The Top 7 Sales Blunders

The Top 7 Sales Blunders

by: Kelley Robertson

We all make mistakes when selling our product or service. Here are the most common mistakes people make. I have to admit I have made many of mistakes listed in this article even though I have been teaching this stuff for almost a decade. I hope you can learn from them.

1. Allowing a prospect to lead the sales process. The best way to control the sales interaction is to ask questions. This is also the best way of learning whether or not your product or service meets the needs of your prospect. Quality questions that uncover specific issues, problems, or corporate objectives are essential in helping you establish yourself as an expert.

2. Not completing premeeting research. After several weeks of voice mail I finally connected with my prospect and scheduled a meeting. Unfortunately, I entered the meeting without first researching the company. Instead of presenting a solution to an existing problem, I spent the entire meeting learning fundamental information, which to senior executives, is a complete waste of their time. This approach is one of most common mistakes. I have received countless phone calls from sales people hawking their wares and trying to sell me ‘stuff’ I have no need for. As a sole proprietor, I do not need a complex telephone system, additional employees, or an automated payroll system. Invest the time learning about your prospect before you call them and before you try to schedule a meeting.

3. Talking too much. Too many sales people talk too much during the sales interaction. They espouse about their product, its feature, their service and so on. When I first bought carpet for my home I recall speaking to a sales person who told me how long he had been in the business, how smart he was, how good his carpets were, etc. But this dialogue did nothing to convince me that I should buy from him. Instead, I left the store thinking that he did not care about my specific needs. A friend of mine is in the advertising business and often talks to prospects who initially request a quote for a specific advertising job. Instead of talking at great length about the ad agency’s experience and qualifications, he gets the potential client talking about her business. By doing this he is able to determine the most effective strategy for that prospect.

4. Giving the prospect information that is irrelevant. When I worked in the corporate world I was subjected to countless presentations where the sales person shared information that was completely meaningless to me. I don’t care about your financial backing or who your clients are. Make the most of your presentation by telling me how I will benefit from your product or service until I know how your product or service relates to my specific situation.

5. Not being prepared. I remember calling a prospect expecting to receive his voice mail. That meant I was completely unprepared when he answered the call himself. Instead of asking him a series of qualifying questions I simply responded to his questions, allowing him to control the sale. Unfortunately, I didn’t progress any further than that initial call. When you make a cold call or attend a meeting with a prospect it is critical that you are prepared. This means having all relevant information at your fingertips including; pricing, testimonials, samples, and a list of questions you need to ask. I suggest creating a checklist of the vital information you will need and reviewing this list before you make your call. You have exactly one opportunity to make a great first impression and you will not make it if you are not prepared.

6. Neglecting to ask for the sale. I recall a participant in one of my workshops expressing interest in my book. I told him to look through it but at no time did I ask for the sale. Later, I heard him express this observation to other participants in the program. If you sell a product or service, you have the obligation to ask the customer for a commitment, particularly if you have invested time assessing their needs and know that your product or service will solve a problem. Many people are concerned with coming across as pushy but as long as you ask for the sale in a nonthreatening, confident manner, people will usually respond favorably.

7. Failing to prospect. This is one of the most common mistakes independent business make. When business is good many people stop prospecting, thinking that the flow of business will continue. However, the most successful sales people prospect all the time. They schedule prospecting time in their agenda every week.

Even the most seasoned sales professional makes mistakes from time to time. Avoid these blunders and increase the likelihood of the closing the sale.

Copyright 2004, Kelley Robertson

About The Author

Kelley Robertson, President of the Robertson Training Group, is a professional speaker and trainer on sales, negotiating, and employee motivation. He is also the author of ขStop, Ask & Listen – Proven Sales Techniques to Turn Browsers into Buyers.ข For information on his programs, visit his website at www.RobertsonTrainingGroup.com. Receive a FREE copy of ข100 Ways to Increase Your Salesข by subscribing to his 59Second Tip, a free weekly ezine available at his website.

This article was posted on September 30, 2004

by Kelley Robertson

Product Review: Affiliate Mistakes Special Report

Product Review: Affiliate Mistakes Special Report

by: David Cooper

In his ebook กAffiliate Mistakes Special Report,ก Chuck McCullough teaches you how to spot and avoid or correct ten simple, yet costly errors that can seriously damage your efforts to promote affiliate programs successfully. Instead of writing about the broad based generalities of affiliate marketing, Chuck takes you by the hand and teaches you why most affiliates never make a dime in commission. Then using a detailed and systematic approach, he provides you with an effective, easy to implement solution to correct these mistakes.

