Six Ways to Get People to Say “Yes” — Copyblogger
http://www.copyblogger.com/get-to-yes/

Getting people to say yes is the goal for any sales message. It's what psychologists call “compliance. However, my ...

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nt”. 3. Ask for a discount for paying upfront vs. net-30 or ask for the standard 2% discount for paying net-10 instead of net-30. This can often be negotiated with

Negotiation Skills

Three things you need if you want more customers Seth Godin I går, 12:26 PM If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you need three things: 1. A group of possible customers you can identify and reach. 2. A group with a problem they want to solve using your solution. 3. A group with the desire and ability to spend money to solve that problem.

You'd be amazed at how often new businesses or new ventures have none of these. The first one is critical, because if you don't have permission, or knowledge, or word of mouth, you're invisible.

• Create their own virtual store with an unlimited number of downloads, ringtones, CDs and merchandise items. • Sell directly to fans on any website, blog or social network on the web. • Have one central place to design custom products and manage all e-commerce. • Easily buy high quality, affordable CDs and merchandise with no minimums for live shows and events. • Focus on making music while Audiolife handles all on-demand manufacturing, distribution, customer service and accounting.

online music service

http://24ways.org/2008/charm-clients-win-pitches 24ways.org 24ways.org24ways.org

Over the years I have picked up a number of sales techniques that have lead to us doing pretty well in the pitches we go for. Of course, up until now, these top secret practices have remained firmly locked in the company vault but now I am going to share them with you. They are cunningly hidden within the following paragraphs so I’m afraid you’re going to have to read the whole thing. Ok, so where to start? I guess a good place would be getting invited to pitch for work in the first place.

Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list after posting free clips on YouTube

Interesting post about Monty Python putting up free, high quality content from their archives onto YouTube, and then seeing a 23,000 percent increase in sales of their DVDs and merchandise. When you have a huge body of work, this is a great way to "prime the pump." Unfortunately, it's a tough way for new artists/producers/musicians to make a living.

Despite the entertainment industry’s constant cries about how bad they’re doing, it works. As we wrote yesterday, Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.

Las ventas de dvds de Monty Python aumentan un 23.000% gracias al material gratuito posteado en YouTube. Chupate esa mandarina...

"And you know what? Despite the entertainment industry’s constant cries about how bad they’re doing, it works. As we wrote yesterday, Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent."

as the name says, wonder if i will be able to even get a dollar

"Photography is a hard business to break into, especially the upper brackets. But the internet does make it possible to earn a few dollars off of your photos — especially if you’ve found some great shots. More and more people have what amount to high-quality digital cameras these days and, if you’re one of them, at least a few of your photos may be able to make you a little money as stock photos. There are many sites that will allow you to upload your photos and sell them as stock photography."

LeadVine finds you new qualified sales leads and new customers to increase your sales and revenue. We crowdsource lead generation by having the community find you sales leads.

LeadVine is where you post sales leads you are searching for, list a referral fee, and have the community act as your sales force. * Increase sales * Outsource your sales process * Lower marketing, advertising, and recruiting costs * Did we mention all of this is free? Make money by giving referrals Do you come across information that is not valuable to you but valuable to someone else? Get paid for information that is at your finger tips. * Earn easy money * Leverage your existing network to help companies increase sales * Make money for information you have at your fingertips * Spend a minimal amount of time earning extra cash

Generous sharing of revenue numbers of a $5 game. Got slashdotted. Some interesting comments if you can wade through all the bile.

Dapple has sold 131 copies worldwide in the 24 days since it launched. I realise that I’m dealing with a very limited amount of data here, so I’m not going to pretend like I can make any kind of long term projections about how sales will be in a month, six months, or a year. However, what you can see is how far from my goal of 9,150 I remain. So…

Indie sales figures on iPhone

However, I haven’t had reviews yet from any of the “Big 3″ iPhone review sites (Touch Arcade, 148Apps, and AppVee). Those are the ones that I think might really affect sales.

