Instilling urgency in a prospective customer can make the difference between achieving a sale and losing it altogether. If your prospects cannot vividly see personal benefits from taking action, there will never be the sense of urgency needed to follow your suggestions.

Closing is the logical conclusion of a demonstration of your products and services. Make certain that you ask enough open-ended questions to know for certain that you are applying the correct solutions to the exact problems and needs you have uncovered from your questioning. Through this process, the answers to your questions should give you all the levers you need to create a sense of urgency in your prospects.

Urgency can also be created when prospects can take advantage of special pricing on packages or bundles of products for a limited period. Make certain that all special offers or time constraints are pointed out to your prospects so that they can feel the need or urgency of making a decision today. If service charges will be increased or interest rates will change soon, use this information to set the stage for a positive and timely buying decision.

You can also create urgency by asking your prospects how much it will cost them not to take action today. If a suggested product will help them make money or avoid losing money, show them exactly what it will cost them to leave this problem unsolved. Also show them the pitfalls of trying a “do it yourself approach.” Often from this vantage point, prospects will be able to overcome the natural reluctance to making changes and move forward with a favorable decision.

If your prospects are still reluctant, ask

them about their concerns or reasons for not moving forward on your suggestions. Often a person just needs to verbalize why he feels the way he does to see that his concerns have little or no foundation in reality. To assist your prospects, write down each concern and then weigh or compare the reason to wait or postpone a decision against the benefits of taking action now. If you have built trust with your prospects, you can act almost as an independent consultant might act to help them “weigh” what would be in their best interest. It’s always best to have all the reasons for reluctance to proceed out in the open so that they can be addressed, minimized, and new positive reasons given for taking action.

VIRDEN THORNTON is the founder and President of The $elling Edge®, Inc. a firm specializing in sales, customer relations, and management training and development. Clients have included Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Deloitte & Touché, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and Wal-Mart to name a few. Virden is the author of Prospecting: The Key To Sales Success and the best selling Building & Closing the Sale, Fifty-Minute series books and Close That Sale, a video/audio tape series published by Crisp Publicantions a dividion of Thompson Learning. He has also authored a client acclaimed Self-Directed Learning series of sales, coaching & team development, telemarketing, and personal productivity training guides. To obtain a substantial discount on two of Virden’s new manuals, 101 Sales Myths and Organizing For Sales Success, check out the listings on The $elling Edge, Inc. website at: http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/books1.htm.

Note: You can contact Virden at: virden@TheSellingEdge.com.

Selling online can be very difficult, more difficult than in the 3D world because you do not get any personal contact with your customer. People cannot just browse like they do in a store, they cannot offer feedback, and it is hard to build and maintain trust throughout the entire online sales process. What compounds this difficulty is the fact that most online marketers have absolutely no experience in the field of advertising and sales.

Evaluate Your Sales Process

There are many aspects that effect your sales process online and it is possible to track the effectiveness at each stage:

Phase 1 is your advertising. The first step is just to get people to your site.

To measure your traffic you must have some kind of statistics for either your web site or integrated with the ads you place, such as ad tracker URL’s.

If you can’t get people to your site, you must alter your advertising methods or, more likely, your ad copy, there is no way around it. Whether you are using free or paid advertising, a good ad will get clicks (at least some). Remember that no matter how good an ad looks to you, if it doesn’t do it’s job, it is useless. Keep a log of the ads you place along with where and when; don’t use ads that do not produce results once they have been given a fair chance.

If your ads never seem to draw visitors, make improving your ad writing skills a priority right away. Today there are many resources available to help you learn to write a better ad, including ebooks, live personal ad writing workshops and ad writing seminars.

To be sure that WHERE you are advertising is not the problem, it is best to get recommendations from other online marketers for advertising sites and tools that produce results. This will save you the time and frustration of trying them all out for yourself. It will also allow you to stay focused on your offer rather than spending your time searching for ways to promote it.

Look for recommendations in marketing chat rooms and ask for their results or find a reputable marketing information site that will give you plenty of free information along with their proven recommendations.

Affiliates without control over their web site need to pay special attention to getting traffic. Presumably the offer you are selling includes a web page that sells, after all it sold you.

If you find that you are driving targeted traffic (not just click exchange hits) to your affiliate site, but not making any sales, you need to reconsider your offer: does it really have such a wide public appeal? Maybe new competition has arisen that has made your offer less of a value? Have you given people enough time to consider your offer and have you followed up? Be objective.

