5 Tools to Help Your Sales That You Probably Don’t Have Right Now
There are a world of tools created for enhancing sales. The reason this plethora of tools exist is because sales is hard. Most people who enter the sales field shouldn’t. They come in with unreasonable expectations. While a noble career, it is still viewed by many who enter it as a get rich quick scheme.
Sales is not really a job for the faint of heart. It is an easy job to get with a low bar for entry. But it is a hard job to master and make profitable. At the entry level, it is largely sink or swim. There is a lot of churn. If you make it for a couple of years doing consumer telemarketing and the like, you can move on to higher levels.
There is good money to be made at every level. But the higher you climb, the harder the sales but with greater rewards. You can do very well in life having never finished high school. Whether you are a high school dropout or a college grad, sales is the great equalizer. It is all about what you make of the opportunity. Here are a few tools that can help:
1. Portable Booths
The iconic image of a portable booth is a lemonade stand set up by a child and her parents in a friendly, suburban neighborhood. That sales model is so iconic because it works so well, and has for a very long time. You can improve on face to face sales by adding one of those professional-looking, pop up canopy tents you can find at places like instent.com.
Just having a folding table and a hand-drawn sign is not sufficient. To the customer, it looks very iffy. But a full, beautifully designed canvas makes you look more professional and will drive foot traffic your way. Anytime you can get the interested customer to walk up to you, that is a win in sales. Improve your booth and take the win.
2. Better Video
Video has a way of captivating the attention in ways not available to other media. It focuses the eyes, ears, and imagination. It cannot be consumed passively. You have to stop what you are doing because video demands all of your senses.
It will take more than upgrading your camera. Consider adding animated video to your arsenal. Your videos are powerful. But so are everyone else’s. Anything that gives your videos an edge gives you the edge.
3. Start a Blog
You might have a website. But that doesn’t mean you have a blog. The two are mutually exclusive. Blogs are one of the most important tools for marketing your business. Blogs are deceptively easy to start but are surprisingly difficult to maintain. You have to supply content to that blog daily at minimum – several times a day if you are taking it seriously. It is so important to your sales that it might even be worth it to hire a full-time blogger.
4. Do a Podcast
Podcasts are also pretty easy to do and you only have to do it once a week. The brilliance of podcasts is that they are entertainment pieces that people seek out. Imagine doing an ad for your business that was so good, people search for it and share it with all their friends. You can literally podcast about anything and tie it into what you are selling. All you want is an audience that continues to tune in and share your links.
5. Commission an App
Find an idea for an app and commission someone to make it for you. Put the expense under the marketing category. Like podcasts, people go out of their way to look for apps to download. People are more likely to download your app than they are to click on your website. They love apps and merely use websites.
Perhaps the most important piece of sales advice is that while the fundamentals remain the same, the tools of the trade are in a state of constant flux. Be sure that your toolbox is up to date so that you are always getting the maximum results from your efforts.