7 EASY WAYS TO INCREASE SALES -- FAST
by Bob Leduc

"What am I doing wrong?" That's a question business owners often ask themselves when business is slow. Often, the answer is... "You're not doing anything wrong. You just need to do some things better -- and you need to start doing a few things you've been neglecting."

Here's a list you can use to evaluate your own marketing efforts. It includes what I've found to be the 7 most important marketing principles contributing to the success of ANY business.

1. TARGET SPECIFIC NICHE MARKETS

Everyone may be a prospect for your product or service. But your marketing efforts will produce the best results for the lowest cost when you target prospects with the greatest need for what you offer. Identify a niche market. Customize your promotional material to appeal to their greatest need. Then multiply your results by defining several other niche markets and slanting your promotional materials to appeal the biggest need of prospects in each market.

2. PROMOTE YOUR OWN USP

USP is short for "Unique Selling Proposition". It's the compelling reason why a prospect will do business with you instead of with your competition. You'll attract the maximum number of customers when you offer a benefit they cannot get from your competitors. If you don't already have a USP, create one by adding something to your business you're not already offering. Convert it into a benefit statement and include that statement in all your advertising.

3. NEVER ADVERTISE WITHOUT AN OFFER

Always include a powerful offer in your advertising. Offer free information related to your product or service to generate inquiries or website traffic. Then make the most compelling discount or bonus offer you can afford -- to convert these inquiring prospects into paying customers. This automatically leads to the next marketing principle...

4. COLLECT CONTACT INFORMATION AND USE IT TO FOLLOW UP

Most prospects won't buy the first time they hear or see your sales message. You need a system to collect contact information enabling you to reach them again with periodic reminders and offers. Many businesses develop over 50 percent of their sales by following up with prospects who previously requested information but didn't buy -- yet. Advertising is expensive. Maximize your return on it by following up periodically with the prospects it produced to convert more of them into customers.

5. REMOVE THE OBSTACLE OF RISK

Do you know the major reason why people don't buy something they want or need? They don't want to take the chance of getting something different than they expect and maybe even losing money. You can eliminate this risk by guaranteeing satisfaction. If you sell products, offer a liberal money back guarantee. If you provide a service, offer to continue working without additional charge until the promised result is achieved.

6. DIVERSIFY

It's easier and less expensive to get more business from satisfied customers than to find new customers. Continually find or develop new products and services related to what you sell -- and offer them to your customers. Affiliate programs offer a quick and low-cost way for Internet based businesses to add new products and services to their inventory.

7. NEVER STOP TESTING

Continually test and evaluate the effectiveness of everything you use or do to promote business. Here's a highly effective 80/20 guideline you can use. Invest 80 percent of your advertising budget and effort in proven promotions and 20 percent in testing new variations. Most businesses using this system continue growing -- even in a highly competitive market.

Take a few minutes to evaluate how well you're implementing each of these seven marketing principles in your business. A small improvement in just one of them will boost your sales immediately. An improvement in several will generate a big increase in your total sales volume.

Bob Leduc retired from a 30 year career of recruiting sales personnel and developing sales leads. He is now a Sales Consultant. Bob recently wrote a manual for small business owners titled "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards" and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information... BobLeduc@aol.com?subject=Postcards Phone: (702) 658-1707 (After 10 AM Pacific time) Or write: Bob Leduc, PO Box 33628, Las Vegas, NV 89133

*************************************************

Today's Motivational Reading

SUCCESS AND FAILURE by Jim Rohn

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

Don't take the casual approach to life. Casualness leads to casualties.

Success is the study of the obvious. Everyone should take Obvious I and Obvious II in school.

It's too bad failures don't give seminars. Wouldn't that be valuable? If you meet a guy who has messed up his life for forty years, you've just got to say, "John, if I bring my journal and promise to take good notes, would you spend a day with me?"

Success is not so much what we have as it is what we are.

Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but more importantly, what's your plan to read?

Average people look for ways of getting away with it; successful people look for ways of getting on with it.

