Simple Steps To Sales Success

Extracted from “The Star – 15th October 2013”

We all know that sales and the people behind it are the driving force in every industry, but that is no surprise.

The real surprise is how few business owners actually understand the elements needed in their planning and strategy to really push the sales process forward and reap the financial rewards they seek.

Well, if you are one of those business owners stuck in this rut, don’t worry! The truth is, rectifying the situation is relatively simple.

As such, here are four great tips you can use to get out of this little kerfuffle and on the fast track to great sales figures.

BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR OBJECTIVES

In sales, nothing is more important than knowing exactly what you want your company to achieve.

In this aspect, being clear about the objectives means having a very specific, quantifiable goal for you and your team to accomplish.

For example, if you were in the coffee business, your objectives may include:

• Converting 25% of all new customers
• Earning RM2mil more in net profit, and
• Selling 15 tonnes more coffee powder by the end of the third quarter

Of course, coming up with set objectives is useless unless your staff know how to achieve your desires.

It is important to provide a roadmap to guide them towards turning your objectives into reality.

This includes setting up the necessary funds to reach your goals, laying the marketing groundwork to attract qualified prospects and even streamlining your operations to be more aggressive in terms of profit-making.

SELL THE SIZZLE

In every sales situation, there is always something called a “Sizzle Point”.

This basically is a factor or element in your business offering that is an emotional peak point which “heats-up” the desires of your clients and makes them want to proceed with buying behaviour in anticipation of satisfying their needs.

Now, I find that for most people, their “Sizzle Point” is usually the prospect of achieving a positive end result.

Conversely, seldom are people deeply-enamoured by the process of getting there because the excessive amount of details will dampen their enthusiasm.

As such, it is important to ensure that your sales message focuses on helping prospective clients to achieve their results rather than boring them with too many details.

PROVIDE SOCIAL PROOF

One of the biggest problems in any sales situation is that most people are sceptical. In other words, they would prefer to let other people adopt products first before actually considering its viability in their own lives.

The crux of this issue belies their risk tolerance. The hard truth is that the risk tolerance of consumers, especially in our region, is relatively low.

To circumvent this issue, one of the best ways is to provide social proof. Now, social proof is basically examples of how other clients have benefited from your business offering.

Examples of social proof include testimonials, pictures, articles and industry accreditation.

With this social proof, you will provide undeniable evidence and support from the market, your industry and even the media with regards to the authenticity and effectiveness of your product.

This reduces the perceived risk of your clients and entices them to adopt your product or service. However, please note that these accreditations need to be highlighted in all your marketing collaterals; from flyers to your website and even advertisements to ensure maximum exposure.

HAVE A CLEAR CALL FOR ACTION

One interesting thing about conducting sales is that people generally need an instruction to take action.

This instruction, or call-for-action, can be seen as a final and gentle encouragement for them to open their wallets. However, in order for it to be effective, a call-for-action needs to be explicit and yet not overbearing or threatening.

For example, one of the best ways is to highlight the value of your business offering and remind your customers how much they stand to lose if they do not partake in it now.

Another technique can be in providing bonuses for the first 10 people who sign up. By providing a limit on the number of people in relation to additional benefits, you will spur the competitive instincts of your customers towards accepting your deal.

On a final note, please let me state that these techniques are really just the proverbial tip of a very substantial iceberg.

Over years of helping hundreds of corporations and business owners hone their sales techniques, I believe the most important factors towards generating great sales is to have a continued desire towards learning new methods.

Only then will you have the ability to supercharge your sales and pursue stronger, better and more substantial profit margins.

 

 

 

Create Magazines Using Flipboard

Extracted from “The Star – 8th October 2013”

Raise your hand if you’re on Twitter, have a Facebook account, +1 on Google+, upload photos to Instagram and pin on Pinterest.

Good. I see lots of hands.

Now how many of you are on Flipboard and are using the platform to create magazines?

I still see a decent number of hands. But as someone who uses Flipboard every day, I want to make sure you are getting the most out of it. So for the next several hundred words, I’m going to share my tips and tricks for creating awesome content on Flipboard.

• First things first: What is Flipboard? The company bills itself as “your social magazine. Use it to collect content from other social media and websites and curate it into a magazine format you “flip” through. It’s available for iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire and Nook. You can also use a web browser to collect and edit content. Once you have an account and you’re up and running, you can go to the editor page (editor.flipboard.com) to control preferences and make changes on the Web.
• Magazines can be public or private. All of mine are public, but you could use a private magazine to build up content before you re ready to share it with the world. Or you could use a private one to create a gift guide of sorts, not all that different form a private board on Pinterest. And you can go back and forth between public and private when necessary.
• Why Flipboard? Why not just collect my tweets or save to bookmarks in my browser? With Flipboard, you can create a magazine call Social Media and flip content into it that you can share with others. I do that with all of these So Social columns, and you can find it here. And you can still share that magazine with all your favourite social networks.
• The “subscribe” button is powerful. You use this button to add a magazine to your Flipboard. That means you get the update as soon as it happens. And you can and are encouraged to flip content from that magazine into magazines of your own. Think of that as the equiipvalent of a retweet. Flipboard will keep track of how many readers you have, how many page flips and how many articles.
• Gathering magazine content is pretty easy. Click on the + button from within Flipboard when you see something you’d like to add to your magazine. Or, add the Flip It bookmarket to your browser to grab content directly from the Web. You can also add your own content too directly from your most used social networks.
• You control the cover of your magazine. From within Flipboard, just click promote to cover. My pro tip: Change the cover as often as possible. You wouldn’t buy a magazine with the same cover from your corner newsstand, right? You’d just assume it was old. The more colourful and eye-grabbing, the better.
• What’s your name? Think about what you want to call your magazine. Remember that sometimes simple is best and encourages others to find it.
• Categories count. Make sure you add yours to the correct category  so people can find it when they search. And Flipboard spotlights their favourites from readers, so you never know when someone will find yours.
• Need a few ideas? I recommend starting at the community section: flipboard.com/community. Here, you’ll find some suggestions, community guidelines and magazine basics and tutorials. I can tell you from copious amounts of trial and error that four topics that work very well are photos, recipes, technology and news stories.     

