. This is another great way to foster unity and strong relationships within your group. Many of you probably have downline that are out your area, so have a quarterly conference call with everyone just to touch base. There are many free teleconference services via the internet that make it very easy to do. And if you can, have a face-to-face meeting once in a while as well. Some group leaders have meetings monthly or quarterly. Others do a once a year get together with everyone.

5. Ecards. I love ecards for celebrating birthdays, achievements etc. First of all it's FREE, which is great, but it's so convenient and just plain fun. Use one of those Internet calendar functions to keep track of birthdays. Once a month go through the upcoming month and set up the ecard deliveries for the birthdays and company anniversary dates for the next month or more. You can set these up to deliver up to a year in advance! It's a wonderful thing. There are hundreds of sites for free ecards on the Internet.

The key? Communicate in any and every way that you can. You will find that your direct sales team members will stay with your company much longer when you've fostered a strong relationship by keeping in touch! Have fun and happy team building!

Article Writing: Can It Help My Direct Sales Business?

Question: How can I get long-term advertising for my Direct Sales website without spending a fortune?

Signed, Direct Sales Mom

Dear Direct Sales Mom,
Very often, people in Direct Sales don’t realize they can benefit from the same methods of internet marketing that other online businesses use. Writing and submitting articles is one of those methods of marketing that is extremely effective for Direct Sales businesses.

If you’re unfamiliar with the way article marketing works, basically, you write and give away helpful, informative articles. Why would you work so hard and give away your information? Look at the bottom of this article. There you’ll see my name and a brief bit of information about what I do. I didn’t pay for that advertising. It’s free.

So, how does it work? You write an article about a topic that you are interested in – usually one that relates in some way to your business. If you sell makeup, there’s no point in writing about forest fires. So, show your expertise and share your love of what you do in a brief article. Then you’ll want to find article directories that will accept your article. You’ll submit your articles to the directories, including your author bio and a link to your website.

Website publishers, blog owners, and ezine publishers will search the directories and find interesting articles to share with their readers. When they use one of your articles, they’ll include your author bio at the end with a clickable link to your website. Voila. You just scored some free traffic.

As long as your company allows you to link to your website, (and I realize that some don’t) – you can use article writing to grow your customer list and your team.

If your company does not allow links to your website, you may be able to set up a lead generation page to get people’s information. Or you can send them to a newsletter sign up page where you can get them on a list where you may talk more freely about your products in your newsletter. Just be sure to check with your company policies and procedures before investing too much time and energy into writing articles.

Now get writing!

5 Fun Party Games For Direct Sales That Will Boost Your Business

If you are in direct sales, the money is all in the parties you do. You want your hostess and her guests to have as much fun as possible, but at the same time, you need to educate them on and interest them in your products. You may also want to plant the idea of one of them becoming a consultant. Party games can accomplish all of this while providing entertainment to the guests. Here are a few of our favorite games. Give them a try and watch your business grow.

1) Bingo

This is an easy all-time favorite and an easy way to introduce a wide variety of products to the group.

Create some bingo cards by drawing a 4 by 4 box grid on a piece of paper. Write “Free” on the center box. Then write the names of your products on the remaining boxes in random order on each of the bingo cards and make yourself a set of cards with just one of the products on each card. You will use this set of cards to draw the bingo “numbers”. You may want to have a sample of each of the products with you and show it and talk about it when the product is drawn during the bingo game. As in ordinary bingo, the first person who has a row of items checked off wins a prize.

2) Get To Know Each Other Game

This game makes for a nice icebreaker, especially if most of the guests don’t know each other. It can also provide you some clues about who may be a potential prospect.

Pass around a bag of M&Ms. Tell everyone to take as many as they would like. Quickly ask them to count the number of candies in their hand. Each person then takes a turn standing up and telling as many things about themselves and their family as they have M&M’s. Of course no one is allowed to eat their M&Ms until they have had their turn.

3) How Well Do You Know Your Hostess?

Give a piece of paper to each of your guests and have them number it from 1 to 10. Then ask them to answer the following questions.

