As a small business owner and also the person who is responsible for the sales for my company, it is important that I focus on sales tasks that generate revenue.

One day, I stopped and looked at all the different sales tasks I was doing and realized that I was doing stuff that took away from generating revenue. In most cases, anything that is outside of meeting with clients and prospects that doesn’t build a relationship or uncover what a client needs is what I look at as non-core or non-revenue generating.

For example, in a typical day, I was spending about 50% to 60% of my time on sales tasks that didn’t generate revenue. Once I figured this out, I realized that I could be way more efficient and generate more sales.

Outsourcing Non-Core Sales Tasks

Below is a process that you can use to determine what sales tasks you should outsource:

Keep Track of What You Do During the Day

This is easy to do. You can typically look at what you do in any given day or you can keep a journal that lays this out for you.

Determine if it Helps You Generate Revenue or Not

You need to say to yourself, “If someone else did this, would it allow me to focus on those activities that will make me money?”

If you say yes, then you should outsource that task.

Map Out the Process

When you determine what tasks you want to outsource, make sure that you document the process so that it can be easily followed. The reason for this is critical. If the person doing the task can’t follow your process, they won’t be able to do it correctly.

To see if it is easy to do your documented task, let a friend see if they can do it. If your friend can follow your steps, then everything is good. If they can’t follow your steps, then ask for input and refine your outsourcing process.

Find Someone to Take on This Chore

This can be accomplished either at a local level or by offshoring the tasks. At a local level, you can put an ad up in a local classified service like Craigslist or ask around to see if someone can help you.

If you are looking to offshore your sales tasks, you can look to services like Elance or Fiverr. In either case, you can have people do work for you on an hourly basis or on a quoted fixed price basis.

One thing that I did have to overcome was cultural differences and time zone differences.  I have experimented with the different services listed above and one that I found that helped me out with the cultural and time zone issues was Teleworking Expats For Hire.  They were able to source North Americans based in Mexico to help me out.

Make Sure That You Monitor the Work Being Done

You should always make sure that the work that is being done it up to your expectation. If it isn’t, then see if the contractor can fix it or else you will have to find another contractor to complete your sales tasks.

Outsourcing Example

Below are some examples of some sales tasks that I am currently outsourcing; emails, cold calling, list building, answering phone calls, monitored live chat on some of my websites and transcribing videos, among others.

As an example, I’ll look at cold calling. I have a process that I use that is very effective but it is very time consuming. I looked at how long it was taking me to call on new businesses each day and realized that if I could outsource this process, then I would be saving about 2 to 3 hours per day of time.

Not only did I gain back 2 to 3 hours of time, I also was able to increase the amount of sales calls that I could make and this in turn allowed me to increase the amount of sales I make.

I am kicking myself for not doing this earlier in my career. In fact, had I had the opportunity to outsource some of my tasks years ago, I am sure that I would be way further ahead today.

Here is my suggestion, if you work for yourself or for a company, take a look at what you can outsource so that you can focus on your core revenue generating sales tasks and then get someone to look after these tasks so that you can focus on the revenue generating tasks.

Outsource Photo via Shutterstock

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If you don’t know what text marketing or mobile marketing (I use these terms as one and the same) is, then this is something that you need to be looking into.

Text marketing is basically distributing your marketing through a wireless network. Usually how it works is, you text a certain keyword to a mobile short code and then you are either directed to a landing page or you receive a text message with a link that directs you to a specific landing page.  On that landing page, you complete the desired action, like fill out a form, redeem a coupon or something along those lines.

A major reason you would want to look at using text marketing or mobile marketing is that most people carry a cell phone and text is used by most cellphone owners. In addition to this, in an interview I recently conducted with Jed Alpert, author of The Mobile Marketing Revolution. Alpert stated that the uptake by adding a text code to marketing is up to 10 times higher than if you don’t use a text code.

10 Tips For Successful Text Marketing

The Short Code

When you decide to use text marketing, look for a company that has an easy-to-remember short code. The short code is the number that you text your keyword too. If the numbers are not easy to remember, then your uptake will be lower.