Phase 2 is your web site copy and navigation. Are people coming to your site and looking around, or do they click away immediately?

To find out, it is best to have web sites statistics that

include the path visitors take once they get to your site, but you can get an idea about this by studying your web site statistics even if they do not provide this type of information. You know which page(s) you are promoting, are people looking at other pages as well?

If not, you must alter your web site copy, design or navigation. There are several places now where you can have your web site reviewed for free by other internet marketers. This can be very valuable information; learn from it to build a site that makes visitors feel confident enough to buy from you.

Also, be sure to send prospects directly to the page that contains the information you promise in your ad, it will make their visit quick, effective, and memorable. If you advertise a particluar product, send them to that page directly, rather than landing them on your home page and trusting that they will navigate to where you want them to be.

Affiliates can experiment with sending prospects to pages other than the main page (if provided) to see if that makes any difference in their sales ratio.

Phase 3 would be your order process. Are people looking around, going to the order page and then leaving?

Here again, you need comprehensive web site statistics. If you do not have site paths statistics, pay close attention to the number of hits each of your pages receive. If you see that many people go to the order page, but do not buy, you will have to either rewrite your text to clear up misunderstanding, lower your price, display payment options more clearly, or implement some other change that makes the ordering process quicker and easier.

Try to capture email addresses with a contest, free product, report or newsletter so that you can follow up with potential customers.

Of course, affiliates would have no control over the ordering process with a replicated site. I think this is important, so I will say it again: If you find that you are driving targeted traffic (not just click exchange hits) to your affiliate site, but not making any sales, you need to reconsider your offer: does it really have such a wide public appeal? Maybe new competition has arisen that has made your product less of a value? Have you given people enough time to consider your offer and have you followed up? Be objective!

Don’t Guess!

When you are having trouble generating sales, you need to track all of your activity (and the activities of your visitors) to pinpoint where the trouble lies. Only then will you know where you need to make changes. Without this kind of information, you are just guessing and that could be worse than leaving it alone.

Cathy Wagner, online business expert and owner of onestopinternetbusiness.com, will help you reach your goals faster with hands-on marketing guidance and support, personalized for you own unique business. You can save hundreds of dollars and countless hours of frustration when you know how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls.

Too much agent … not enough prospect. It’s one of the most common mistakes in real estate marketing, especially with those new to the profession.

In your marketing, you should focus on putting your prospect first. That means you should identify the wants, needs and fears of your prospects, and address those things in your marketing. Make a strong offer. Solve their problems, answer their questions, and quell their fears.

Address these things before you say one word about your qualifications, your length of service, or any other personal attribute.

And while we’re at it, let’s address the elephant in the room. Let’s talk about multi-million dollar clubs, superstar performers, gold star agents, and similar accolades:

1. They may impress other real estate agents, but they won’t impress your prospects.

2. They put you at risk of alienating certain audiences with lesser income levels.

3. They smack of ego and self-importance.

4. They shift the focus from the prospect to the marketer.

5. They’re ill-timed and therefore ineffective (too much, too soon).

What do the above five points share in common? They fly in complete contrast to proven marketing principles.

I know what you’re thinking: “But my prospects need to know I’ve been successful in the past.” And you’re right. The question is … when do they need to know it? Right off the bat? Do you really need to hit them between the eyeballs with your super-platinum-awesome-club membership status before you’ve even offered them something of value?

Ask yourself what you really want your marketing message to accomplish. Do you want it to convince prospects of your superior service? Or do you simply want it to persuade them to contact you?

If you’re a smart marketer, you’ll focus on the second goal

— to get them to contact you. That’s an objective you can actually achieve through marketing. So use a strong, valuable offer to get them to call you.

Then you can invite them down to your office, or offer to stop by and chat with them. Then you can share some of your (relevant) success stories.

Focus too heavily on your credentials at the expense of ignoring your prospects’ needs, and you will not be the first agent they call. Goodbye listing or purchase.

Let the others shout about their millions of dollars and elite statuses. Choose instead to spend your time developing a whopper of an offer and focusing on your prospects’ needs, fears and desires. Make it a point to harvest those critical first phone calls. See who comes out on top.