1) What is your hostess’s favorite color?
2) If she could have any vehicle, what would it be?
3) How many kids does she have?
4) What is her favorite hobby?
5) Who is her favorite actor?
6) What is her favorite animal?
7) What is her favorite TV show?
8) What is her favorite food?
9) What is her favorite scent or smell?
10) If you were in need of something, would your hostess give it to you if she can?

After everyone writes down their answers (including the hostess), read the questions again and have the hostess tell everyone her answers. The other guests mark on their papers if they got it right or wrong. The person with the most write answers wins a small prize or discount on their purchase.

You can change and rearrange any of the questions, but leave the last one in place. It provides a nice lead- in to mention that the hostess will get free product if they purchase a certain amount, and/or book their own parties.

4) Left Right Game

This game is a great way to start a party, right before you go into your presentation. Pass out one or two small gifts. Tell your guests that you will read them a story and that they should pass the gift to the person to the right when they hear the word “right” and to the left when you mention “left. The person holding the gift at the end of the story gets to keep it.

Here is the story:

I left my house and was on my way to (insert hostess’s name) house. But I soon discovered that I had left my directions at home, right by the phone! Well, I knew right away that I needed to have the right directions to (insert hostess’s name) house, so I turned left and I turned left and I turned right and made my way back to my house for the right directions. Sure enough, there they were, right where I had left them, right next to the phone.

Finally, I was on the right track. I arrived right on time and set up my (insert your company name) presentation right over here. You all arrived and sat down. I’m going to get right down to work and tell you about (name of company). I hope nothing will be left out. In a moment I’ll show you our new line of (insert your type of products) products. If you left home with the intention of shopping for gifts tonight, you’ll find we have the right gift for everyone. Think about upcoming birthdays and holidays, we don’t want anyone left out. I’d be happy to help you find the right gift for that special someone.

(Insert name of company) has a (insert number of days) –day return policy. When your merchandise comes in please check it right away. If something is not right please call me right away and you can be sure I will take care of it right away. You don’t want to be left with something you are not 100% satisfied with, right? If you’d like to be a hostess and earn free and discounted merchandise, this is the right time for you to explore hosting a party.

I’m enjoying being here with all of you tonight and I hope you are having fun, too. I know you can’t wait to see if we have that special item you have been looking for, so without further delay I will get right to the point of this party, which is showing you our great products! So, there is really nothing left for me to do except congratulate the winner, right?

5) Ask Me About My Job

This game is a great way to get your guests thinking about joining your company.
Get or make up some tickets.

Tell your guests that for the next 3 minutes you are going to play “ Ask Me About My Job”. The first person to come up with a question will get 3 tickets, the second person will get 2 and every question after that earns one ticket.

You will hear questions like “How long have you been doing this?” and “How many hours a week do you work?” Answer them as positively as possible. Good answers to the questions above would be “I’ve been doing this for 12 months and I’ve never had so much fun” and “ I only work evenings and weekends because I want to be home with my kids”.

After the three minutes are up, tell you guests to hang on to their tickets. You will have another short Q&A session towards the end of the party (your guests will have thought of some additional questions by then). After that have a drawing for a small prize.

This game is a great opportunity for you to teach your guests about your business and they may see how could benefit them.

Give a few of these games a try and put your own spin on them. All of these can easily be adapted and modified to work for you and the particular direct sales company that you represent. Go out there and have fun!

Business Is So Slow - How Do I Create More Sales?

When business is slow it's time to make some more sales. One of the easiest ways to do this is to get existing customers to buy more from you. The expense of picking up a new customer far out way the costs of getting a "second sell" from an existing customer.

It is funny how much effort businesses put into getting new customers and then forget to follow through.

Gather information and build a database of your existing customers. The way your business handles data will make the difference between being a top performer in your niche and just getting by. You should be able to search and find information within seconds about every aspect of your customer base.

Research your existing customers. Do you know their latest plans? Do you know all their buyers? Do you know who else they buy from? Is the owner of the business getting close to retirement? Is the business up for sale? Is the business in trouble? Is the business expanding? If so, which territory are they expanding into?