Tropicana's rebranding debacle did more than create a customer-relations fiasco. It hit the brand in the wallet.

for online business

The 10 Secrets of Selling Online

We're often asked, what is the secret of selling online? We're happy to tell you. We make tools that help you sell online. So we don't want these secrets to stay secret. We want you to succeed.

The panhandler's secret /Seth's Blog/ - When there were old-school parking meters in New York, quarters were ... http://tinyurl.com/dcm4ub [from http://twitter.com/jorgefsb/statuses/1257713242]

I love this story. Brief, worthwhile.

Great way to solicit donations. http://is.gd/l5kT [from http://twitter.com/davidwees/statuses/1303875101]

The panhandler's secret: "Do you have a dollar for four quarters?" and then "Can you spare a quarter?" Smart man.

"It took nearly two years to reach $2 million in Twitter-based revenue, and only six months to go from $1 million to $2 million." Can you make some twitter-exclusive offers?

t took nearly two years to reach $2 million in Twitter-based revenue, and only six months to go from $1 million to $2 million. Dell has since embraced social media on multiple accounts (http://www.dell.com/twitter). And as one of the first companies to successfully utilize Twitter as a business platform, it has been a trendsetter for other companies on Twitter like @JetBlue and @Zappos. We think it’s important to note that while $2 million is a lot of money, it still pales in comparison to the $61 billion in revenue that the entire company generated in 2008. Regardless, @DellOutlet still is fundamental proof that Twitter can be a lucrative platform for companies big and small. It’s a win-win for both the consumer (who get a great deal) and the company (who makes more money).

took 18 months to reap $1 million in revenue, then only 6 months to go from $1 million to $2 million

VIP, the exlusive Zappos.com site. Free Overnight Shipping on shoes, boots, bags, accessories, etc. Brands such as UGGs, Nike, New Balance, MBT, Hellys.

pricing

incl. presentation

When you think of "working a crowd," you might think of entertainers at best, and shifty multi-level marketing salesman at worst. There are, however, non-jerky ways to meet people and benefit from casual networking.

Phew! This article ended up being much longer than I expected (I banged it out in one sitting, as I do most articles). I’m still not sure I ans

ubstantial cost to you. This problem is made even more acute by the fact that in a fair numb

Excellent advice for startups for pricing their Enterprise Software!

Yahoo's portal to find deals, coupons, and even cheap gas

Find Great Deals, Bargain Prices & Sales - Yahoo

Find exclusive deals, bargain prices, coupons and store wide sales at Yahoo! Deals.

Stunningly Awful Demos: Five Things Not To Do in a Demo

putting some absurdly expensive item on the menu. Rapp doesn’t expect many consumers to buy it, but having it there makes expensive items appear cheap by comparison

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and found some ridiculously priced item on the menu? Of course you didn’t buy it — you’re no sucker. Or are you? This Today Show piece on Gregg Rapp may surprise you. Rapp is a menu engineer. He helps restaurants maximize revenue by hacking common flaws in human decision-making. For example, by simply removing “$” signs from prices, people are less intimidated by them. And he advises against listing items from least to most expensive, because that focuses the consumer on price. Instead he mixes up items, making it hard to find their price — thereby encouraging the customer to emotionally commit to something before finding out what it costs. But my favorite strategy of his is that of putting some absurdly expensive item on the menu. Rapp doesn’t expect many consumers to buy it, but having it there makes expensive items appear cheap by comparison. Think about it: How many times have you ordered a bottle of wine in the middle of the price range?

Interesting Article on the human mind and price from a "Menu Engineer"

Leave it beh

"I've been having great success with a hybrid of the yellow legal pad and a printed presentation from Keynote (or Powerpoint). I use it during small meetings where more interactivity is useful, and where the group is too small for a laptop to be the best way to present slides (I think running a presentation says, "I talk, you listen...")"

Thinking of my almost unused Muji Chronotebook..

I love how Seth's brain works... while so many people are thinking of how complicated and hi tech they need to become in order to make points and get through to people, Seth works in the opposite direction in order to simplify things and challenge the status quo. I never would have thought of this had he not posted it.