The ebook prints out to about 151 pages and although some of the information may seem pretty basic to some advanced affiliate marketers, it does cover in detail how to avoid the mistakes that 95% of all affiliate marketers are making. Most of this ebook delivers rock solid information that both beginning and intermediate affiliate marketers can put to use.

Chuck McCullough is the owner of AffiliateMatch.com one of the most visited affiliate program directories on the internet today. Chuck also owns FindSticky.com and publishes the Affiliate Informer Newsletter. Chucksก experience in affiliate marketing along with his unique perspective and boundless enthusiasm, make him very qualified to write a report on affiliate program marketing.

In กAffiliate Mistakes Special Report,ก Chuck doesn’t just tell you what the most common affiliate mistakes are, he provides you with a very clear and concise solution to each of the mistakes. Chuck has divided up each of the mistakes into a chapter of its own.

Chapter 1 on why you should actually own the products you promote, and Chapter 2 about trying to promote too many programs at once were two dynamite chapters. They were 100% right on the mark. McCullough must not believe in appetizers, because he gives you the meat and potatoes right off the bat in this report!

Chapter 5 which provides a glimpse into Chuckกs กunconventional wisdomก which proved to me that Chuck was holding nothing back in this report. There is also an additonal chapter on Advanced Topics and two other bonus chapters. One of the bonus chapters provides you with a nifty กsecretก. I will be adding this กsecretก to my site.

Though Chuckกs expertise in affiliate marketing is clearly evident throughout the book, I thought a section in chapter 7 about calculating the worth of a visitor when you are purchasing traffic from payperclick search engines was a bit confusing. However, after my 13 year old son explained it to me, it became crystal clear. So, maybe this initial confusion on my part should be attributed more to my mathematical dysfunction and less to Chuckกs formula.

In his sales copy, McCullough asserts that anyone can learn the exact methods necessary to have a profitable online business. Now, I am the worldกs leading skeptic when a person says กanyoneก. However, after reading this report, I can see how he can actually back up this claim.

Chuck takes the high road in his report and tells you right up front that making money on the internet is hard work. He deserves high marks for his honesty. Making Money on the internet is certainly not as easy as some of the กgurusก would have you believe. What makes this report different in my opinion is that McCulloughกs approach is not only about affiliate marketing itกs also about business building.

If you are interested in promoting affiliate programs and building your online business the correct way, then I give กAffiliate Mistakes Special Reportก my highest recommendation and a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.

For more information on Chuck McCulloughกs ebook, กAffiliate Mistakes Special Report,ก please visit http://www.affiliatemistakes.com/c.pl/coopsd

Hopefully Chuck will produce another ebook that will teach us another important aspect of internet marketing in the same wellwritten manner.

About The Author

David Cooper is the owner of http://www.1sourcewebmarketing.com and the publisher of the 1SourceWebMarketing Newsletter. Subscribe to his FREE Newsletter at http://www.1sourcewebmarketing.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 17, 2004

by David Cooper

10 Prominent Website Mistakes

10 Prominent Website Mistakes

by: Maricon Williams

Nowadays, sites are getting better. With minimal design and highly maintained archives they continue to offer comprehensive services. However, prominent mistakes on several websites are still apparent.

Here is a list of the website mistakes that scares visitors away and ruins the business reputation.

1. The under construction sign. Putting an กunder constructionก sign on your website marks you as a struggling beginner. Websites are supposed to grow in time. If your site is not yet ready to be shown in public, then don’t publish it.

2. Visitor counters. Visitors generally are not bothered by the fact that many other people have visited your site. However, if the visitor counter shows a low number, that can be a psychological turnoff to people, if itกs too high, people might think that it’s fictitious. The best way to do is not to include in your website. If you really want to know how many visitors you have had, check your statistics.

3. Lack of copyright statements. Everything you write and create on the including your website is copyrightable. Make certain that you include copyright statements on every page, and appropriately update the copyright year.

4. Overuse of technology. There are some really great and cool new technologies available today but they can tend to distract the visitors. In times that you have to choose between new technology and simplicity. Choose the latter for it is anchored on the website’s functionality.

5. Passive verbs. Use active verbs and active sentences when writing your siteกs copy. Active verbs are powerful and lend energy to your site. The more conversational the website is the better.

6. Long sentences. Long sentences are tedious to read. Better keep it short and simple so that it can easily be retained.

