Business Articles For Online Businesses

A few months into the job and Sabrina’s cold calling sales prospecting techniques were getting her almost nowhere. She would call CIO’s and CTO’s all day, and speak to maybe one sales prospect if she was lucky. The gatekeepers and voicemail were screening her out. Sabrina was “following up” her calls with emails, but she rarely if ever heard anything back.

Sabrina asked for help to improve her sales prospecting skills. A salesperson for a silicon valley software company, Sabrina was tasked with calling on CIO’s in Fortune 1000 companies. Her cold calling skills were a bit rusty, and she was under serious pressure from sales management to produce.

After a few weeks of working on these together, I got the following email from Sabrina:

“My email script has gotten another F1000 appointment! I sent it to an admin who forwarded it to a Senior Director who had his admin respond in 5 minutes that he wanted an appointment. They are right in our sweet spot so this is a very good thing.”

If you’ve done any sales prospecting to big corporations, then you know how great Sabrina felt when she got this appointment. Sabrina has secured numerous VP level appointments using her new email technique.

How did Sabrina improve her sales prospecting?

First she asked for help.

Upon working together, I coached Sabrina to sell only to the sales prospects that were most likely to buy. Sabrina developed a customer profile to guide her sales prospecting efforts. She determined what type of sales prospect would be most likely to buy her product.

Next she worked on identifying the pains that motivate her ideal sales prospect to want to buy her product. This took some research. She spoke to other sales reps, marketing management, and most importantly customers to figure out why people buy her product.

Sabrina used this to craft a short but specific email message to her best sales prospects. It was real-world due to all of her research and her prospects responded to it. The likely buyers were ones who could feel the pain that the email talked about. Those sales prospects jumped up and asked for an appointment.

What can you do to improve your sales prospecting?

Develop an Ideal Customer Profile to guide your selling.
Identify the Buying Pains of your Ideal Customer.
Craft Email Messages, Phone & Voicemail Scripts showing you can eliminate your Ideal Customer’s pain.
Proactively call and email your Ideal Sales Prospects to find the likely buyers.

© 1999-2004 Shamus Brown, All Rights Reserved.

Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Brown’s sales tips at Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/ Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/

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If you have been on the internet more than 10 seconds you know what a text link is — a word, or group of words which can be clicked to direct a web surfer to another page or site on the internet which will provide information related to that word or group of words.

Text links are the foundation of the internet. Without text links, there would be no internet. Without text links, there would be no internet users. Text links make the internet “user friendly” and allow surfers to easily move from one location to another to locate the information they choose.

In spite of the facts that this advertising tool is so familiar and simple, many internet marketers overlook it when devising an advertising and marketing plan. But this is a very big mistake because text linking is one of the least expensive and yet most powerful advertising options available.

Why You Need A Text Link Strategy For Your Web Site

Why is it important to have text links spread across a network of other web sites? I can answer that in one word — traffic.

Text links equal traffic. It really is that simple.

Text links work for you three ways:

~ Direct traffic when visitors click on the key words you have selected as your “anchor text”. This is very targeted, very profitable traffic too as each visitor deliberately clicks with the intention of learning more about whatever the key words are promoting.

~ Search engine traffic when their spiders encounter the text link and key words then visit your site. This can lead to more frequent visits by the search engines and factor into search placement.

~ Back links that affect both search engine ranking for your site but also search results

Text links can provide all those benefits — which can directly translate into income from your web site — and you can often buy text links for under $10 and the link will not only promote the specific site or page you choose but also connect it with the specific key words that will benefit you the most. Even better, when you buy a text link you are locking in your price so even if it delivers a ton of traffic — you don’t have to increase your ad budget.

How Can You Get Started With Text Links?

After you have developed your site and it is ready for visitors you should work up two versions of your text link. The first will be just a few words or a short phrase that includes the key words for your target site. The second will also include a longer description that may be a sentence or two. You should be able to find a selection of text links available for either choice.

When purchasing text links it is important to work with a known quantity and that usually is made easier if you work through a reputable text link broker.

Some points to consider when buying a text link:

~ Search engine rank (Google, Alexa, etc.) and age of site

~ Traffic

~ Content, design and usability of site

~ Placement of your link and number of links on the page/site

Many inexperienced text link buyers focus solely on Google PR but that little number doesn’t really tell an accurate tale about the traffic level on a site. While you shouldn’t ignore search engine rank information, I think it is more important to pay attention to the position of the link and the relevancy of the page or site content to yours. This will deliver better results in both the short and long term.

Where can you find text links? Visit my newsletter Establish Your Epresence for some helpful hints.

Deanna Mascle is the publisher of the internet marketing newsletter establishyourepresence.com Establish Your Epresence. She will be glad to explain how ezineadvertisingworks.info Ezine Advertising Works. You can receive free internet advertising as well as discounts by joining her renaissancewomanonline.com/adclub.php Ad Club.

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