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As a general rule, the best times to reach high-level executives are before business hours, after business hours or during lunch. Try calling early in the morning before 9:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m. At those times, generally, the secretary has not yet arrived or is gone for the day. Executives are frequently answering their own phones.

Calling before and after business hours can actually create a bond between you and your prospect. Your prospect is in the office early, working, or is in the office after hours, working—so are you! That shows that you have something in common, and it shows your commitment to what you are selling.

Lunchtime is a good second choice for a time to reach your prospect. The secretary usually goes to lunch. Her boss frequently does not, and she may be in her office, answering her own phone.

Don’t let preconceived notions keep you from making calls. Many people don’t like Monday

mornings, so they assume that Monday mornings are not a good time to make introductory calls. But for some, Monday mornings can be a great time to call. Some people schedule their week on Monday morning, and if you can catch them before they’ve finished their schedule, they can fit you in.

Your may find that there are good calling times for your particular industry. I once was calling Creative Directors in advertising agencies and found that for the most part, I could not begin to reach them until after 10:00 a.m.—so I would start my calls at 10:00 a.m. Keep records of the times that you reach prospects. You will begin to see a pattern emerge. Evaluate that pattern to determine when is the best calling time for your particular market.

© 2005 Wendy Weiss

Wendy Weiss, “The Queen of Cold Calling & Selling Success,” is a sales trainer, author, and sales coach. Her recently released program, “Cold Calling College”, and/or her book, “Cold Calling for Women”, can be ordered by visiting http://www.wendyweiss.com Contact her at wendy@wendyweiss.com. Get Wendy’s free e-zine at www.wendyweiss.com

No matter what customers say they want, what they’re really looking for is “something special.” They can’t quite describe it, but when they find it, they know.

Indeed, those little details of the buying experience may appear intangible. But what you sell is usually less important to customers, almost incidental–unless they don’t get what they expected.

As Walt Disney said, “Do what you do so well that people want to bring their friends to see you do it again.” Any business able to satisfy customers in these five ways will consistently beat the competition.

NOTICE: More important than WHAT you provide, is HOW you provide it.

So much attention is paid to the WHAT, the HOW often takes a backseat. Yet it’s the quality of your HOW that determines whether the sale is made or lost. Buyers focused only on price are likely to be one-time visitors, but even they sometimes decide the cheapest price “just isn’t worth it.”

1. How well they’re treated

People (even business buyers) care about the human touch. They want to be treated with respect and fairness. They want to feel like valued customers–whose time and opinions matter. If people can’t trust you to treat them right, they certainly won’t trust you with their money. Whether or not the sale occurs depends on whether the customer feels taken for granted–or taken.

Equally important is how the business deals with problems or complaints as they arise. Making mistakes needn’t be fatal, customers understand that. However, the willingness to fix them and minimize their impact on the buyer is crucial. Solving it immediately, with the right attitude, can even strengthen the bond. But fumbling the ball a second time simply isn’t forgiven.

2. How efficiently the buying process went

From start to end, did each step of the sale go smoothly? Could the buyers get the answers or help they needed? Could they find what they came for (or why not)? Was the operation arranged to accommodate them? their time frame? Were prices and payment options clear and easy to deal with? Can most buyers complete the transaction without triggering number 3?

3. How much aggravation they had to endure

Aggravations are of two types–those that shouldn’t have happened (glitches). Or

those that happen to everyone, like long waits, multiple visits, shortage of parts, etc. A buyer is willing to endure a little inconvenience, but not for long, not every time. Your job is to minimize inconveniences so they don’t arise–not treat them like business as usual.

Here’s where the helpful, informed employees will make or break the business. First in building customer rapport, anticipating their concerns, and avoiding problems in the first place.

4. How many mind games are played on them

Sorry to say, the word “sales” gets misused too often. Selling isn’t an opportunity to manipulate the potential buyer to do what the seller wants, rather than providing the buyer what they want.