Dan Gooder Richard summed this concept up nicely in an article he wrote for Realty Times (www.realtytimes.com), October 2004: “Let them get to know you — not by what you say about yourself, but by how well you show them you can provide solutions to their problems while saving them time, money, and headaches.”

Renowned copywriter and marketer Bob Bly echoed the sentiment in his book, The Elements of Copywriting: “When writing copy, start with the prospect, not the product. Your prospects are interested primarily in themselves — their goals, their problems, their needs, their hopes, their fears, and their dreams.”

Brandon Cornett has worked as a marketing manager for a direct mail company serving the real estate industry since 1986. He now dedicates his time to helping real estate professionals improve their marketing. His “Modern Guide to Real Estate Marketing” and his free newsletter are available at: http://www.ArmingYourFarming.com.

The first 15 seconds of your approach are the most important seconds of your entire sales presentation. You must instill curiosity in the mind of your prospect. It is a form of interest. As people, we are curious by nature. Curiosity wants to be informed. This state of mind is just where you want your prospect to be in at the beginning of your sales talk.

The approach includes everything that takes place from the time the salesman meets the prospect until the salesman begins their first selling talk, or until the salesman enters the second phase of selling, which is interest.

At this point the prospect has not been told much about your proposition. This is your chance to make them curious enough to want to know more.

Curiosity can be aroused in a person in many ways.

You walk into a department store to find people crowded around a table looking at something. Out of curiosity you go over to the table to see what they are looking at. It’s a new model of DVD player. If you’re interested in a new DVD player you will want to know all about how this one works. If it does everything you want in a DVD player this may stimulate the desire in you to want to own it, thereby, leading you to make the decision to take the necessary actions to buy it.

Your potential customer is no different than you in this regard.

Or you see someone looking down the street. Out of curiosity you began looking down the street too to see just what has captured their attention.

A stranger comes up to you on a sidewalk. Two questions immediately come to mind. “Who is he?” “What does he want?”

A salesman telephones the manager of a store and tells them they have a brand new product that is being introduced in the area. Of course the details are far too many to go over on the telephone, so the salesman makes an appointment to demonstrate the item to the manager. The manager is automatically curious about just what this gizmo is and how it works. The first step of the selling process has already started in the mind of the store manager.

You see a man run out of a bank holding two giant moneybags and jump into a car and speed away. Soon after, you hear a police siren. You are not curious about why the police is chasing

behind the car, but you may be interested in the outcome. We are not curious about things we already know and understand.

Without curiosity you cannot get the prospect interested in your proposition. Without interest, the prospect will not care anything about your claims. If you cannot convince your prospect that they will benefit from your offer, you cannot create the desire in them to want to own it. You will not be able to get the prospect to make a buying decision and take action.

It is also important for you to implant a favorable personal impression of you in your prospect’s mind because even if your prospect is curious about your proposition, they will have little or no interest in having that curiosity satisfied by you, if they are repulsed by your behavior. On the other hand, if you present yourself in a favorable manor, it will strengthen the curiosity for your proposal and open the door to interest.

You must pay close attention to your prospect after getting the prospect curious about your proposition. When you have piqued the curiosity of the prospect, don’t continue along this line for an extended period of time. You will exhaust the prospect’s curiosity and the first stage of the selling process will fall flat and it will have to be started all over again. After creating curiosity in the prospect’s mind, you should move on to the rest of the stages of the principles of the selling process.

Just remember, the first 15 seconds of your approach, that of creating curiosity in the prospect’s mind, are the most important. If this is not established the rest of your sales talk will be meaningless. So you can see the necessity of making a good strong opening statement, thereby getting the prospect curious about your proposition, so they will want to know more about your offer. It is also important to leave a favorable personal impression in your prospects mind.

Copyright © 2005 Gloria Whitehorn-All rights reserved

About the Author:

Gloria is an article writer, business owner, author of two books, salesperson and seasoned mail order pro. Visit her site for information on a great part-time, full-time-anytime business. She knows what she’s talking about.

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As a business owner, I receive my share of sales calls in a given month. More often than not, I’m away from my desk or out of the office which means I end up listening to the messages instead of speaking directly with the sales person. Here are a few of the common mistakes I notice and how you can correct them.