For example, the company that I use in Canada has a short code of 313131, which is easy to remember.

The Keyword

As with the short code, keep the keyword short and easy-to-remember. Don’t force someone to type an alphanumeric code that isn’t easy to remember or a long keyword that people will get carpal tunnel syndrome from typing.

The combination of a short keyword to an easy-to-remember short code will allow you to have a higher uptake.

A Mobile Ready Landing Page

Since you are using a mobile device to view a landing page, make sure that the page that you are directing people to is mobile friendly.  Otherwise, it might be too hard to read.

Capture an Email Address

By pairing mobile marketing with email marketing, you will have another way to market to people. The nice thing is, you will be able to send emails to people time and time again.

Use Mobile Marketing Only When Appropriate

If you choose to send out information to someones cell phone, make sure that you are not spamming them. It’s one thing to send emails to people, but it is entirely different when you start sending messages to someones cell phone.

Mobile messages can be read up to 100% of the time and unless you are providing something of significant value to the recipient, then think twice about how many times you send messages.

Have a Call To Action

This is basic common sense, but so many people fail to add a call to action to their marketing messages. If you are using a sign to get someone to text, then tell them what you want them to do. Such as, “Text X to Short Code to get a 10% off coupon today.”

Give Something Away of Value

Once you have gotten someone to follow your call to action, make sure that you give something away of value. It’s doesn’t have to be monetary value, but instead, it can informational in nature.

Measure Results

The nice thing about text marketing is that you can measure results. You can measure how many people used a text code and then if you use a link to a webpage, you can track that conversion.  Finally, you can measure the uptake on your offer.

Few forms of marketing can give you that level of granularity.

Put Text Marketing on Any Visible Place

I place text codes in a lot of different places such as signs, business cards, products and company trucks among others.  There are lots of places that you can place text codes.

Use Text Marketing To Act As Your Business Card

How many times have you been without a card and you really want to give someone your contact information?

Use your name and have it hooked up to a virtual card that someone can download. This way you will never be without a business card.

Mobile Marketing Photo via Shutterstock

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Did you know that:

• 52% of consumers say that watching a video on a product makes them more confident with a purchase decision.
• Cisco predicts that in the year 2013, video will be 90% of all consumer traffic.
• Blog posts incorporating video attract 3 times as many inbound links as blog posts without video.

If you are not using video on your website, you might want to ask yourself, “Why not?”

Innovative Ways to Use Video on a Website:

About Us or Company Overviews

Most of these pages tend to be boring. Spruce them up with a video about your company, what you stand for, what you like and any other relevant information.

Blog

I got to a point where I was spending so much time writing blog posts that I found creating videos was a way to reduce the time involved to create my posts.

Post videos on YouTube (or other services like Vimeo) to permit a new audience to find you. If you are using YouTube, include a hyperlink in the description so that people can visit your website.  YouTube is the second largest search engine, coming in second after Google.

Product Pages and Product Demonstrations

People want to see what you do or what your product does. Use a camera to show them what your product or service does.

Show off some of your best features and explain the benefits provided. Consider using video to showcase your products or, at the very least, some of your best selling products.

Landing Pages

A landing page is designed with one purpose – to get you to do something.  Something like providing your name and email address or purchasing a product.

Add a video to your landing page to explain what you want someone to do when they arrive there.

How To

People love to learn so show them how to do things and make it relate to what your offering is.

For example, I recently bought a car with a navigation system. I can’t figure out how to use the navigation system and I would love it if someone at the dealership would create a quick video explaining how to do so.

Frequently Asked Questions

You will undoubtedly be asked the same questions about your products or services over and over. Record some videos on your most frequently asked questions and add them to your website.  Educate people about your product.

Also, take a look at some of your competitors. I’ll bet they aren’t doing this. Beat them to the punch.

Questions that Should be Asked

Just like frequently asked questions, you probably have questions that you wish your clients would ask about your products or services.

Ask the questions for them and record the answers in a video and post it on your website.

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are extremely powerful. People believe credible testimonials almost as much as they trust testimonials from family and friends. Want the secret to customer testimonials that really resonate? Get them on video.