No one wants to feel like a sucker or to be mislead about prices, delivery dates, or terms of the sale. Even a hint of such treatment kills trust, kills their willingness to hear you out. And if a person feels tricked into buying, they won’t buy again. Or they might cancel the sale afterward from buyer’s remorse.

5. How well the business has its act together

Starting with the first impression, did everything about the business live up to its promise or reputation? If every part of the operation works smoothly as an integrated whole, consider the customer well served. When the parts are mismatched or full of snags, it screams “small potatoes.” That scares business away. Even if the issues are minor, they pull the plug on trust. Fortunately, a focus on your HOW yields big benefits from quick and inexpensive solutions. For tangible ways to wipe out small potatoes signals, visit my website where I discuss this.

Get your HOWs in order, and you’ll drive the competition crazy

Customers notice when they’re treated well. Let your uniqueness shine in the HOW of customer-pleasing practices. It pays off in your bottom line.

(c)2004, Lynella Grant

Part II, about Internet buyers, can be read at: http://www.giantpotatoes.com/article202.htm

About The Author

Dr. Lynella Grant decodes and repairs unintended messages in the “body language” of a business. Appear to be a seasoned pro. Author “The Business Card Book” and “Stop Looking Like Small Potatoes” Off the Page Press

http://www.giantpotatoes.com, grant@giantpotatoes.com

(719) 395-9450 P.O. Box 4880 Buena Vista, CO 81211

Oh, you must be right, although you are selling me right now!

A good friend of mine once said to me, “Life is sales.”

What a profound statement! Think about it! Life IS sales. We sell all day, every day.

We just don’t realize or acknowledge the fact that we are selling.

Why is that? I believe it is because we have adopted some misguided beliefs regarding selling.

The interesting thing to keep in mind is that of higher income earners around the world, a large percentage come from the world of sales. Many from direct selling!

When you think about sales, what comes to mind?

Chances are, it’s the pushy, arrogant, over-zealous, quick-to-the-close type that you’ve done business with in the past.

But, is that truly what Sales is about?

I don’t think so.

True sales is about sharing information. It’s about finding out what the other person needs and then meeting that need.

It’s about creating a win-win situation for everyone.

When was the last time you told someone about a great movie, referred a family physician or lavished praise and recommendations on the new restaurant in town?

This is sales in its purest form!

You perceive a product or service that could possibly meet the need of someone else. (A great place to eat or entertaining movie, etc.)

You share the information with someone else, in an effort to meet a need they may have.

Your friend either accepts or rejects the suggestion and you both move on about your business.

If your friend likes the suggestion and acts on it, you feel a sense of

satisfaction.

If your friend does not, you just move on, realizing that there was no interest or need at this time.

Your friend was not rejecting you.

You don’t try to overcome objections, attempting to coerce him/her into “buying” what you are offering.

You are detached from the outcome.

Oh, and either way, you don’t get paid.

Perhaps this is why it’s so easy for you to offer your suggesting.

Now, think about using this same process with a product or service that you offer.

Think of presenting your business idea to a friend, relative or acquaintance in the same way.

Just share the information!

See if there is a need to be met by what you are offering.

Don’t try to sell or overcome objections.

Just listen and offer information.

If your friend acts on that information and buys your product or service, GREAT! You have met a need and delivered value.

Oh, and you get paid! That’s okay!

If your friend does not choose to act on the information, that’s okay, too. You can still go on about your business.

You both win in either case.

You aren’t selling! You are sharing!

And, over time, using this strategy, you will move up into the ranks of the higher income earners around the world!

So, what’s that you say about not being able to sell? Good, can you just try sharing?

About The Author

Jackie Ulmer, a veteran Home Business Owner, has coached thousands of men and women on starting a successful home business. Her free newsletter provides tips, resources and more for home businesses. She can be reached through her web site at http://www.streetsmartwealth.com

But one, he said, outperforms the rest: selling by telephone.