Successful businesses understand their customer's fears and desires. They regularly ask questions. Know thy customer and you will stand a better chance of getting the next order.

Follow through by keeping touch regularly with every business that has bought from you in the past. Regular visits, the occasional email and posting your latest brochure, product offering or special offer will all help you to keep the customer informed. Never ever stop the lines of communication after the initial sale even if the customer buys elsewhere next time.

After the "second sale" ask for referrals. If the customer has bought from you twice then they must be satisfied with your service and your products.

Reward loyal customers with regular special offers and seasonal gifts. All buyers like to feel special and a small inexpensive gift will really help to cement the relationship. Offer add-ons like extended warranties & better quality products. Would you like fries with that burger?

Get personal with your top customers. Have they been to your house? Have they met your family? Have you met theirs? Have you played any games with them? Wine and dine with your top customers and satiate their appetite.

Offer a discount if the customer buys more than his regular requirement. Do you think it is a good idea to let your customers share the burden of storage, especially of bulky products? Let your customers know about your dead stock. Shift it, even if you make a loss. Eventually old stock will decay and become worthless anyway. Storing dead stock over time kills your bottom line.

Measure your results. Who is the most profitable sales representative? Who is your best customer? Which advertising campaign really worked well for you? What made it different from all the other campaigns? Which products make you the most money?

It's really simple isn't it? No earth shattering guidelines above.

Businesses that miss out even one component from the above will pay the price when their competitor overtakes them. On the other hand, businesses that have a plan to keep existing customers buying more will reap the rewards as word of mouth gets around that they really do care.

Blog Marketing Miracles: How To Bring Sales To Your Business Through A Weblog

An increasing number of business entities are actively using blogs as part of their marketing strategy. Why? Blogging is providing them the ability to connect with their audience thus encouraging goodwill which in turn helps bring sales.

Marketing through Blogging

It is nothing you have not heard for quite some time now. Blogging has caused quite a stir. It has, in fact, continued to proliferate rapidly. In early days, a blog is just a personal online diary. It is a place to publish one’s thoughts, to collect and share things that one finds interesting. It is a venue to express one’s rants, raves and musings. Today, professional and amateur journalists, political pundits, business honchos, entertainers, everybody seems to be blogging. Blogs are now being used to promote a business, run a political campaign, elicit publicity, among others.

A blog or weblog is an online diary of events arranged in reverse chronological order. The author of a blog is known as a blogger and writing or maintaining a blog is referred to as blogging. An individual entry or article is called a post and is available in the form of a blog page for the public to read. A blog may have a commentary box for readers to leave comments or opinions. These comments act as stimulus for further conversations. A business or corporate blog is simply a blog about a specific business. It is an effective medium for communicating with current and potential customers to share knowledge and expertise and foster relationships.

A company that employs a well-planned blogging strategy can spur significant market gains and sales earnings. Marketing is not just promoting a product or service. More importantly, it is about understanding the needs and wants of customers and developing products or services that satisfy these needs and wants effectively.

A blog enables a company to reach out to current and potential customers, in a more personal way. A blog builds connection and links between the company and its key audience which helps the company use this network over time to improve overall business. A business blog especially if regularly updated can inform readers about a company product or service, information, industry news, tips, tutorials or company developments. Links to industry-related stories can also be found in a blog. The way the targeted audience responds to these information or content is important to any company.

A blog is a good venue for customers to air issues, concerns and give comments. Through a blog, customers can give their own inputs. A company can hear directly from customers and understand what they desire to get from a product or service. Sometimes, the most well-intentioned product under perform because of lack of customer feedback. With blogging, a company can ask for feedbacks, albeit not the whole world, but at least the blogging community. Once a company has insights into what a large community thinks of the product or service, the company can then further improve the product or service to meet customer requirements. After all, customer satisfaction is of utmost importance.

A company who listens and responds to customer feedbacks conveys the message that there is somebody who listens behind an otherwise faceless company. Because a blog is conversational, it gives the company a human voice.

