Business Management - Marketing/Sales

Attractive design means little if your website isn’t easy to use, load and navigate. When designing your site, make sure you can answer “yes” to four key questions about its usability. Does it load quickly? Is it easy to read and understand? Is it easy to navigate? Is it free of errors or problems?

That question is often a heated topic, particularly when it involves a conversation around a departed sales rep that is now in hot pursuit of customers of a former employer. Another perspective to consider is, what does the customer think?

An age-old question on the mind of many people who have ever been in sales or managed anyone in sales or had to hire anyone in sales is, “Are great salespeople born or made?”

Is it harder for a promotional products salesperson to sell print or vice versa? Either way, at the center of the sale is the relationship with the customer. You’d think that once you’ve sold yourself and have built a rapport with someone that you should be able to sell them anything.

Printers should be supermarkets! One stop shopping for as many items and services that can be put on your proverbial shelves to make buyers’ lives more convenient. And here is the thing...just because you OFFER the service, doesn’t mean you have to PROVIDE the service.

My career up to this point has placed me right in the middle of the print buyer/print manufacturer community. Paying attention to what makes print buyers “tick” comes naturally, and it has highlighted a few very significant differences among the buying pros in the workforce today.

The sales world and the sports world aren’t so different. Success in both requires preparing, making adjustments and making sure no detail is overlooked. In a sales capacity, you’re looking to position yourself where more balls are hit. Sometimes you’ll have to adjust your schedule to your clients’.

Good website design can be broken down into just four elements—appearance, usability and functionality, content, and search-engine optimization. A website whose look, feel and flow represents the company’s branding will drive sales and build positive impressions.

Recent research shows that the best times of day to market are directly related to the type of marketing your organization uses and in what frequency. To get your timing right, it’s critical to understand there’s no “one-size-fits-all” marketing program.

Losing an account is unfortunate, but it happens to all of us (except Kelly, of course!). In this week's “Short Attention Span Webinar,” we talk strategies for regaining that lost business.