Businesspeople who make calls outpace their peers by a wide margin, he said, noting that he is the franchise system’s top performer.

Why aren’t more experienced business people emulating this fellow, using their people skills to meet and greet potential clients by phone? There are several reasons:

1. They’re afraid of real-time rejection.

2. They believe the phone is a tainted tool.

3. They have low frustration tolerance.

4. They think there has to be an easier way!

5. They believe they come across poorly.

6. They believe phoning lacks dignity.

7. They believe their target market is deluged with calls.

8. They don’t have a manageable database.

9. They lack an effective phone presentation.

10. They lack good phone training.

If you look at this list, at least half of the items result from psychological factors. Many people resist phoning because they needlessly beat themselves up and disparage the medium. That’s what items 1-7 are all about—negative beliefs and judgments.

Instead of focusing on themselves, businesspeople should attend to the last three items: managing their database, devising an effective phone presentation, and getting good coaching and training. Address these challenges, and the first seven impediments will either go away, or be dramatically minimized.

Let’s discuss these items briefly, and put them into proper perspective.

1. They’re afraid of real-time rejection.

Most of us are rejected silently and indirectly. If we send out a zillion resumes, most will end up in the trash, but we don’t feel that pain, directly. Nor do we hurt if we mail out as many business brochures, which meet the same fate. But when we empower someone to flatly say no, directly in our ear, it feels threatening. Rejection is usually not about us—at most it’s about our offer, our value proposition, and how we have communicated it. So, there’s no reason to take it personally. Attend to the real challenge: fix your message and how you’re delivering it. (For a more complete discussion, please see my article, “Thanks For The Rejection!”)

2. They believe the phone is a tainted tool.

As consumers, many of us have been bombarded by calls that have had little value. For years, it made economic sense for giant call centers to spray-and-pray. Now, with the ubiquity of answering devices, caller I.D. and effective anti-telemarketing legislation, these calls have been diminishing, but our negative attitude about them, persists. The phone, as a medium, is alive and well. We need to work on developing the message and the messenger.

3. They have low frustration tolerance.

There is a math-of-success in prospecting and selling. If you make fifty calls, you’ll probably find ten people who will express some interest and be worth pursuing. After sending information to them, and following-up, three may still be interested, and of these, you might close one or two.

I’m just using these numbers as an example, because they point out that fifty tries might earn you one success. Let me tell you one of my favorite war stories about a guy who did much worse than this.

A Houston-based client of mine sells investments to institutions such as colleges and large banks. One of their commission salespeople worked from January through October without earning a sale. Literally, he made thousands upon thousands of calls, to no avail.

Every other salesperson was making at least some money, and a few were doing very well, but he struck out, left and right.

Then, in November, he got his first order of the year. It was so large that it made him a millionaire, on the spot.

He had high frustration tolerance, which is a trait worth developing! (For a fuller discussion, please refer to my audio seminar: “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant.)

4. They think there has to be an easier way!

The other night, at a meeting of business professionals, I was discussing marketing with a consultant. He beamed that he got a client four years after initially meeting him at a mixer. Networking is his favorite

way to get business.

I agree, networking can be pleasant but it’s just too unpredictable. Waiting for the phone to ring only seems easy. In my experience, it is harder than proactively selling someone, which permits much greater control and instant feedback.

5. They believe they come across poorly over the phone.

True enough, when you hear certain people over the phone, there’s much less than meets the eye. Their voices may be inherently unpleasant, squeaky or gravelly, or their articulation may be flawed.

But most people don’t suffer from these ills, and even non-radio announcer voices can be enhanced through training, while others can be improved with medical help.

(6) They believe phoning lacks dignity.

Some aristocratic businesspeople feel that phoning is simply too far beneath their social station to be permissible for them to do. They equate it to begging.

All I can say is that the dignity in phoning is equal to the dignity you bring to it. If you sound impressive, and credible, you’ll generally encounter fair treatment.

(7) They believe their target market is deluged with calls.

