How To Take A Slow Sales Season Head On
Slow sales seasons occur in virtually every industry, whether its during the summer when everyone heads to the beach, or during the holidays when everyone spends time with family. To keep the momentum going, you can utilize these proven tactics to ensure that your sales team makes the most of this downtime.
Sales Incentives
There are a few tactics you can employ to increase your sales sales incentives being chief among them. If youre trying to grow during a slow sales cycle, consider offering sales incentives to representatives for meeting their quota during slow months, or for bringing in the most sales. This will increase their motivation levels and will help point your sales in a positive direction.
Seasonal Sales
One method that helps draw in clients and prospects during these times is to offer seasonal sales. Promote certain products that are either relevant to the season, or that are known to be slow movers during that time of year and you just need to get rid of overhead.
Prospecting
Summer months are a wonderful time to prospect. Get creative and use your prospects out of office notifications to setup future meetings and connections with them. Save the dates on your calendar to contact them upon their return.
Get Experienced
Slow seasons are great times to attend events and conferences. Find conferences and events specifically related to your industry or your clients industry and send your sales staff. You can make these events exciting by selecting those that take place in more popular destinations.
Review Your Tools and Strategies
Down times are also a great time to review the tools and strategies your sales staff currently uses to prospect and close sales, and to research new tools and strategies that you can incorporate for greater tracking and communicating.
Slow seasons are stressful for you and your teams. Make sure that you lay out realistic expectations to keep everyone from becoming discouraged and to keep everyone motivated.
Why Is Ecommerce So Popular
E-commerce gives you the opportunity to own a shop online and have the ability to reach countries all around the world 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Some of the biggest advantages is that you can avoid the problems of keeping physical inventory and hiring staff. When you have an eCommerce site for your product or service you can keep track of all the customers that come to your website looking for your product or service.
No worries in wondering if you need to have experience in creating websites for your eCommerce website, since there are many web packages available that come complete with everything you need to launch your website immediately. The only thing you need to do is start promoting your website and advertising as much as possible.
If you’re thinking that you need to be a web site designer for your website, you don’t. There is a wide variety of eCommerce packages available. These websites contain everything you need to quickly establish yourself as an Internet Marketer and immediately have an online presence. Some packages even come with links where you can advertise your website for free.
One important item to remember about any Affiliate Marketing program is to read all the fine print. There are several great Affiliate Marketing programs out there, however, for each good program there are many less reputable programs. Be sure you know exactly how the pay out structure works as well as a little about the company that sponsors the program.
Another advantage to owning an eCommerce website is that you can add or eliminate any feature. For example, if your website has the feature of tracking inventory and you find after awhile you don’t need this feature you can simply go into the dashboard and disable that feature. The most important thing to remember is if you are selling products that your website always has sufficient inventory to cover the increase in traffic your website will receive.
When writing the sales copy for your site, be sure to make a sincere impression to anyone visiting your website. The sales copy promoting your product or service must give just the right amount of information to satisfy your visitors curiosity and create the comfort level needed for that visitor to become a customer. Be sure not to write overly detailed sales copy or you will run the chance of that visitor become overwhelmed and moving on past your website.
Once you have successful sales copy written, the next step is finding a target audience. A target audience are visitors that are interested in your product or service. If you don’t establish a target audience and just advertise to a general audience, you could be wasting your time and possible letting potential customers get away. There are several ways to establish your target audience, however, once of the easiest ways is to have another website linked to your eCommerce website. These websites are called “portal” websites and are used specifically to gather customer information and to have placement for the link to your website.
When looking for an Affiliate Marketing program be sure to read all the fine print. There are many successful programs on the Internet that when combined with an eCommerce website will generate a substantial annual income. Be sure to read all about the company that has the Affiliate Marketing program as well as understanding the “payout” structure for the program. Many programs that requirements that need to be met before receiving any residual income.
[Top]The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Adding 3d Secure To An E-commerce Website.
There is no doubt that 3D Secure and Verified by Visa are successful anti- fraud techniques and are definitely options that merchants should discuss with their internet payment provider. This added security step has been proven to reduce fraudulent transactions and increase consumer confidence when paying with credit cards online, but there are still many factors that need to be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to add 3D Secure to a website.
Carl Buchalet CEO of Cashtronics payment systems explains how at Cashtronics they look at each merchant individually and decide whether or not 3D Secure is in the merchants best interest.
From our experience at Cashtronics the advantages of adding this extra security measure for merchants are clear:
Reduces the risk of fraudulent transactions.
Decreases the number of disputed transactions.
Shifts the financial liability away from the merchant.
Boosts some consumers confidence- often leading to increased sales.
Although there are clear anti-fraud benefits, they need to be carefully weighed against potential revenue losses and problems that can arise from using 3D Secure:
Additional Obstacles to purchase: Each security field that is added to an online form has been proven to dramatically lower the % of successfully completed transactions.
Poor Communication: Many customers have no idea what 3D Secure is; consequently they close the browser window, leading to lost sales.