Rejuvenating Sleep

Extracted from “The Sun – 30th Sept, 2013”

People who live long enjoy between six and eight hours of sleep daily, with those sleeping for seven hours having the lowest mortality rate.

Sleep has many physiological functions that are routinely performed at the cost of a third of our lifespan. These include:

Restorative – Our body carries out its anabolic (growing, repairing and renewal) processes during various stages of sleep;

Regulation of immune function – This is rejuvenated after a good night sleep;

Detoxification – Toxins are neutralised and removed by the liver via the bile acid; and

Consolidation of memory – Knowledge or experience acquired is filed for future use.

But globally, with the advent of the internet and television, the number of hours slept per night is declining. Up to 40% of our population may suffer from sleep disorders such as difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep through the night.

Insomnia is becoming more common in adults and its frequency increases with advancing age.

Chronic insomnia is where the inability to initiate/maintain sleep persists for more than three nights per week extending for three months or longer.

CAUSES FOR INSOMNIA

Buysse (2013) found causes of insomnia to involve one’s genetic, environmental, behavioural, and physiological factors  leading to hyperarousal (higher body metabolic rate and elevated stress hormone levels).

Stressful life situations are too numerous to be listed and they all affect our sleep quality and duration. Working shifts, going to bed hungry, having alcoholic and/or caffeinated beverages such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks can adversely affect sleep quality.

Jet lag, unfamiliar surroundings, noise pollution, anxiety over upcoming events or examinations, irregular sleep-wake hours, and extreme weather conditions can shorten sleep duration.

Medical conditions contributing to insomnia include fever, sleep apnea (snoring or blocked breathing), chronic pain, asthma, coughing, anaemia, urinary incontinence/frequency, sinusitis, depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress, restless leg syndrome, internet-addiction, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Blood levels of insulin and/or stress hormone may be elevated by self-imposed sleep restriction.

PROBLEMS WITH INSOMIA

In the workplace, there may be a tendency for making mistakes, memory impairment, low motivation, initiative reduction, poor attention, inability to focus, daytime fatigue/sleepiness, headache, poor social skills, irritability, mood disturbance, daytime napping, and even gastro-intestinal problems.

The risk of obesity is some 700% higher in adults with chronic insomnia. According to the World Health Organisation, Malaysia is the most obese country in the Far East and Southeast Asia.

Diabetes or insulin resistance is worsened with sleep deprivation, which impairs sugar tolerance.

Gottlieb et al (2005) found that sleep duration shorter than six hours or longer than nine hours per night was linked to higher risk of diabetes.

Lancet (1999) reported that having four hours of sleep per night for just six nights could result in impaired carbohydrate/sugar metabolism and endocrine dysfunction leading to various hormonal imbalances.

Apparently, these adverse effects of sleep restriction are similar to accelerated ageing and they raise severity of existing age-related chronic health disorders.

SLEEP PROMOTING FOOD

Besides avoiding hunger before bedtime, sleep-promoting food include those rich in the nutrient L-trytophan which is converted initially to the brain neurotransmitter serotonin and then to the sleep hormone melatonin in the presence of vitamin B6 and in the absence of light.

Soy isolate, wheat germ, wheat bran, peanut, almond, pumpkin seed, sunflower seed, pecan nut, cashew nut, seaweeds, Swiss cheese, and Brewer’s yeast are rich source of L-trytophan.

Besides lowering our low density (“bad”) cholesterol and and raising our good HDL cholesterol, niacin helps induce deep sleep by raising levels of our growth hormone secretion.

Potassium intake can shorten time taken to fall asleep. Food rich in this mineral include tapioca leaf, turnip (sengkuang), tomato, and banana.

Magnesium relaxes muscle tissues and calms muscular spasms helpful to those suffering from asthma.

Food sources of magnesium include cocoa, beans, seeds, nuts, lentils, dark green vegetables, millet, wild rice, quinoa, figs, banana, avocado, and prune.

Omega-3 fats from flax seeds, blue green sea algae and cold water fish or taking quality fish oil supplement can also induce deeper night sleep.

Nutritional therapists may also use L-theanine (protein from tea leaf), to reduce the stimulating effects of caffeine from coffee and strong tea and to create a sense of relaxation besides nutraceuticals such as valerian, lemon balm, passion flower, kava kava, and magnolia officialis.

COMPLEMENTARY MEDICAL THERAPIES

Cognitive-behavioural therapy, relaxation therapies, regular exercises, morning sun exposure, music therapy, audio-colour therapy, light therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation, acupuncture, and psychotherapy are some of the natural therapies recommended to treat chronic insomnia.

GOOD NIGHT !!