This assures customers that there is a “real” person who will take care of their needs. Customers will feel an affinity with the company. Regular visits brought about by regular updates thru fresh blog entries will familiarize the customers with the company and make them feel that they personally know the company. In due time, trust and loyalty is built and relationships fostered. As we all know people generally buy products or avail the services of people they know and trust. Rest assure that return visits to the blog, maybe for more information will transpire even after a purchase has been made. As they say, customer loyalty is the end-all-be-all of marketing.

A company that utilizes customer ideas, feedbacks, and opinions can further satisfy customer needs and wants and thus facilitates goodwill in the blogging community. It is standard practice in blogging to provide a link to a thought originator which is important because backlinks are a method for search engines to rank a blog. Search engine ranking is very important. Google and Yahoo are two of the most popular search engines.

A blog is typically written daily thus the blog post is new. The search engines index the new post more often than the regular website. The result is a high rank compared to a website. If a company has a product to promote and publishes blog posts about the product regularly, chances are one of the blog posts will be found by readers who may be looking for information about the product. Hopefully, after reading the blog post, the potential customer will visit the company website and make a purchase online or buy the product in a “brick and mortar” store. Marketers acknowledge that potential customers can be customers once they find the information they want about a product from the company’s blog.

Another feature of a blog why search engines love it is a blog’s high number of incoming links. Bloggers link to other blogs, articles and websites. The reading audience is exposed to a plethora of information. Bloggers, thus, create and retain a loyal following of readers. PageRanks for blogs are usually very strong too. As you and I know, high search engine ranking translates to high traffic and more sales leads.

Generating Sales from Blogging

The way to get the most from blogging is by building a strong brand. A brand is simply value for the customer. It is good customer service and products or services that will satisfy customer needs and wants. A blog can help a company demonstrates its expertise in its industry or field. Blogs do create buzz about a company’s authority in its niche. A blog connects a company to its target audience and peers and starts a more dynamic conversation with the marketplace. A blog helps to show a company’s value, its online brand on the web. Once a company has built a strong brand, sales will just follow.

Publishing a blog will not automatically generate higher sales. However, it is an efficient way to communicate with customers and prospects. A blog in itself is an excellent tool to support a business, provide value, build relationships and establish brand and image. The ultimate purpose of a blog is to brand, to communicate and to connect. Increased sales should only be viewed as a positive indirect effect of a successful blog.

7 Considerations When Making A Business Sales Letter

When making a business sales letter, the primary goal is, obviously, to make a sale. However, focusing on this bottom line is ultimately what causes a lot of business sales letters to fail, simply because customers feel that the letter is all about trying to seperate them from their hard earned money. The best business letters are made by people who believe in their products and know that it is actually to their customer's benefit to use it over other competing products. Building on this basic rule, there are 7 factors to consider when making a business letter that will let your customers know that, while you ARE out to make a profit, it will be based on THEIR satisfaction with your product.

Target Market Type - consider the demographics of your intended market. Know how they think, how they talk, what they need, how much of a budget they generally have, and what benefits they can find in using your product. This knowledge makes it easier to tailor a sales approach that they can relate to. Using fancy words or "business jargon" when your target market is mostly composed of people who haven't studied economics, for example, will only serve to overwhelm and confuse them.

Product Details - know your product intimately. This does not mean that you have to blab about the endless hours of research that went into making your product superior to others, or the incredibly high tech materials and construction methods that went into making it. Intimate product knowledge from a consumer point of view boils down to one thing: What can your product do for the buyer?

Product After Sales Support - if your product provider has after-sale support options, be sure to include those as some of the advantages of buying what you have to offer. Customer service lines, extended warranties, and even home service options are things that show the customers that you will still be there for them even AFTER you've made a sale. This also imparts a measure of faith in the product that it won't simply break down a few months or even weeks after purchase.

Selling Approach - the most effective selling approach is to remain customer oriented. By focusing on your buyer's needs, you increase the likelihood that they will prefer to buy what you have to offer over the competition. However, you also have to consider HOW your target market thinks and communicates; some demopgraphics prefer elaborate statements, others value a sense of humor, still others prefer terse and straight to the point presentations. Know how your customers generally communicate and make your style suit them.

