Sales Assets - Your Not-So-Secret Weapons

“Every single day I wake up and commit myself to becoming a better player.” Mia Hamm, American Soccer Star

Salespeople often fall into the trap of selling from desperation. They have quotas to meet, inventory to unload, commissions to earn. They find themselves up against a wall, sometimes willing to do almost anything to make a sale. They will offer discounts, they will cajole and almost beg for sales in order to make their numbers.

This is never a winning game. Clients can sense when you are selling from scarcity, and they will not think the better of you for it. Indeed, it’s tough to stay in the game when you are consistently worried about making sales.

At Possibilities Unlimited, we train people to sell from their sales assets. Sales Assets are your points of strength, thing both you and your company can offer that should sway the client’s decision to buy from you. It’s important for salespeople to get a clear understanding of what their company’s assets are.

We recently worked with a company that has higher prices and less favorable shipping terms than most of their competition. The sales team decided to align themselves on what they saw as the company’s strength – its fiscal responsibility. Looking from the vantage point of fiscal responsibility, the team was able to develop a collection of sales assets that gave them solid ground upon which to stand. Here’s just a few of the ideas they came up with:

Consistent access to a wide selection of inventory.

Staying power – the company will be there to support client needs.

Quality service and knowledgeable staff.

A shared commitment to the company’s vision and viability.

When a client can see the value of the company and the product or service, they are much more likely to buy. People want value more than they want bargains, they want to be sure they are spending their money wisely.

Make a list of your sales assets. Think about yourself as well as your company. Do you have valuable experience? A top notch quality assurance program? A well-made product? Sell from your list of sales assets and work on communicating you value. When you sell from value instead of desperation, you are playing a winning game.

Are you ready to win?

Is Social Media Really Effective?

Social media is a huge buzz word these days. Everybody is talking about it, many people are doing it, but not much is said about the results. Does social media truly work? And if it does, what are the people doing to get effective results?

Case studies tell the story

I have compiled a group of fascinating case studies. Each one tells what businesses have done to implement a social media campaign that made a positive difference in their bottom line.

How to Use Twitter for Business: 5 More Incredibly Interesting Case Studies
Jeff Bullas is the master of gathering case studies. He truly knows how to get to the root of accomplishment, and he has once again compiled a very useful group of cases that demonstrate how Twitter can be used to connect with customers. He focuses on 5 businesses who turned to Twitter as an alternative to mainstream advertising. He covers:

• Why they chose Twitter
• Twitter goals they set
• Marketing challenges
• Day-to-day interaction on Twitter
• Most interesting Twitter experience
• Results achieved

Facebook Case Study: Travel Channel Goes Viral
In this fascinating case study, the Travel Channel details the specific changes they made to their fan page in order to generate more interest and more interactivity. Taking advantage of the new page feature, the Travel Channel built in more information so users could do more than just read their status updates. The result was a significant increase in traffic back to their parent site, TravelChannel.com.

Facebook Marketing Case Study - Mad Men (from AMC)
This 2-part case study is a fascinating look at what works and what doesn't. In the initial launch AMC did not capture social media as a means of promoting their new show, Mad Men. But they learned from their social media mistakes, and turned everything around to create a thriving social media community of the show's fans.

Global social media campaign: Social Media Marketing Lowers Acquisitions Costs 39 Percent for TakeLessons.com
In this case study, the Social Media Examiner looks at the success of a young company as they spent only 6 hours per week in social media efforts. Their success was great, and even lead them to join ventures with several Fortune 100 companies.

The Blog that went from zero to full time income in one year
From the author of Beyond Blogging comes this fascinating case study of how a blog was built from the ground up. They author outlines each step that was taken to create a niche-specific blog, and how they created a unique advertising campaign that appealed to small businesses and large corporations.

Article Marketing - a case study
The author of this article was a big advocate of article marketing for SEO, but in some of his social media forums received a lot of resistance. So he decided to write this case study as a means of demonstrating how incredibly effective article marketing could be. Not only for recognition and PR, but for effective growth in search engine optimization.

What is your favorite case study?

Have you read any studies lately that show how effective social media can be? Please do share in the comments.

Are you ready to win?