Ask clients if you can record them providing a testimonial and put it on your home page since it’s probably the most trafficked page on your website. These are extremely powerful, instant trust builders.

Interviews

Interview people in your company or industry experts and add those interviews your website.

Case Studies

Let’s face it, sometimes case studies are boring. Spruce them up by turning them into a video presentation that tells a story.

Contact Us Page

Include video on your contact page. For example, record a video from the point of view of someone coming into your office.

24 Hour Web Cam

Place a 24 hour web cam in an interesting area of your office. I suggested this to a client that had a staff that was a lot of fun. I wanted the world to see that they enjoyed themselves while they worked.

So what’s holding you back? Begin to incorporate video into your website today.

How are you using video on your website?

Video Photo via Shutterstock

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Are you a contractor that is supplying services at someones house or place of business?

You should be using a business sign, like a sandwich board or a lawn sign, to draw in traffic or build awareness for you business. Signage is an excellent way to help generate sales leads for your company.

Below are 7 tips that will help you generate a higher percentage of sales leads:

7 Tips for Your Business Sign or Lawn Sign

Phone Number

This is just basic common sense.  But believe it or not, business owners forget to add this one important piece of information to a business sign.

So that you can track your results from any lawn signs, use a unique phone number that people can call. By doing this, you will be able to see how many leads came from that phone number. A great service for this is Toll Free Forwarding or Google Voice.

Your Address

If you have a retail establishment that you want people to go to, why not list your address on your business sign?  It should help you to drive foot traffic to your retail location.

A Strong Call To Action For An Offer

Do you want to get someone to do something? If so, you need to have a “call to action.” Basically, you need to tell people what you want them to do.

A suggestion that ties into the next 2 tips (QR Codes and Text Codes) is to have a coupon or special offer that allows you to capture an email and other relevant information.  By capturing an email, you will have the ability to continually market to someone with an email newsletter.

A QR Code

Add a QR code to your business sign that is tied to a special offer or something that a potential customer may want. The QR Code should send the person to a mobile ready landing page that has a sign up form.

Once the person signs up for your offer, they will be sent an email with a code or a coupon.  A service that I have used before is Kawya.

Text Code or SMS Code

A text code or SMS code will allow a person to text a specific keyword to and assigned short code. This may sound confusing, but in reality, all you do is find a SMS marketing provider and register a keyword. Then you will be able to start directing people to a specific landing page on your website.

I interviewed Jed Alpert, who wrote “The Mobile Marketing Revolution” and he stated that the:

“. . . response rate from adding a text code on a sign is up to 10 times greater compared to no code.”

I can confirm this as I have a client where we added a text code to a radio ad they were running and they saw a twenty-fold increase in sales leads from that spot.

Here’s one more use for a text code:  Place one on your vehicles so that people will connect with you.

For the QR code and the text code, have separate landing pages and coupons and coupon codes. You want to do this so that you can track a conversion rate.

For example, you can see how many people used your text code by the number of hits to a specific page. Then you can see how many people sign up for an offer and finally, the amount of people who redeem your coupon or offer.

Website Address

Make sure that you add your website address to your business sign. If your domain is too long, use a shortener like Bit.ly or get a separate shorter domain that redirects to your website.

Bit.ly allows you to make a vanity url and you can also track the clicks from that specific url. As a suggestion, make sure that if you have an offer on your business sign – that the Web address corresponds with that offer. Don’t just send them to your homepage as your conversion rates will be far lower by doing this.

Email Address

Create a unique email address to put on your business sign so that you can track the amount of inquiries that come in.

Add all of these tips to your business sign and you should see an increase in the amount of sales leads that you generate.  By the way, this isn’t just for signs.  Use these different tactics on business cards, letters, mailers and other printed material that you have as well.

If you have other business sign tips, please share them in the comments.

Sandwich Board Photo via Shutterstock

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Often times, companies miss adding items to their website that will facilitate attracting sales leads, so I thought I would share 9 Website Must Have’s that every website should have.

