Archive for April, 2011

Selling and Retaining Your Integrity

April 30th, 2011

Selling and Retaining Your Integrity PhotoMaking more sales while retaining your integrity — is it possible to do both?

Here are seven suggestions:

1. Focus on the getting to the “truth” of your potential client’s situation. You may or may not be a fit for each other, so focusing on the end goal of making the sale only derails the trust-building process. Without trust, you compromise integrity.

2. Eliminate rejection once and for all by setting realistic expectations and avoid traditional sales behaviors such as defensiveness, persuasion, and over-confidence. If you’re not try to sell, you can’t be rejected.

3. Stop “chasing” potential clients who have no intention of buying. How can you do this? Shift your mindset and boost your truth-seeking skills so that you can quickly, yet graciously, discern whether the two of you are a potential “fit” or not.

4. Avoid calling people “prospects” or even thinking about them that way. People are people, and when you label them in your language or your thoughts, you dehumanize them and the sales process. “Prospect” reinforces the notion that sales is only a “numbers game.” Train yourself to think about “potential clients” instead.

5. Take the “cold” out of your cold calling. Don’t start with “Hi, my name is… I’m with… We do…”. When you begin a conversation by making it about you, instead of about the other person, you immediately cut off the possibility of opening a dialogue. Try the more humble approach of asking “Maybe you can help me out for a second,” and keep in mind that you’re really calling to help them solve their problems

6. Don’t try to “overcome” objections. Instead, determine whether the objection is the client’s truth or not. Then you can decide whether to continue to open the conversation.

7. Avoid using “I” or “We” in your e-mail communications to potential clients. These words indicate that the focus of your communication is on satisfying your needs rather than solving their problems. This sets the wrong tone for a potential relationship.

The Battle-Hardend Blog Traffic Techniques

April 28th, 2011

The Battle Hardend Blog Traffic Techniques PhotoWell, there are some steps you can do to get a good position in search engine and have good traffics and backlinks.

1. Blog Regularly – many of the top blogs post 10-20 times per day.

2. Create Authority Articles – instead of blogging frequently, post less often but focus on creating Authority Posts — lengthier articles that are really well put together which will attract attention from other bloggers & users of social bookmarking sites like Digg, reddit, etc.

3. Comment on Other Blogs – do not keyword spam in these, but rather use your own name and add value to the conversation.

4. Link Out Frequently to Industry Leaders – show some linklove to other bloggers in your niche.  In turn, they might eventually link back if you have a quality post on a topic they have not covered yet.

5. Participate in Blog Carnivals – these are a way for bloggers within a niche to get together and periodically highlight posts from one another’s blogs.  You can find an index of these at BlogCarnival.com.

6. Do Guest Posts – not just for A-List bloggers, but B-List and beyond.  Be sure to work up some good material first, so as to make a good first impression.

7. Article Marketing – chances are, you’re reading this via a site that syndicated this article using an article marketing script of some sort.  Join a site like ArticleMarketer.com and syndicate your articles to thousands of participating sites.  If distributed via the web, these sites are required to link back to you via a byline (see below).

8. Social Digging/Mixxing – join sites like Digg, Mixx, Bumpzee, etc. and encourage your users and/or friends to submit your stories.

9. Social Bookmarking – join Furl, Wink, Backflip, etc and submit your popular articles to these sites to seed them into the community.

10. Use Great Headlines – okay, which sounds better “Some Ways to Get Readers”, or “10 Time-tested, Battle-Hardend Blog Traffic Techniques”.  Many readers are particularly fond of “Top X” lists, or “How To …” posts.