I’ve been in business over twenty years, and the cold calls I receive today are significantly less than ever before. I suspect fewer people are making business-to-business calls, if only because they don’t know how to penetrate voice mail systems and call screening.

(8) They don’t have a manageable database.

Calling isn’t merely about dialing and smiling. It’s about getting organized to call and being able to capture information about the calls you’ve made.

The first challenge is to get a good list of prospects. Once you have that, you should load it into one of the many inexpensive database programs offered by software sellers.

By tackling these tasks, you’ll be able to be productive and you won’t have the time or interest in wallowing over your rejection rate. You’ll be able to measure it, and improve upon it.

(9) They lack an effective phone presentation.

You need to write, or hire a pro to write a good script.

No matter how glib you are, you should know exactly what you’re going to say to get through screening, to leave a captivating message on voice mail, to greet a real-time human, to credibly introduce yourself, to state your basic offer, to earn a commitment from the listener, to confirm the progress you made in the call, and to identify the next step to come.

Without a script, you’ll ramble, seem disorganized, invert the order of what you say, and hopelessly change your talk from one contact to the next. That way, you’ll be unaware of what’s working, what’s failing, and what you need to change.

A script mustn’t sound stilted or canned, and you need to make yours seem fresh and spontaneous. But when you do, it will serve you very well.

(10) They lack good phone training.

I had the luxury of being trained by my father, who was superb at making cold calls to develop his advertising, radio, and TV ventures. He’d phone from home, and I’d listen, fascinated by his ability to adjust to different people.

In college, I worked as a full-time collector for a finance company, and then I became top salesperson and a manager at Time-Life Books. Later, with a Ph.D. in Communications, I started training others as a consultant.

I’ve found that some people are “naturals” over the phone—but they’re rare. Most need to be trained and coached, to develop their skills.

But once they have them, they feel as I do: I could land in any place in the world where I speak the language, pick up the phone, and prosper.

It’s always the right time to Reach Out & Sell Someone®!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman

President, Customersatisfaction.com

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. Gary’s programs are offered by UCLA Extension and by numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. When he isn’t consulting, Gary can be found in Glendale, California. He can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

These are just a few of the questions that run through our minds in the early stages of planning. If your goal is revenue growth and expansion, I believe you need to design, develop, and implement your Sales & Marketing plan on that foundation. Here is some criteria to consider while planning:

• Identify your markets and your profit potential in the selected markets

• Segment your markets by customer, service, etc.

• What type of penetration is desired: existing, new, different, or all of the preceding

• Design a plan to include procedures and controls to monitor and evaluate market penetration by segment

•

Determine and build internal and external sales strategies

• Evaluate and plan staff training to generate internal monitoring controls, evaluation processes, and customer education if necessary

• Plan to control revenue growth with product mix, product promotion, and customer pre-qualification

• Evaluate expected sales and then ratio numbers to your sales staff’s current compensation package to see if consideration is needed for additional or different wage incentive programs

• Design controls to evaluate, monitor, and drive the highest level of profit possible

• Determine the type of media and then budget advertising accordingly

• Develop a backup plan in case of immediate campaign disaster

The results of a well-balanced and executed Sales and Marketing campaign can be resounding. Constant expansion of products and services, market area, clientele types, etc. all contribute to the continued growth and success of any company. Plan your work and work your plan!

Kenny Nau Director of Sales

PLUSS Corporation

http://www.pluss.net

The answer is not in the workers, but in your organization. Employee motivation is usually treated as a problem of the individual worker. Motivation programs and initiatives try to inspire employees to work harder, but they do nothing about the work conditions that continue to demotivate those same employees.

Discover the flaws in your organizational systems that are demotivating your employees and eliminate them. For example, if your reward systems reward speed over safety, then your employees aren’t motivated to work safely. Eliminate unclear or conflicting expectations. And, at the same time, add elements that motivate your employees, such as delegating authority.