Mistake #1 – The message lacks focus or clarity. You are more likely to receive voice mail today than actually connect with the person you are trying to contact. That means you must be prepared to leave a clear, concise message. Business people are too busy to listen to a lengthy message that is not focused and you lose credibility if you cannot state your objective without rambling. The average executive in an organization receives dozens of calls every day and many of them are from sales people trying to sell a product or service. If you ramble on, your prospect will probably press delete without listening to the entire message. Keep the message brief and to the point. Plan what you are going to say BEFORE you call so you are prepared.

Mistake #2 – The message is difficult to understand. A sales person recently left me a message and he spoke so quickly that I did not understand most of his message. I knew it had something to do with the Internet and getting top placement in search engines but I couldn’t decipher his company name and most of his message was unintelligible.

If you have an accent, recognize the fact that some people may find it more difficult to understand you. That means you may have to repeat yourself or slow down in order to be understood. This also applies if you have an unusual name. Make it easy for people to understand you.

Mistake #3 – Phone numbers are rattled off at lightening speed which makes it next to impossible to write them down. Most sales people state their telephone number too quickly. A general rule of thumb is to actually write down your own number as you state it in your message. This may sound simple but I’m sure you have had to listen to some messages more than once in order to capture the telephone number. Once again, you must make it easy for the person you are contacting to understand your message. If they have to replay the message several times they will seldom call you back.

Mistake #4 – The message does not compel me to return the call. “Hi, it’s Bob from Human Resources

Plus and I’d like to talk to you about your recent merger. We specialize in helping businesses like yours manage the process more effectively.” A message like this does not compel me to call you back.

To stand out from your competition, leave a message that offers some form of benefit to your prospect or customer. For example, “Hi Mrs. Smith, it’s Bob Jones from Human Resources Plus calling. Most companies who undertake a merger experience a significant reduction in employee morale. One way to improve this is to communicate regularly with your team and keep them updated on the progress of the merger. Learn additional strategies by calling me at…”I recommend crafting a variety of different messages and offering a different benefit each time you call. Use case studies and tell your prospect about specific results some of your clients have achieved. Make your prospect want to return your call.

Mistake #5 – The message is too generic. Too many sales people try to sell their product or service to anyone who will buy it. Personalize your message by indicating that you know something about your prospect’s business and/or industry. Make references to specific challenges they face and give an example of how your product or service can help them. Remember to use your prospect’s name, particularly at the beginning and at the end of the message.

Voice mail is a vital tool in today’s business world. How you utilize this tool greatly affects your sales results and, in my experience, the majority of people fail to use it properly. Make sure your message is easy to understand and keep it brief. Enunciate your words clearly and spell out your name if necessary. Slow down your rate of speech. State your telephone number slowly so I can write it down without listening to your message three or four times. Give me a compelling reason to call you back. Lastly, adapt your message to my specific business. Personalize it and use my name.

If you want to cut through the clutter and stand out from your competition you must make your voice mail messages work for you.

© Copyright 2004, Kelley Robertson. All rights reserved.

Kelley Robertson, President of the Robertson Training Group, works with businesses to help them increase their sales and motivate their employees. He is also the author of “Stop, Ask & Listen – Proven sales techniques to turn browsers into buyers.” Visit his website at http://www.RobertsonTrainingGroup.com and receive a FREE copy of “100 Ways to Increase Your Sales” by subscribing to his 59-Second Tip, a free weekly e-zine.

Sales resistance is a fact of life for most sales people. We encounter sales resistance in 5 specific areas. In any sales transaction we must negotiate these 5 barriers. They can be real and permanent, which means no sale. Or they may merely represent perceptions that the prospect currently entertains through lack of knowledge. These perceptions can be changed through the sales process resulting in a sale.

The 5 barriers are:

1. No need: the prospect is not aware of any problem and how the type of product or service you provide can be of benefit.

2. No help: the prospect accepts the problem, but does not see why your particular product or service is the best solution.

3. No hurry: the prospect is not aware of any urgency in solving the problem.

4. No trust: the prospect is not sure that you are the right person to deal with.

5. No money: the prospect is not capable of funding the purchase.

The key to eliminating sales resistance is to quickly identify whether these barriers are real and permanent or if they are only a temporary condition. Selling is often made unnecessarily difficult by the method used by the sales person, especially when they use a “push” selling model. The traditional “push” method of selling actually increases resistance because it often does not recognise these barriers in the sales transaction. With the push approach, sales people waste much time and effort either trying to make a sale where these barriers are permanent or by using methods which increase resistance when the barriers are temporary. There is a better way – the pull (attraction) model.