That's a good idea! A new way to do presentations

Sales and Opportunity Management Software for Small Businesses: Win more deals. Track your opportunities and deals in an effective and intuitive way so you can focus on winning more deals!

Summary: In Four Steps to the Epiphany, Steve Blank lays out a customer development process that complements a startup’s product development process. This post includes video and slides where Steve explains the ideas in his book.

Usability Problems To Avoid

usability ecommerce webdesign ux e-commerce

A defining factor in any freelancer or agency’s success in gaining new business is their ability to market their skills effectively. In this three-part series, we will explore ways in which designers can strategically promote themselves to get new clients. Securing new business by approaching companies can be a very challenging process, full of pitfalls. Here, we will look at 10 steps to impressing potential clients and avoiding the most common mistakes.

Most established organizations put a vision statement on their website. This will give you key insight into a company’s values, history, growth and future direction. This information is invaluable because it will help you better understand how the business operates and, thus, how you can tailor your approach to it. For example, if the company has a progressive stance on sustainability and the environment, you could approach them with ideas for paperless advertising and communication.

for men!

@umairh try ttp://www.mensflair.com/shopping-guide/a-new-dashing-tailor-discovered.php, or for NYC http://www.thechoosybeggar.com/ [from http://twitter.com/PaulSweeney/statuses/3246200872]

A frank shopping guide to all the sales, deals, and trends fit for New York Men

sales - menswear - ny

Your challenge is to find o

8 tips voor een betere webshop

1. Remove clutter 2. Make sure the shopping cart stands out 3. Provide visual feedback 4. The bigger the better 5. Make buttons and links obvious 6. Always be there to help 7. Handle errors gracefully 8. Communicate your value add

8 ways we increased ecommerce sales by 10,000% « Boagworld

10,000% increase in sales over 5 years. Sounds incredible doesn’t it. Just to make that an even more incredible, their average customer is in their 80s! Who said the elderly don’t use the internet. When we started working with Wiltshire Farm Foods their monthly revenue was a 100th of what it is today. Of course in reality that success was not down entirely to us. Matt Curry, our client at Wiltshire Farm Foods has put his heart and soul into that website and as I say in Chapter one of the Website Owners Manual, it is the site champion who makes or breaks a site.

When it comes to major purchases - like cars, computers, airline tickets - simply buying them whenever rarely get you the best deal.

To give you a preview of this post, what you will learn is that there are two key parameters that drive how viral growth happens, the Viral Coefficient, and the Viral Cycle Time. To fully illustrate the arguments, I have included two spreadsheet models (embedded) that you can play with interactively to see how viral growth works. There is a risk with this level of depth, that some readers will find this too technical, and if you find yourself reacting that way, may I recommend that you jump straight to the conclusion, which is under the heading Lessons Learned towards the bottom of the article.

The Viral Coefficient (K)

By night, Joe Ades dines with his fourth wife at exclusive restaurants, sips Veuve Clicquot at the Pierre, and goes home to a three-bedroom Park Avenue apartment. By day, he is something else altogether. At 72, the “peeler guy” in the Turnbull & Asser shirts is a New York legend.

ohno! Joe Ades, the peeler salesman of Manhattan has died. RIP. http://bit.ly/ib6Z http://bit.ly/LHCF

great article.

Many copywriting and marketing gurus teach simplistic ideas about psychology. They insist that people can be fully understood and manipulated ...

People are highly complex and often mysterious, so we all struggle to understand our fellow humans. However, now that you’ve gotten over being afraid to sell, here are a few basic psychological tidbits that can help you write compelling copy.

In the many thousands of articles advising entrepreneurs on what they have to focus on to build successful startups, much has been written about three key

e lead

Idéias para comercial Netlogos

58 of the World’s Greatest Offers — Copyblogger

International Digital Publishing Forum collects quarterly US trade retail eBook sales in conjunction with the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

Don't look now but e-book sales are growing ever-so-rapidly in the trade market. 200% in the last year.

Trade #ebook sales for October up $254% over October 2008, per AAP/IDPF: http://bit.ly/oH21b (via @andrewsavikas) – Tim O'Reilly (timoreilly) http://twitter.com/timoreilly/status/6716317310

線形から指数関数的に

list of blackfriday deals

Prepare yourself for the post-Thanksgiving Day deals. This site provides a list of Black Friday 2008 advertisements for popular stores.