Here are 9 website must haves that you should have on your website:

1. Social Share Widget – Did you know that only 34% of websites have a social share widget on them?  Adding a social share widget on your site will allow website visitors to help you spread the word through their networks. This is the ultimate viral marketing tool. Look at adding a social share widget on your website like Add This or Shareaholic.
2. Live Chat Widget – When people visit your website, they may like what you have to offer, but may have questions. Why not add a live chat widget to your website so that people can ask their questions?  This will help you potentially get new clients. Most Live Chat widgets will have an offline mode that allows you to capture questions so that you can get back to a potential client.  One of my favorites is Zopim, but there are others out there.
3. Email Capture Form – Email marketing is a great way to generate sales.  Sign up for a service like AWeber, Constant Contact, or one of my favorites, LeadLife and start building a list of people that you can market to.
4. Video – It is said that video is remembered 8 times better than written information and 4 times better than audio.  Video should be a part of everyone’s marketing mix.  Consider putting up videos on your different pages to tell a story, show off your product or for just about anything you can think of.
5. Multiple Ways to Contact You – Do you only have 1 or 2 ways for people to reach you?  You should have numerous ways so that you increase the likelihood of being contacted.  Try a contact form, text messaging, live chat, email, phone number, cell number, or any way that you can think of.   Make sure that you add contact information to every page on your site so that if someone finds something that they like, they can contact you.
6. Google Analytics – Do you know how many people come to your website?  Or even where they come from?  Google Analytics is an amazing tool that can help you with this and it’s free.  Google Analytics will tell you about numerous aspects of your website, such as where people are coming from, if they are engaging on your site and other things.  As they say in marketing, you can’t measure what you don’t know.  Google Analytics will help you measure the unknown.
7. A Call to Action – You can lead a horse to water but you can not get it to drink.  Your website is part of your marketing, and your marketing should be designed to generate sales leads.  As such, you need to tell visitors to your website what you want them to do. This is done through a strong call to action and you should have calls to action on most if not all of your web pages. One great idea is to have buttons that tell the visitor to do something, like “Click Here – For More Information” or “Buy Now”.
8. Testimonials – People believe what other people have to say about you, your products and services.  Make sure that you add testimonials to your website.  A testimonial should be from someone who is real and who has used your product or service.  one of the best forms of testimonials is in the form of a video testimonial.
9. Comments – This is especially true for any website that has a blog.  A lot of websites made with common platforms like WordPress and Joomla will probably have the comments functionality built in. You could also look at Disqus.

I hope that these website must haves will help you.

I realize that there are a lot more than the 9 I listed above.  Feel free to add any additional items that you think could benefit others in the comments section.

Must Have Photo via Shutterstock

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There is another way to look at this statistic: Are you part of the 82% who are going after the 34% of sales that are not influenced by word of mouth or business referrals?

Most sales representatives find it tough to get business referrals, but it doesn’t have to be.

Here are 6 ways to get business referrals from clients and acquaintances:

Let Everyone Know What You Do

This is more for acquaintances but you should let people you meet also know what you do. It is said that everyone has a network of 250 people and these 250 people know 250 people. This means that you can have access to up to 62,500 people.

Imagine how many of these people could potentially use what you sell.

Ask for Referrals

As crazy as this sounds, you should just ask people you do business with or who you know, who they may know that they could refer you to.

Form Relationships with Synergistic Companies

Why not look to other sales people in non-competing, synergistic companies to generate business referrals?

For instance, if you are a home renovation company, consider working with an interior designer so that you can share business referrals back and forth.

Networking Events

Networking events are a great way to meet people that can help you with business referrals. A great resource to for networking events is Meetup.com. All you have to do is go to Meet Up and look for different networking events in your town or city.

If you can’t find one in your town or for your industry, then join Meet Up and start one. I did this and I run two groups in Calgary. I have meet lots of great people and been given some great introductions to people that have translated into business.

Use LinkedIn

One of the best features of LinkedIn is the ability to see people in your network who are in other peoples network that you my not be connected to.

For example, if you want to get in to see a Vice President of Sales for a company, you can go to LinkedIn and see if this person is on LinkedIn. You can then look and see who you know who may know them.