The Push Sales Model

The steps of the old model look like this:

Advertise product → presentation → proposal → overcome objections → close sale.

In the push model you advertise your product (or service) to get a particular response that provides the opportunity for a sales presentation. During the presentation, you detail the features of your product and tell the customer the price and payment terms. Then you ask them to buy. Usually they will have some resistance or hesitation about going ahead (sales people call these “objections”). Then comes a negotiation phase when you try to overcome objections and “close” the sale. The prospect either says yes to your product after a bit of a battle, or tries to get you to reduce your price to the point where you don’t make a profit, or says they need to think about it. Rarely do they actually say, “No thanks.”

A number of factors make this model ineffective:

1. We suffer from information overload. It is estimated that on average we receive approximately 3,000 marketing messages daily. With so much coming at us, people are screening out advertising, making it much harder to get your message through.

2. Today’s market is more knowledgeable and there is greater choice than in the past. There is an inbuilt resistance because the customer will want to research other options before accepting your proposal.

3. The “push” approach creates resistance. I remember from school, one of Newton’s laws was “every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.” This is true in selling. When we push the reaction is resistance.

4. This resistance is even greater because people are more suspicious of sales people these days. The consequence of unethical advertising and sales practices of the past is that the market is now very wary of what advertisers and sales people say.

5. The push approach is product focused. Unfortunately, people are generally not interested in your product until they discover a need your product will satisfy. Salespeople who push the product make hard work of selling.

6. In the push approach sales people spend a lot of time trying to sell to people who have not discovered a need. They try to sell to anyone who could possibly be a prospect. This makes the job of selling very difficult and increases the level of resistance that sales people face every day.

The Attraction Model

With the pull or attraction model, there is very little need to “sell,” as selling is normally understood. In the attraction approach, the focus is on the customer rather than the product. This approach recognises that no one is interested in your product until they have identified a need. The main focus of marketing is to first highlight and identify needs, rather than inform about products. Most of the sales conversation is about the customer and their circumstances. Your job as a sales person is to identify a need, before you present your solution. You also view the customer as a long term client of your business, rather than a sales prospect who

may buy today and never come back.

There are a number of clear steps in the attraction model which eliminate much of the resistance that the push approach suffers. The model looks like this:

Lead generation advertising identifying prospects with need → build credibility → fact finding → solution → clarification → agreement → open ongoing relationship.

1. Rather than marketing to everyone, we gain permission to concentrate our marketing on the people who are most likely to buy – those who need our product. It is more effective to break the sales process down into two distinct steps, lead generation and lead conversion. Our first aim in lead generation, is to eliminate non-qualified buyers from our attention. The push model tries to sell to everybody. This is expensive and wasteful. Lead generation focuses on finding prospects with a need and gets them to indicate they want to find a solution.

2. Our “lead generation” offer needs to educate the prospect about the benefits of our product and show how the product solves the problem or meets the need. This approach means that prospects can find out more about a possible solution with very low commitment. This breaks down resistance. A free sample or trial will help, as will free information about your solution. The valuable information you provide will also build credibility and help establish trust. It also eliminates prospects who do not have capacity to fund a purchase.

3. After attracting qualified leads, we can concentrate on converting them into customers. The fact finding process is the critical element of this model. The temptation when someone responds to our lead generation advertising is to try to “sell” them. We need to resist this urge. We need to do some fact finding, some probing of the customer’s circumstances to find out the extent of the customer’s problem. Because of our focus on the customer at this point, there is very little resistance. The customer feels our genuine care to find the best solution for them. This attention to the customer also builds credibility and trust. They don’t feel like they are “being sold.” They feel respected and cared for.

4. When the exact nature of the problem is identified, the sales person, who is now regarded as a knowledgeable adviser, is able to make a proposal about the best solution to the customer’s problem. If you have done your marketing well, the solution will be your product.

5. Rather than objections, if the customer has any hesitation at this point, it is normally just in the area of needing clarification of something to do with the product or payment terms, warranties etc. These queries are not difficult to answer. All you need to do is restate the details and benefits relating to the query and check that the customer understands what that means. With the attraction model you don’t need 50 different closing techniques to trick the customer into saying yes. All you need do is to check that your customer agrees that the solution you have proposed is acceptable and ask them how they want to pay.