One of the best ways to motivate your employees is to break with tradition and reengineer processes. Motivating employees today means breaking away from the employee-as-cog tradition. Encourage employees to be active, think and take initiatives, and enjoy their work.

Keep your employees productively busy. In motivating organizations, employees should leave work feeling that they accomplished something worthwhile. Don’t allow them to be passive. For example, instead of letting them wait for assignments, encourage them to use downtime to carry out self-improvement activities or ways to improve their jobs.

Your organizational system should encourage employees to have fun. For example, let them jazz up the physical environment with personal decorations. Part of encouraging fun is a offering a variety way of life, such as job sharing and temporary work assignments. And when you let employees make more choices in their work schedules, break times, and special projects, you’ll find that productivity will go up.

Motivational production systems encourage self-measurement. Use performance measurement positively to encourage, facilitate, and guide, not control, punish, or find fault. Allow employees to measure their own performance. It’s the surest way of showing that the system is there to help, not “get” them. This helps create a climate of appreciation. And well thought out expressions of appreciation are powerful motivators.

Traditional or “Industrial Age” organizations do all the planning while employees are simply asked to implement what management has planned. This separation between “thinkers” and “doers” is demotivating to non-management employees. We are now in the “Communication Age,” where you need to involve all employees, from the executive suite to the shop floor, in both strategic and operational planning. This is a radical change from the past, and not easily accepted by management.

To effectively involve employees in planning you have to maximize opportunities for employee input and planning. Employees of today are more educated and knowledgeable than ever. They often have more knowledge about many aspects of their work than most supervisors. And they are often closer to the customer than the management is. But it is important to phase in employee involvement. Start them off as consultants and eventually involve them in complex strategic and operational planning.

Always involve employees in goal setting. Employees will be much more committed to goals set by themselves than by a supervisor. And never forget that employees have valuable ideas on the big questions: Who are our customers? What are our strengths? How can we improve our long-term performance?

You cannot successfully reengineer any processes in your organization without providing recognition for planning efforts. Let your employees know: “You are making a major contribution to the organization.” Involving employees in planning shows the company’s respect for their skills, encourages employees to increase their contributions to the company, and gives them an ownership stake in what they will be asked to do in the future. The “doers” will do things better than ever before.

In most employee-attitude surveys, one of the most common concerns employees have is a lack of communication. In fact, lack of communication is a root cause of the most common work demotivators, such as office politics, unclear expectations, unnecessary rules, and constant change. How employees perceive, and feel about, communication in their organization plays a large part in the motivational climate. Communication done right, therefore, is

one of management’s key motivational tools.

When you’re on an airplane and it encounters turbulence, or if the flight is delayed, you want to know why. Not knowing the whole story makes you nervous. Employees also want to know what is causing the bumpy rides in the organization. What people don’t understand, they often perceive as a threat.

If your employees can’t find out what they want to know from you, they’ll start looking elsewhere. That’s why every organization has a grapevine or rumor mill to compensate for lack of information. But you will defeat the rumor mills and remove perceived threats to employees by communicating as openly as possible.

If you truly want to energize your organization you need to communicate virtually everything to your employees. Employees want to be, and should be, aware of the company’s strategy, goals, sales, costs, profit and loss. These things need to be communicated frequently, and promptly. If something of importance happens, don’t wait to tell employees. They’ll hear about it through the grapevine, will wonder why they weren’t told, and start to distrust your communication.

Make a point of sharing the good news. When something good happens in a particular area, let the entire organization know about it. Employees will be excited about working in a company where so many positive things are happening. But don’t just communicate the good news. Employees know that the news is not always good. They will assume that you are keeping the bad news to just a select few if they never hear about it. And once again, they’ll loose trust.

One-way communication sends an extremely demotivating message. It tells employees that their input is not valued or important. Just proclaiming that management’s “door is always open” is not enough. Management must convince employees that they are truly interested in employee feedback.