Security Issues: Some banks require a customer to keep a card with a series of secret codes on it. This is often the same card that is used to authorize wire transfers on the bank account so cardholder then carries this card around with them, exposing them self to hard fraud.
Browser Problem: Sometimes the 3D secure request field is on the bottom of the screen and not seen by the customer- again causing high abandonment rate.
Unfriendly Protocol: The web browser connects to unfamiliar domain names and can cause extra delay and crashes.
Complicated Process: A password is often required and customers often forget it!
Added cost: Many payment providers charge an additional fee for 3D Secure.
NOT Fraud Proof: Many thieves catch cards in the postal mail, so they can usually set up 3D secure on their own fairly easily since they have new cards and enhanced information. Also even the 3D secure system has become the target of some phishing scams.
To reduce the problems that can arise with 3D secure merchants should ask potential internet payment providers the following:
1) Is adding this extra step in the best interest for the business given the field it operates in?
2) What are the additional fees for processing 3D Secure and Verified by Visa?
3) Are 3D secure transactions in house, as outsourcing adds to the cost & difficulty of the transaction and can reduce the level of security.
4) Does the payment provider have experience in processing this type of transaction?
In general, a payment provider should be able to give each merchant an idea of the volume of sales that they will loose depending on their industry, and will then calculate how much can be gained on charge backs and fraud by offering 3D Secure; then it is just a simple calculation to see which case yields a higher ROI.
[Top]Generate More Sales For Your Business Fast!
Increasing sales is how many companies stay in business. But in order to do so, you and your team probably have to spend more hours at the office than you would like. This means fewer days off for vacation, and less free time to spend with friends and family. But there are ways to increase sales without having to work eighty hours a week. The key is to focus your advertising on groups that are sure to be interested in your products. Once you have found these groups, your sales will increase. This means fewer cold calls and less time spent trying to draw interest in your company.
Creating a web site your first step. With a web site, you can make sales during the time when your office is closed. Many people shop online these days and use the Internet to get information about goods and services. If you include your phone number or email address, you will not have to make as many cold calls as you used to. People who want to make an appointment to see you can do so online. If you are selling products, customers will be able to order what they want and have their order shipped to their homes.
The second step is to advertise your web site to niche groups. These are groups of people who will be very interested in visiting your web site. You can find these groups through open forums, blogs, other web sites, and by writing press releases, articles, and paying for ads. Rather than advertise anywhere, choose specific web sites to post ads. Include back links so you will be found by search engines. This will increase your web ranking.
The third step is to advertise in traditional ways including newspapers, magazines, billboards, and direct mail. If you have created an email opt-in list on your site, you can use the addresses to start an email direct mail campaign. Create a newsletter, send discounts, or send new product descriptions. This will attract repeat sales and also help you attract new business.
If you follow all of these tips and begin relying more on the Internet, you have to spend less time marketing your business. Take advantage of everything the Internet has to offer in terms of free and paid advertising. Once you start building brand name recognition, you will be able to reach more people and increase your customer base. Those eighty hour work weeks will begin to cease and your staff will feel much better about their work situation. Decreasing the time spent marketing your business will allow you to spend more time developing products, writing content, and making more connections in the business world.
Visit the Planting Grass website to learn about tips on grass care.
[Top]The Function Of A Site Manager
No matter where you may be in the world, the building industry has its fluctuations, and that includes the United Kingdom and Europe. Some areas tend to be harder hit than others are, such as the residential markets are, but in spite of those trends, little of the industry declines affect the job of a site manager.
Though there may be some residential areas where a site manager is utilized, such as in new construction of entire areas of homes, the job of a site manager is more visible in the commercial building industry. It is also not a position that is limited to that of new construction, either. So just what is the function of a site manager? Some of the duties that he may be required to perform include the following:
#Ordering new material
#Replacing material that has been exhausted
#Assuring that his site has enough manpower to perform the assigned tasks within contract guidelines
#Preparing reports and status updates for regional and other managers of his company
#Seeing that workers follow all safety procedures and that any accidents are recorded and reported to the proper authorities
#Using his expertise in the building industry as a means of knowing when changes in the original plans or projected completion dates are necessary
#Being on the site to follow the daily operation of the project
Of course, the construction industry is not the only industry that may have a site manager, but they are the most common and usually the one to which advertisements for this position refer. Although the commercial building site manager is more common, that of a residential site manager is just as demanding and in addition may require him to assume the role of a sales agent as well. When new residential construction is in the process, sometimes potential buyers will take the time to look if they like what they see. If there is not sales office they can visit, the site manager may assume the role of a sales manager. This may include a tour of the neighbourhood, review of blueprints and plans, a discussion of the sales price, and answering any questions the potential buyer may have.
For someone who has an interest in a position as a building site manager, be prepared for something very diverse that may something require your expertise and knowledge of the building industry while in other situations, you may need to be a liaison between your company and the potential buyers.
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