Then all you do is approach your connection to see if they can introduce you to the Vice President of Sales that you want to meet.

Give Referrals

The best way to get business referrals is to give referrals. Always be listening to see if people need help. If you know someone that can help them, then it is your obligation to make a referral.

One Last Note

It’s one thing to get a business referral, but to take things to a whole new level, get introductions. Take your referral process to the next level and get your contacts to line up meetings to personally introduce you to referrals.

Referrals Photo via Shutterstock

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If you own a business or are responsible for a business, do you monitor your reputation online to see what clients and other people are saying about you?

Given the statistics above, if you are not monitoring your online reputation, you really need to start doing this as it can significantly impact your business – both positively and negatively.

As an example, think of a product or service and then search this product or service on Google and include your city.  In most cases, you will be given the Google+ Business Listings at or near the top of the search results.

Now put yourself in a potential clients shoes.   If these potential clients have a choice between a company with a significant amount of great reviews and one that has bad reviews or even no reviews, I would bet that in most cases these potential clients would choose a company with positive reviews over companies with bad reviews or no reviews.

Give this a try. Put your product or service and your city in Google and see what the results are.

You will see one of 4 results:

• Good reviews
• Bad reviews
• No reviews
• A mixture of good and bad reviews

If you have nothing but good reviews or a very high concentration of good reviews and very few bad reviews, then keep doing what you are doing.  If you have a lot of bad reviews or no reviews, then you will be turning business away and you should look at the following 3 recommendations:

1. Monitor Your Online Reputation – You can monitor your online reviews by going online and searching your company name and seeing what people are saying.  If you want to automate this process, you can set up Google Alerts to monitor any mentions of your company name.
2. Get More Positive Reviews – If you have a happy customer, then ask them to post a review online.  My suggestion is that you should always have someone try to post to Google+ (which use to be Google Places) first.  You should also figure out what some of the best review sites are for your industry and have people post to these sites too.
3. Respond to Bad Reviews – Make sure that you respond to any bad review that you have gotten.  Responding to bad reviews is an excellent way to turn a bad situation into a positive situation.  If someone isn’t happy with your service, then see what you can do to make it better for them.  By responding to bad reviews, you will show others that you are listening and that you do care.

If you monitor and manage your online reputation and add great reviews, this should have a positive effect on your business.  Make sure that you include an Online Reputation process to your every day work practices.

Keyboard Photo via Shutterstock

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These two items work hand in hand to help you bring in new revenues, but because the latter is often neglected, a company’s revenues are rarely maximized.

Developing Customer Loyalty is Critical to Your Business Development

It has been said that a loyal customer is worth their weight in gold, and considering the high price per ounce of gold these days, your business development model can’t afford to neglect it.

For many business owners, the amount of returning customers they have will either make or break their business for good. So how do you create customer loyalty?

• By offering a better product or service than your competitors.
• By offering better customer service that your competitors.
• By offering your customers a better value with you than with your competitors.
• By building an actual relationship with your customers.

Relationships Are Essential

When people feel like they have an actual relationship with an organization, they are much more likely to stay with that organization, be lenient with them, and spend more money to stay with them. Almost 7 out of 10 customers will leave a company for good because of a bad experience.

Why do those other 3 out of 10 people stay with a company?

Because of their sense of loyalty to that company.

Are You Looking for an Easy Way to Maximize Your Customer Base?

One of the easiest ways to help get your products promoted and develop customer loyalty is to promote the products or services of others as you promote your own. An in-turn promotional relationship not only gives you a free way to expand your business development model, but it creates a relationship with the other party who is more likely to use your product or service when they need to do so.

Offering discounts for returning customers is another simple and easy way to maximize the potential of your existing customer base.

Are You Ready to Expand Your Business Development Model?

Loyal customers are the most cost effective way to building your profits, so finding ways to keep your customers coming back time and time again is critical. You will have to experiment with unique ways your business can make a statement today that will have your customers coming back tomorrow every single time.

It will be well worth the effort.

A pile of money Photo via Shutterstock

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