I get a lot of questions from young, aspiring Indie developers, and the most common query is: How many copies of a game does Spiderweb Software sell? It's a really reasonable question. After all, making a game is a long and punishing process. It's entirely fair to want to know what the parameters of success are. Alas, this information is generally kept secret. I've never given this question a straight answer, with real numbers.

Geneforge guy talks openly about his sales. Very cool.

You could be more gracious than if you'd won the work. You could send a thank you note for the time invested, you could sing the praises of the vendor chosen in your stead and you could congratulate the buyer, "based on the criteria you set out, it's clear that you made exactly the right choice for your organization right now." That doesn't mean the criteria were right, it just means that you're not attacking the person for being an impulsive lunatic. You could even outline what you learned from the process and what you'll be changing in the future. And you can make it clear that you're in it for more than just a sale, and you'll be around if they ever need you.

iPhone App Sales, Exposed http://om.ly/jnSG #tmdeler – Thomas Moen (thomasmoen) http://twitter.com/thomasmoen/statuses/14214376056

I'd say it's worth going here but it's scary how Apple is in control.

Survey of 96 different apps and units sold: "While industry wisdom states that application updates always boost downloads and sales, Apple has changed how updated apps are given exposure and this now doesn’t quite hold true. Some developers reported that updating the app gave only a small—and brief—spike in downloads. What did seem to have a larger impact on sales was a drop in price, although this also tended to taper off quickly. Being featured by Apple is the greatest contributor to spiking sales. The level of Apple."

The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need. Help them satisfy their needs at the same time they get the measurable, rational results your product can give them in the long run.

"The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are."

The problem is that your prospect doesn't care about any of those things. He cares about his boss or the story you're telling or the risk or the hassle of making a change. He cares about who you know and what other people will think when he tells them what he's done after he buys from you.

The problem is that your prospect doesn't care about any of those things. He cares about his boss or the story you're telling or the risk or the hassle of making a change. He cares about who you know and what other people will think when he tells them what he's done after he buys from you. The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need. Help them satisfy their needs at the same time they get the measurable, rational results your product can give them in the long run.

Note to self: Never forget - people buy emotionally and justify rationally

most important emerging channels for lead generation. Being that social media is a great place to attract new customers, we put together a quick guide on how to use social media for lead generation.

Cold calling tips and techniques which work better, advanced methods for modern effective pain-free sales, selling and sales training

Since selling became a recognised profession a couple of generations ago, countless sales training organizations, sales gurus, writers, theorists, and sales people of all sorts, have attempted to create effective cold calling techniques and scripts. There is no magic script, and while there are many helpful frameworks and methodologies there is no single magic answer. S

Cold calling typically refers to the first telephone call made to a prospective customer. More unusually these days, cold calling can also refer to calling face-to-face for the first time without an appointment at commercial premises or households. Cold calling is also known as canvassing, telephone canvassing, prospecting, telephone prospecting, and more traditionally in the case of consumer door-to-door selling as 'door-knocking'.

Think that sales isn't what you signed up for? If you want to land great projects, and grow your business, it might be time to think again.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately! So many of us in the creative space (ironically including entreprenuers) forget or struggle with the most important part of business: SALES!

freelance sales

Intro to sales process: 1. track/categorize new business leads - where did the lead come from? 2. Determine the quality of the lead - necessary budget (mention your usual rates), right size, is the prospect serious (budget, timeline), are you passionate about this project. (if qualified deal, continue) 3. gather requirements - documents, face-to-face meeting; to confirm that you want to do the project, and to gather enough info to write a quote. 4. Prepare the quote - on time. 5. Close the deal - confirm receipt of the quote and respond to concerns; follow up again within a couple of days, demonstrate your expertise 6. Celebrate - if you've won the deal; what kind of deals you win; where they came from. 7. Or analyze and regroup - why did you lose the deal

Good read on Freelancers and "Sales"