You should schedule regular meetings in which senior executives sit down with employees in all areas of the company to discuss employee ideas and concerns. When you do this it is always a good idea to draft agendas for these meetings with input from employee participants. This will give employees more ownership in the meeting.

Establishing a Performance Development Process is one of the best ways to motivate employees and really energize your organization. Performance appraisal is often demotivating because appraisals are linked to compensation concerns, and sometimes to disciplinary measures. Even employees that generally perform well will be defensive and fearful about any negative feedback they receive.

The purpose of appraisals is to encourage development, not focus on compensation or discipline. A Performance Development Process reflects an emphasis on development over reward and punishment. By including the word “process,” you are sending the message that performance appraisal is a continuous exercise and not just a year-end tally.

A Performance Development Process consists of four steps:

1. Performance planning. Employees and their supervisors meet at the beginning of each performance period to discuss expectations.

2. Regular feedback. Employees receive ongoing, informal feedback on a daily basis if possible, on a weekly basis at minimum.

3. Interim reviews. Employees shouldn’t have to wait for the end of the year for comprehensive feedback. Interim reviews (weekly, monthly, or quarterly) remove many of the negatives associated with one-shot annual reviews.

4. Annual reviews. This should be a simple summary of previous reviews.

Any motivation program, such as an inspiring speaker, can create an instant surge of motivation. But it soon dissipates. By identifying and eliminating demotivators and establishing open and positive communication with your employees, you will create a work structure that naturally leads employees to be, and remain, motivated.

Copyright© 2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of America’s largest corporations, on the subjects of leadership, self-esteem, goals, achievement, and success psychology.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

Unfortunately, time and resource investments do not inevitably produce sales. How many of the opportunities in your pipeline have been stalled at the same step in the sales cycle for weeks…or months? In how many opportunities have you and your company invested enormous amounts of time, energy and resources (conducting product demonstrations, writing lengthy proposals, providing product evaluations, etc.), only to have the prospect decide they don’t WANT to buy, or prove INCAPABLE of funding the purchase? Even when you make sales, how many turn out to be “nightmare” customers who are always dissatisfied and consume huge amounts of post-sale resources?

All Prospects Are NOT Created Equal

You DO need to help your prospects explore whether their business problems are substantial enough to justify investing time in a sales cycle. However, you also need to figure out whether each prospect is WORTHY of your time and resource investments! If a prospect is not a good fit, gracefully exit from the opportunity. (Why not refer them to a competitor and let the competitor burn some cycles?)

How can you determine whether a prospect is worthy of your time and resource investments? Many sales skills training courses teach an acronym, M-A-N, that stands for Money, Authority, and Need. The basic idea is to determine whether:

1. The prospect is willing to commit enough budget dollars (Money) to pay for the product or service
2. The key decision makers and influencers (Authority) have been identified; and
3. The prospect’s pain (Need) is severe enough to justify investing in a solution

Unfortunately, even when you do a good job of M-A-N qualification, you can be “blindsided” by issues that delay sales cycles or destroy opportunities outright. For example:

• Some prospects prove incapable of securing financing. They may have a budget, but they are not “credit worthy”, so they can’t FUND the budget.
• Some decision makers need to have specific information provided in a specific format before they can authorize a buying decision.
• Sometimes you invest considerable time and effort in troubleshooting complex problems and designing solutions, only to be informed that the prospect must take the proposed solution OUT TO BID. This can lead to the opportunity being lost to a low bidder or the profitability of the opportunity being pummeled.

To

avoid these issues, add additional questions to the M-A-N qualification process. The acronym that I have assigned to this revised process is M-A-I-N BP, which stands for Money, Authority, Information, Need, and Buying Process. Here are sample M-A-I-N BP questions:

MONEY

• How will your prospect pay for the product or service?
• Has a budget been established?
• Are they credit worthy?

AUTHORITY

• Who (in the prospect’s organization) needs to approve an acquisition of this nature?

INFORMATION

• What information do the decision makers require before they can make a decision?
• What format does this information need to be in?