*************************** Jim Rohn is America's Foremost Business Philosopher. To subscribe to the Free Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine, go to: http://www.jimrohn.com or send a blank email to subscribe@jimrohn.com   Excerpted from The Treasury of Quotes by Jim Rohn. Copyright © 2001 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved worldwide

*************************

Subscribers' Corner:

Have you ever looked back and said, "If only?"
By Paul Williams

Unfortunately many people reach retirement or a crucial time in their life and look back saying things like:

"If only I’d bought that block of land or investment property when it was so cheap, it must be worth a fortune now"

"If only I’d taken more risks"

"If only I’d have worked harder, things would be so much easier now"

"If only I’d taken that business opportunity when I had the chance"

Don’t let opportunities slip past while you’re still considering them. "Wise people make more opportunities than they find," said Francis Bacon.

"Few people recognise opportunity," said Cary Grant, "because it comes disguised as hard work."

Sadly, most men and women die with their music still in them, rarely taking any serious risks in their life.

"The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become," wrote Ashley Montague.

Inability to handle fear is one of the main reasons we’ve all said "if only." Fear of failure, fear of risk, fear of ridicule, fear of family or fear of a challenge that will make us have to change.

"To get profit without risk, experience without danger and reward without work is as impossible as it is to live without being born," wrote A P Gouthey.

Life in a comfort zone is relatively easy. It’s a place where the onlookers gather with no pressure to perform.

There is little fear and even fewer risks. There are very few uncomfortable challenges to make us have to change. It's a place where we are never stretched creatively or mentally.

But life in the comfort zone produces few millionaires, except lottery winners who usually lose it again. It’s the place where excuses, negative comments, and reasons why it can’t be done, dominate word and thought. And that makes it a place where financial independence remains a dream instead of a reality.

Life in the action zone is not always easy. Very few people go there. It’s a place full of obstacles and criticism, where you are challenged to be creative, forced to change and required to make decisions.

It’s a place where the word "risk" is no stranger. But it’s also the place where most of the world's millionaires are made, where you can achieve financial independence and fulfil dreams. If humans have enough knowledge and motivation to build a small buggy that crawls around Mars sending pictures back to your living room, then ask yourself this question:

"If they can do that, can I possibly build a successful business and achieve financial independence?"

If Joe Girard can overcome his father saying: "You’ll never amount to anything", then go on to become the world's greatest salesman five years in a row… can you avoid saying "If only?"

****************************************
Paul Williams  specializes in training people how to make money from "work-from-home" e-commerce opportunities using his ready to go, free internet marketing strategies. For more info and free tips: http://www.cybertonix.com or paulw21@hotmail.com

****************************************

Today's Tip On the Site worth visiting:

Get YOUR Own WAP FREE  The number of people accessing the web through their mobile phones grows exponentially. Estimates are that more people will connect to the Internet with wireless devices than with PCs by 2002. Jump on the train before it's too crowded. Build your own WAP site. It's easy, you can get the necessary Editors and TTemulator FREE. And Get it hosted FREE at:
http://www.tagtag.com/site/index.php3

Today's Tip On the Book worth having:

Today's Books are FREE , it's two of them but you can have them as one zip-file below (214.5 kB): Demystifying Viral Marketing & Web Marketing Basics by Dr Ralph F. Wilson http://www.doctorebiz.com/offers/basics-viral.zip

Today's Tip On Courses:

Get the Best HTML Editor On the Net, Great Website Design Software, 10,000 Web Graphics, A FREE Picture Every Day And More. Try FREE at: http://www.thecassiopeia.com/Guide/CoffeeSoft.html

Today's Tip On Courses:

Make your Net Auction Sell! Learn how to earn money with online auctions in this excellent FREE 5-day e-mail course: mailto:tnamsnetlions@sitesell.net

***************************************************
To err is human but to really foul things up requires a computer.
Murphy's Law

***************************************************
If you like our Ezine, click the button to recommend us, your ad will get a higher exposure and you can also win $10,000:

Administration

I very much appreciate your feedback, your questions, problems, ideas, articles, ads, site review requests - whatever you need or wish. It's your ezine, and I would like you to enjoy it fully and make full use of it. We try to bring you the top information on all the topics closely related to achieving success the fastest and most effective way and keep you up-to-date on interesting items.

Looking Forward To YOUR Success.

Sincerely,

Irena Whitfield

***************************************************** The articles published here may be reprinted or used freely as long as it is in its entirety incl the resource box of the author *****************************************************