Layouting - a good visual presentation is one of the keys to any good document. Layouting is essential in any letter because it makes the document catch the eye at first glance and makes readers willing to see what you've got. Beyond the looks, however, layouting also involves the order and manner in which you present your information. A graphically stunning letter that has poor layouting when it comes to presenting information will still fail. Be precise and orderly in your presentation of facts.

Timed Response Incentives - this is a fairly classic method of getting a quick response from a customer. The most common places you'll see this will be on shopping channels, with announcers saying something like "order within the next 30 minutes and get a 10% discount". Timed response incentives in business letters should be similar BUT should offer greater leeway for customer response to special promotional discounts. The failure of shopping channel program's approach is that customers feel pressured to buy NOW, which makes them think that all the company wants is their money, period. Promos on sales letters should have a much more relaxed time table, like "We're having a 10% sale all of next week, from 12:00am X date to 12:00pm Y date. Feel free to drop by and look our products over."

What Should They Do Next? - Lastly, customers HATE being left in a lurch if they wind up liking what a product has to offer but get little or no information on how to actually go about buying the product. Always include extensive contact info on the letter that lets them know the fastest and easiest ways to get in touch with you when they want to ask questions or buy something. If you have several contact numbers, try splitting them off into several types as well and include these in the letter, like a "product inquiry" number, another for making personal purchases, another for bulk purchases and/or potential retailers, etc.

Blogs And Sales: A Natural Business Partnership?

As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales. While there is no quantitative amount with regards to the exact monetary significance of blogging on sales, there are evidences of some sort of return on investment. Increase in sales can be and often is one of the indirect effects of successful blogging.

Blogs – Good for Business

Imagine sitting in front of your computer with millions of people (shareholders, business partners, competitors, employees and the media) conversing about business and the like. Now imagine if you can use all the information you learned to establish what product or service your customers want, why they want it, how they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. This is precisely what a blog is all about and much more. Definitely, blogs are good for businesses.

A blog or a weblog is an interactive website that maintains an ongoing chronicle of information. It is a regularly updated website featuring links to other articles or other websites. Generally, a blog tends to have a main content area with articles called posts or entries listed in reverse chronological order with the latest on top. Typically, these articles are organized in categories. There is also an archive of articles based on dates. A blogroll, a list of links to other related sites is another feature of a blog.

A blog may contain one or more feeds. Most blogs publish feeds (RSS, RDF, Atom). A feed is a machine-readable content that is updated periodically. A feed reader displays the new post and a link to it. Most blogs also have a feature that allows visitors to leave comments. With a blog, you publish fresh content and your readers can add their own comments with links to their own blogs. Easy to use blogging tools are available, often for free. A basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and intuitive manner while it takes care of the rest of the logistics involved in making your blog presentable and available for the public.

Blogging, authoring or maintaining a blog, is one of the rapidly increasing growth areas of the Internet. According to popular search engine Technorati, there are roughly more than 40 million blogs on the Internet today and more blogs are appearing at the rate of 75,000 a day. This is mainly due to the numerous benefits of blogging for business.

A blog has a powerful marketing capability to grow your business, be it small or big. You can now have a commanding presence on the Web, not one based on size, capital, or resources but one based on quality of content, targeted audience and useful products and services. With blogs as equalizers, the blogosphere has become a truly exciting playing field for all businesses.

A blog is a constant source of valuable and up-to-date information. Setting up a blog allows you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. A blog can be your vehicle for product or service updates, company news and any other information you want to relay to your targeted audience. A blog must contain relevant information, not just sales pitches; otherwise readers are much less likely to return. As with any part of a business marketing plan, a blog must contain information that appeals to its targeted audience.

A blog is an effective method to communicate with clients and prospects. It allows you to openly and regularly converse with them increasing credibility, creating trust and forming relationships with them early on. A blog with its conversational style is ideal for developing good customer relationships. Readers will feel comfortable with you long before they call you to make a purchase or avail of your service.

