Many years ago I came across list of sales and marketing tips that I have used in my career. I recently reviewed the list and do they ever seem timeless. (This was before the Internet and social networking!)
These 25 timeless sales and marketing tips are provided for your enjoyment and use on your road to Success in Business Relationship development.
1. Know what kind of image you want your company to project to the outside world—it’s key to your marketing success.
2. Monitor where your product or service is in relation to the product life cycle so you can plan ahead and be prepared to replace products in decline or dead.
3. Think about the hopes, wishes and dreams of your customers—marketing is, to some extent, about selling hopes, wishes and dreams.
4. Plan your budget carefully and spend according to where you are in the product life cycle. If you are at the beginning, then marketing should take priority. If you are coming toward the end of the cycle, consider serious research and development.
5. Watch how your competitors market products and services that are similar to yours.
6. Identify your unique selling point, that aspect of your product or service that distinguishes it from the competitors’.
7. Recognize that, sometimes, you’ll have to adopt a long-term sales strategy to persuade someone to see the worth of your deal.
8. Involve your people in the collection of data on customer service. This will help them develop ownership and responsibility for performance. {Capture customer insights in your shared CRM system}
9. Don’t let untrained personnel deal with complex customer issues. Give them training and guidance before they mess up.
10. Reconsider any activities that do not have tangible benefits for customers.
11. Address customer concerns quickly—before they become customer complaints. {Identify common complaints and record in your CRM system so they can be learned from by others}
12. Don’t overload customers with information.
13. Ask dissatisfied customers how you can win back their business.
14. Set up a process to obtain customer information. Make sure that it’s accessible to your sales team. {An effective CRM system sure can help here}
15. Avoid recording irrelevant details at the point of sale since they could obscure important facts.
16. Learn about your competitors’ customers as well as your own clients.
17. Ask marketing team members when they last met a customer. Ensure regular meetings are held.
18. Involve your customers when planning your business processes. Explore areas for improvement together, and change your plans if necessary.
19. Warn customers of delays—failure to alert a customer can damage your organization’s reputation and lose it customers.
20. Set objectives that will bring benefits for your customers once you achieve them—and establish how to measure the return in your customers’ terms.
21. If you want to close a deal, ask for a yes. Don’t assume that your customer will make the commitment just because you’ve pointed up the benefits and handled all objections effectively.
22. Ask loyal customers for testimonials. {Their words can be more powerful than your own!}
23. Always tell the truth, and tell the whole truth. Never withhold the disadvantages of a product, even one you are enthusiastic about. You can lose customers once they discover what you held back.
24. Never ever, in any way, embarrass a customer, especially by making him or her feel ignorant.
25. Form relationships with gatekeepers. They often have inside information that will help you sell your products. They also have hidden powers, like the ability to spread positive words about you and your product to the right ears.
What timeless tips can your add?