NEED

• What are the prospect’s business problems?
• How compelling are they? In other words, can you quantify (associate dollars, percentages, and time frames with) the pain the prospect is feeling?
• Are the quantified business impacts substantial enough to warrant investment by the prospect’s organization (and YOUR company) in identifying and fixing the problem(s)?

BUYING PROCESS

• What is the prospect’s buying (procurement) process?
• What impact might this process have on the profitability of the transaction?
• What competitive advantage will you receive if you invest your time and resources in designing a solution that goes out to bid?

If you decide to add M-A-I-N BP qualification to your sales opportunity qualification process, here are some final thoughts to keep in mind:

• If you don’t know the answers to ALL of the M-A-I-N BP questions, it is highly likely you are wasting your time and resources!
• Opportunity qualification is NOT A ONE-TIME EVENT. As an opportunity advances through the sales cycle, you should frequently ask whether any of the answers to the qualification questions have changed. If an answer changes, it could impact the length of the sales cycle and even destroy the viability of the opportunity. At minimum, an answer change will probably require a change in focus and/or a reprioritization of planned activities.
• Never feel bad about disqualifying an “opportunity”. The amount of opportunity in most sales territories is virtually unlimited. If you carefully qualify and re-qualify each opportunity, and only invest time and resources in qualified opportunities, you will maximize your return on time and resources invested.

Copyright 2005 — Alan Rigg

Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don’t Perform and What to Do About It. His company, 80/20 Sales Performance, helps business owners, executives, and managers DOUBLE sales by implementing The Right Formula™ for building top-performing sales teams. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020salesperformance.com

Benefits for Publishers

1.) Avoid Spam Filters

Statisticians estimate that 70% of the email transferred each day is spam (unsolicited email). With that statistic, even opt-in users risk losing valuable messages in the cesspool of spam. RSS feeds effectively nullify spam as an issue. Requesting feeds allow users to maintain complete control over the content they view. Users can easily opt-in and out of feeds that provide content of interest or importance.

2.) Expanded Reach

RSS allows publishers to reach a number of new and different markets that typically are less crowded with competition. Many small businesses are often slow to adopt or learn new technologies, giving businesses that lead the way a competitive advantage.

3.) Content Syndication

Syndication of feeds increases exposure.

4.) Repeat Visitors

RSS is all about repeat visitors. Users who have previously visited a site often have a stronger connection to the site and are more likely to purchase or trust the information on the site.

5.) Free web traffic

As the internet has evolved, many webmasters have found that what was once free traffic must now be paid for in order to sustain decent visitor statistics. RSS is in a unique position to bring free traffic because they are content-driven, and if they include interesting or valuable information, will pique the curiosity of

web-surfers and entice them to visit a particular site.

6.) Less Effort

Newsletters and E-zines undeniably bring visitors, but the effort involved in creating, distributing and maintaining a newsletter can be a burden. Maintaining the list, ensuring the list is clean, growing the subscriber base, updating and removing bad e-mail addresses, all take time. RSS feeds are not burdened with those issues. There are easy-to-use RSS feed creation tools that require little effort, allowing publishers to recycle content, often simply cutting and pasting into RSS feed creation software.

FeedForAll RSS feed creation – http://www.feedforall.com

Consider supplementing existing communication venues with RSS. Place the contents of newsletters into feeds and measure the results. You might be surprised at the added traffic.

Examples of various feeds with different intended purposes -

RSS feed – http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog-feed.xmlEstablishing expertise in a specific field.

Business Feed – http://www.notepage.net/blog-feed.xmlContains product and industry information.

Marketing Feed – http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog-feed.xmlBuilds relationships, endorses products in industry sector.

RSS has potential to help companies develop strong relationships with consumers and creating brand loyalty with customers. While the world will not end tomorrow, nor will business come to a screeching halt if you don’t use an RSS feed, there are a number of reasons online businesses should consider using RSS feeds.

About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for the NotePage http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com product lines. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net