7. Lengthy pages. Keep your pages brief and concise. People are easily bored of reading, so you have to adjust to their attention span. If you have a lot to say, you can create a series of pages with good navigation to explain your topics.

8. Not identifying the benefits of your products or services. There are two reasons why people make purchases. First is to get rid of pain and second is to get pleasure. They want to discern how your products and services will help them with their definite pain/pleasure situation.

9. Neglecting to ask the visitor to do something. In marketing, this is known as a Call To Action. There should be a space designated to tell your visitors what you want them to do next. Sign up for my newsletter. Order now.

10. Accepting as true the maxim build it and they will come. Once youกve built your website you have to let people know about it. If you don’t deliver them to people, then your website is not worth the money you spent to create them!

About The Author

Maricon Williams

I love reading. Give me a book and Iกll finish it in one sitting. Reading is the chance to be transported to a different world and so is writing. Iกm more enthusiastic about writing however, since you can relay your ideas to someone else. I can only imagine that feeling when I hear a complete stranger talking about my ideas which read on an article somewhere. To relay my message to as many people is the same as touching people with music. Only mineกs less harmonic. I try to make up for it with the color I bring with words. And most of the time, it’s more than enough.

For Inquiries and Comments about the article and for additional information about web designs, log on to http://www.webdesignsprovider.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 06

by Maricon Williams

Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

by: Robin Eldred

There are a lot of ways to promote your website and, unfortunately, a lot of these methods are mistakes. Here is a list of some of the more common mistakes (often referred to as Black Hat SEO) that you should steer well clear of.

1. Bad Neighbourhoods

These sites are also known as free for all (FFA) pages and link farms. They serve no other purpose other than to list tens of thousands of unrelated websites. Not only will these sites not provide your site with any traffic, certain search engines will ban sites who participate.

2. Over Optimization

Optimizing your web pages for a particular search engine can be a good thing. Overoptimizing can defeat the purpose, however. Search engines are catching on quickly to pages that appear ‘overoptimized’. Stuffing keyphrases into your pages is the most common problem. Never use hidden (invisible) text to add keywords. You will get caught, and your site will get banned.

3. Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are orphaned web pages that are typically optimized for a particular keyphrase and a particular search engine. They are promoted to the search engine in an effort to achieve high rankings. They are not linked back to by any other page on the website and, as such, search engines are able to flush them out quite easily and penalize the entire site.

4. Traffic Generation Scams

Services that purport to drive lots and lots of traffic to your website are typically not very useful. The traffic tends to come from seedy places like domain names that have lapsed in payment or commonly misspelled domain entries. Most of the traffic that hits these pages is accidental and is therefore of no value to you. Other traffic may come from other participants in the program who are required to visit other websites to gain ‘credits’ for their own site. Again, this traffic is not targeted and therefore of no value. Some traffic may even be generated by automated software!

5. Shadow Domains

Shadow domains are small, optimized, supplementary websites designed to drive traffic to a different website. The way this works is that an SEO company will design and optimize a website on your behalf. The danger here is that the you do not own this new website; the SEO company does! This means that if the relationship sours, they may choose to redirect this site’s traffic to whomever they choose (see #4 above), or even sell the site to one of your competitors! Be very, very careful of this technique, as some supposed search engine ‘experts’ even use this method (no naming of names here, however).

One final note: Any company that tells you that it can achieve ‘guaranteed’ rankings is either lying to you or using some of these Black Hat techniques. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a number one result within (unpaid) search results. When choosing a search engine optimization company to work with, be sure you feel comfortable with them and trust them (e.g. money back guarantee). And if you decide to promote your website yourself, consider yourself a little better educated against these common mistakes.

About The Author

Robin Eldred is the president of Apis Design, a Calgary Web Design and Promotion company specializing in building, managing and promoting quality, resultsoriented websites for small businesses (http://www.apis.ca/)

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 16, 2004

by Robin Eldred

Ways Not To Look Like An Amateur

Ways Not To Look Like An Amateur

by: Florie Lyn Masarate

Nothing can compare to the proud feeling you get when you see your own design, with your signature, on print. These would be for the tryinghardtobegooddesigners point of view, anyway.

If you are one of these beginners, chances are you would be committing mistakes on the process of making your design. But do not fret! These are common mistakes that others like you have gone through also. As they say, it is part of the learning process. There are just some things that you need to know to make your design look like it is done by a professional even though it is not. What are some mistakes you need to avoid in making a design?

Putting all your fonts in one document. No matter how great they all look, putting all these into a single document could a jumbled and an inconsistent look on the document. Not only that, the readers would get confused on the changes with the constant change in the strokes of the letters.

