Many years ago I sold investment property.
And when I first started I was not very good at explaining how investment property works.
I used to meet with potential clients and then spend half an hour telling them everything I could about a particular investment property.
Where it was located, who built it, what it was constructed of and so on.
What I didn't explain to my clients was how investment property worked and why it might be useful to own one.
Instead I focussed on all the features of a particular property.
As a result I struggled to make sales.
Then one day I met a salesperson who had been selling investment property for many years.
He was making a lot more sales than me so I asked him how he explained investment property to potential clients.
He sat me down and in less than five minutes he showed me how investment property worked when you did it properly.
His presentation consisted of drawing two simple diagrams on a piece of blank paper
and then writing down a few words on each diagram.
I was amazed because I could now see clearly how investment property worked as soon as he had finished his 5 minute presentation.
look for sales and marketing strategies that are already working well and can help you get better results.
I asked if I could use this presentation with my own clients and was told that was fine.
I immediately began using this same 5 minute presentation with every potential investment property client that I spoke with.
To my delight they all understood in 5 minutes exactly how investment property works. And many of these people went on to become clients.
So all I did was to take a sales presentation that was already working well (for another sales person) and then used it myself.
And you can do exactly the same thing in your own business.
Just look for sales and marketing strategies that are already working well and can help you get better results in four key areas.
1: Lead Generation
This is anything you do to get potential clients to contact your business and ask for information about what you sell.
2: Sales Conversion
This is anything you do that gets potential clients to spend money and become paying customers.
3: Repeat and Referral Sales
This is anything you do that encourages people to give you repeat and referral business.
4: Unique Competitive Advantage
This is anything you do that positions your business as being better than your competitors and gives people a great reason to spend money with you.
So where do you find marketing and sales strategies that are already working well?
1: First of all look in your own business.
If you have a number of sales people you often find that some are getting better sales results than others.
Take a close look at these top sales people and see what they are doing differently.
It could be the questions they are asking, the examples they give, the testimonials they use and so on.
Once you find something they are doing better encourage other sales people to try that same idea.
2: Secondly look at what other successful businesses are doing. (Both in your own industry and in other industries.)
• How are they attracting good quality clients?
• What are they doing to get repeat and referral business?
• How do they encourage people to spend money for the first time?
• What are they doing better than you?
Once you find something that seems to work well, try it in your own business.
Keep doing this and before long your results will improve.
Best of all by focussing on using what is already working well you can save a lot of money and time in trying things that don't work that well.
The good news is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get better results in your sales and marketing.
You just have to find them and put them into action.
"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are." John Burroughs
Take Action:
1: Look this week for two sales and marketing strategies that are already working well that you can use to improve your own results.
Put one of these strategies into action.
2: Helpful Resource:
I've just created a short video that explains five marketing strategies that consistently work well to boost sales. Each strategy is simple to apply and works well.
For a free copy of this video just email me using the email link in this column.
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing. You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com.