6. In the attraction model, the focus is not on selling, or closing sales. The focus is on creating customers and opening a relationship that provides ongoing mutual benefits to both parties. This recognises that a customer has a long term value to your business, both through the initial sale and from additional sales to that customer as well as from the referrals that satisfied customer provides.

Conclusion

Which sales model does your business use? If you are struggling, finding the market is resistant, why not develop a sales model based on the attraction approach. The attraction approach makes life easier for customers and sales people, because it is a partnership approach rather than a confrontational approach. Sales resistance is minimised, you spend more time working with interested, motivated buyers than difficult customers. You make more sales in less time with less stress.

© 2004 Greg Roworth.

Greg is managing director of Progressive Business Solutions Limited, a business consultancy operating in Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand, specialising in business growth and strategic development. Greg is a qualified MBA and Chartered Accountant with over 25 years management experience. Greg is also the author of “The 7 Keys to Unlock Your Business Profit Potential,” a vital book for business owners that shows how to develop a highly profitable business that runs on autopilot, freeing the business owner to enjoy the rewards the business provides. Purchase “The 7 Keys” online at http://www.progressivebusinesssolutions.co.nz or check out our list of useful resources on our Free Resources page.

As a business owner, you want to show your customers that you want their future business. You want to show them that you want to keep them as customers and you want them to help you get more customers. These customers are what your business is all about and by catering to them, you can help your business grow.

Beyond discounts and providing quality products, how do you cater to these customers? Easy! All you need is promotion gifts that show your customers you are happy for their business.

You can’t just give away any promotional item, and if you want to go the extra mile you will give your customers personalized brandy glasses. Personalized brandy glasses are a great idea because they show extra effort on your part to your customers. With these glasses, you are giving them something truly unique. A brandy glass is not like other types of glasses. With a wide bottom, narrow top, and short stem, they are easy to hold.

When you personalize glasses, you are giving your customers something better than what they had expected. They may expect a promotional gift but personalized brandy glasses are something completely different. They are something that your customers will really appreciate because you have taken the time to do something special for them. That extra time and money on your part will also come back to you in some big ways that you may have

not even realized.

For example, if a customer is so impressed with the personalized brandy glasses you give them, they may use them whenever they have company over, or have a dinner party. Each time they bring those brandy glasses out, other people are seeing your company name and logo on them. Each time someone sees your company name and logo, they are being advertised to and you are gaining a potential customer. This is the power of personalized promotional gifts. Your customers appreciate them, potential customers see them, and you gain a wider customer base.

You also gain something else; customer loyalty. When you take the time to give your customers something like personalized brandy glasses, you are gaining their loyalty and a customer’s loyalty is worth a lot. It means they will continue doing business with you, even without you having to advertise them. One loyal customer is worth ten customers who just walk in.

So, when you give away promotional items, go the extra mile and get your customers personalized items that they will like and appreciate. If they appreciate the gift, they will feel appreciated and they will do more business with you as result.

This is just one of the things a brandy glass with your customer’s name on it can do.

Amin is the author of Discountmugs.com. If you would like more information about Brandy Glasses please visit http://www.discountmugs.com

One of the keys to trade show success is the training of your booth staff. Each trade show requires a specific marketing message targeted to a unique prospect and an exhibiting staff that can communicate with that audience. In order to take advantage of your trade show appearance, it is crucial to have a knowledgeable, qualified and highly trained sales staff at your trade show booth.

Before the trade show, rehearsals and training sessions for your exhibiting staff are essential to maximize the leads and visitor sales potential at a trade show.

Here are the basic tips for grooming your exhibit staff:

1. Hire an exhibit staff trainer before the trade show

2. Have a trainer in the booth to set up procedures and monitor booth activity

3. Provide incentives (to stimulate tradeshow booth traffic, give a gift coupon out every hour)

4. Be good custodians of your (and your visitors’) time. Proactive learning on how to engage and courteously dismiss visitors in a professional manner is critical

5. Staff the tradeshow booth with personnel who match up well with prospects – i.e., engineers from your firm if prospects are engineers, etc.