A blog is a great tool to get feedback from readers. Your readers can leave comments or make inquiries. A blog is a great way to find out what readers are thinking and in the process provides you with ideas or how to better serve them thus improving your business. Forming business decisions based on reader feedbacks can be one of the smartest business moves you can ever make.

Nevertheless, to be effective, a blog has to be updated frequently. Readers do not visit blogs that do not feature fresh content regularly. Keeping readers in the know with periodic posts about your business creates buzz and publicity. There is work involved in creating a blog. It takes time and commitment to write interesting and informative blog posts. But it may prove to be well-spent especially if it helps generate sales.

Blogs and Sales – In Tandem

Sales require personal interaction. A blog is one such place where communication thru conversations thrives and relationships are fostered. When you give your readers significant information they can use through your blog consistently, they will be satisfied. They will then return for more fresh content on a regular basis. Overtime, you will be able to build a loyal following. Readers will see you as an expert in your particular niche. Your readers will come to trust you and a relationship is developed. Your readers will perceive that it is less of a risk to buy from you or avail of your service. If you can blog efficiently about your subject, they tend to believe that your product or service will be worth it.

By blogging, you are sending the message that there is someone listening, someone you can approach as can be gleamed from answered comments and fresh updates. This will make your readers feel more secure and will take this into consideration as they form a purchasing decision. Blogging is inherently an ongoing conversation that in the long run builds trust and loyalty and breeds familiarity. When they become satisfied customers, they will come to you for more information and if given the choice will want to buy from you. This strengthens the relationship between you and your customers and they may also send other sales lead your way. The cycle goes on. Moreover, a blog is a remarkably effective way to get high search engine ranking. In other words, blogs can bring in more readers – more prospective buyers.

A much publicized example that highlights the natural relationship between blogs and sales is the Stormhoek case. Blogging doubled South African wine producer Stormhoeks’s sales in less than twelve months. Aware of the vast numbers of people who blog and read posts, Stormhoek decided to capitalize on this by offering bloggers free bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to try and comment on. Sales went up from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases. The wine became popular and earned it listings in prestigious wine connoisseur clubs. What is more, Stormhoek gets feedbacks and suggestions ranging from bottle color to label design.

Blogging is marketing to people in a less obtrusive and offensive manner, more like a freewheeling conversation compared to an irritating sales pitch. It truly is a good way to increase sales, albeit indirectly.

Business Cards That Boost Your Sales

A business card is a great way to introduce your company name to a potential client and then in turn they will always have your name and number handy. This brings your company into your client’s world as a household name for your customers for their future needs or as a word of mouth company to pass on to their friends and family. Business cards that boost your sales need to be given out to every person you come in contact with or anyone who becomes interested in your company and the service that you provide. A business card should also have an eye-catching design and it should be memorable to help your business profit more.

Let us say that you are in the real estate business. A business card is extremely necessary in that line of work. Your name will be remembered when your customer is given your card and then they will have it to keep around and refer to when necessary. There are several templates available online that will give your business card the look that you desire. Real estate business cards can convey the message that you are an independent realtor or it can show what area that you work with. Rather this is a design for apartments or houses or a specific city like New York Cit or Los Angeles with beautiful layouts, those designs will definitely enhance the look and feel of your business card. Your company will benefit in sales from a real estate business card that shows the areas of real estate you work in and the design should catch a potential client’s eye and keep them intrigued while they are holding onto your card. Consider adding clip art to your business card if you want a simple, yet effective design for your real estate business.

There are magnetic business cards that give your customers the assurance that they can place your card on the refrigerator and forget about it. Then the next day and a couple of weeks later your business card will still be around when the needs of your services are required. Your business card is not just another paper card. It has a feature that is almost guaranteed to get you business and boost your sales. Magnetic business cards are easily accessible and are a lot harder to lose, once you stick them and forget them. The refrigerator is not the only surface that your magnetic business card will stick too. File cabinets, lockers, and even cars can become places of advertisement for your business and its services.