There are basic “do’s” that attract attention:

1. Have a warm smile and a welcoming persona

2. Enthusiastic behavior — have direct eye contact, confront prospects by greeting, then engaging, and, finally, qualifying them

3. Be professional and courteous, have authority and a solid knowledge about your product or service

4. Treat visitors as they are your guests–same as you do at your company or in your home

5. Demonstrate a receptive body language — have your arms under control and your posture erect. Be proactive.

6. Trade Show Booth housekeeping-–maintain a neat, clean and tidy appearance at all times

7. Your name badge should be on the right side of your body

so when you shake hands people see it clearly.

Here are some “don’ts” in your trade show booth:

1. Do not eat, drink or chew gum

2. Do not make or accept phone calls (leave the tradeshow booth to make calls)

3. Do not sit – (except in conference area of your tradeshow display to conduct client business)

4. Show up on time — Do not show up late. Be considerate of your booth mates

5. Never leave the tradeshow exhibit unattended

6. Don’t visit socially in the tradeshow booth with your co-workers or neighboring booth staffers

Engage visitors with effective sales techniques and tactics:

1. Greet and engage prospect or client (30 seconds)

2. Probe prospect with questions memorized from a lead sheet – who, what, why, when, where– to determine their requirements and their timing. This is the positioning and pre-qualifying stage – (1 1/2 – 2 minutes)

3. Determine if the tradeshow prospect is qualified or not. If not, professionally dismiss them.

4. If they are qualified – go into a demonstration, lead to deeper dialogue, answer questions, present details on services/products (up to 5 minutes)

5. Get permission to proceed or get deeper into subject or schedule further dialogue

6. Wrap up – inform them of where you go from here. Move toward the future appointment or sale. Set a time to reconnect. Swipe badge or get their business card. Plan to follow up by sending materials to their office so that the package is there when they return to their desk immediately after the trade show.

Dick Wheeler is President of Professional Exhibits & Graphics headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The firm is a full-service premiere trade show exhibit, graphics and management services company. Go to http://www.proexhibits.com

Winning the bid for a cleaning contract doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be the lowest bidder. The entire bidding and estimating process has an enormous impact on the success of your bid, and should be considered an overall effort, and not just an aim to beat the price of any competing business. The trick is to communicate well with the facility operator in order to create a set of standard expectations and definitions for the job itself. That way, the bid you make will cater precisely to what your prospective client wants and expects, and will justify your bidding price.

Normally the services required will depend on the client, but can include sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, buffing, waxing, emptying trash and recycling, restroom cleaning and restocking, and window cleaning.

When bidding on janitorial contracts, it is best to have a specifications list that you go over with the prospective client. This ensures you and the client both know exactly what is expected, and allows you to bid accordingly. Make sure you check both inside and outside of the building, and include any seasonal or special tasks such as outside windows or sidewalks that require attention. On your tour, be aware of the level of cleanliness already present, and try and gage the expectations of the client accordingly.

Your checklist should contain the following items as a basic foundation, and should have additional points, depending on the specifics of the particular job, as well as any specialties you may offer to provide:

• Total cleanable square footage, including the types of floor surfaces and the measurements per type of floor surface. Floor care services such as carpet cleaning and stripping and waxing is usually bid

  separately. It is common for a floor care bid to be submitted on a square footage price as an add-on service.

• Tasks and frequency of these tasks.
• Similar to the floors, windows can be bid on in a per-unit basis and can be considered an add-on service.
• Restroom supplies and trash can liners should be identified. An additional bid can be made for their management (and a small profit as well).
• Overhead expenses, fixed expenses, variable expenses, labor, and materials should all be considered in your bid price.
• Production cleaning rates – for example how long it takes to vacuum a space based on square footage, how long a restroom fixture takes to clean (toilets, urinals, sinks), and how many trash cans can be emptied in an hour.
• Initial cleaning cost – you may need to charge separately for the first-time cleaning if the building needs to be brought up to the correct level of appearance by giving a thorough detailed cleaning.

When you leave the site, don’t forget to ask your prospective customer any questions you may have about details and expectations. It’s also important to find out your client’s priorities between price and quality.

Remember that the presentation of your bid is as important as its contents. Put some effort into creating a standard bidding packet, which includes information about your company, a specifications list, references, testimonials, contract, and other information is greatly appreciated and very impressive to potential clients.

Steve Hanson is co-founding member of The Janitorial Store (TM), an online community for owners and managers of cleaning companies who want to build a more profitable and successful cleaning business. Sign up for Trash Talk: Tip of the Week at http://www.TheJanitorialStore.com and receive a Free Gift!