Using two spaces after a period. You can use this if you are typing your prints using a typewriter because it is difficult to distinguish the stop in a sentence due to the font. The computer offers a variety of fonts to choose from. Much distinguishable easier to figure out.

Putting another paragraph by pressing enter twice. Like the space after the period, this is used in typewriters. The computer has its own formatting function in terms of the paragraphs and lines to make work easier for you. All you have to do is press enter once after you have formatted the spacing according to your liking. Remember, only one press.

Centering texts. As much as this would good look in the presentation, it does not make reading any easier. Centered texts are difficult to read because the eyes have to figure where the next one begins. There would be a lot of shifting from an end to figuring where the next begins. Aligning left and justified is best to use instead of centered.

Using all caps. All caps is seen by readers as not something you emphasize but something you shout about. If you want to show them the amateur you are, use all caps. This is like putting too much emphasize on a word.

Using boxes and lines from the software. If you think putting all of these in your printing material will liven things up, you are wrong. The information you want to convey is being overridden by this, confusing the readers on what is more important.

If you want to appear a professional in your printing job, do not use all of the above.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.uprinting.com

About The Author

Florie Lyn Masarate got a flair for reading and writing when she got her first subscription of the school newsletter in kindergarten. She had her first article published on that same newsletter in the third grade.

This article was posted on August 11

by Florie Lyn Masarate

Five Common Web Design Mistakes

Five Common Web Design Mistakes

by: Charles Nixon III

There are often many mistakes encountered when creating a webpage or website. Learn about the top five website mistakes, and how to avoid them.
Mistake #1
Web page size. If your website takes longer than 1015 seconds to load you should consider optimizing it for the web. This is one of the biggest mistakes a web designer can make. You may have cable and love to fill your website with graphics, but if your visitors don’t have cable or a fast connection at all your chances of getting them to wait that 10 to 15 seconds for your page to load is very slim.
Mistake #2
Flashy ads. Ok, so you have to bring in some cash some how right? So you sign up to a bunch of banner ad affiliate programs. Only problem with this is their banners are animated and constantly flashing while your visitors view your website. This can be good in some cases for getting some extra cash. But visitors can be easily annoyed by these banners.
If your trying to get customers, having these flashy banners increases your chances of your visitors leaving. Lots of people may be drawn into these ads (probably your best customers) and if they click that ad, they are now a customer to someone else thanks to your affiliate program.
Mistake #3
Confusing Navigation. Before you build a website you should make a sitemap for how everything is going to be setup. Come up with a plan to have some form of contact information on each page. If your visitor comes to a page and wants to purchase something and they cant find a contact link they will most likely change their mind while searching for it. Keep your navigation consistent on each page. If your visitor has to learn to use a different type of navigation system on every page they will become easily annoyed.
Mistake #4
Confusing Content. You want to make everything easy to read and navigate. If you know someone thats in their teen years you should come up with some questions to ask them about your website. Like: What do you think my site is about? Would you buy this product on my website? Can you understand the information on this(blank.html)page?
If you can get a teen, or even any average person to answer these questionกs honestly you can find ways to change your setup so that anyone and everyone is drawn in to purchase from you.
Mistake #5
Advertising. When you advertise your website the number one thing that you do not want to do is spam. It is very easy to advertise your website all over the web for free! You can use forums, article submission groups, online communities, chat groups, news feeds, and much more. If you do resort to spam this could hurt your website sales. A lot web surfers will go around and if they find spam they will report it to someone that will post it on a website that degrades or gives bad reviews on your website.
If you can avoid these five mistakes that almost every webmaster experiences than you will be on your way to success in no time.

About The Author

Charles Nixon Website Designer Driven by Creativity Building websites to increase sales, and build web presence Did you start your business to create a website? or to run your business? With competitive pricing and your project delivered on time and on budget CharlesNixon.com may be the web design firm for you!

http://www.CharlesNixon.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 05, 2004

by Charles Nixon III

The WRONG Way To WRITE Articles

The WRONG Way To WRITE Articles

by: Steve Shaw

As you no doubt already know, writing articles is probably the most effective way to promote your web site. Itกs a very simple principle publishers want a vast quantity of good quality content that they do not have to pay for; you provide that content, with the proviso that at the bottom of your article, they include your resource box with a link to your web site. Itกs a winwin situation. With your article published on heaps of web sites, and in several ezines, itกs enough to set your traffic counter spinning.

However, I see many articles that are simply not written in a way that will maximize the benefits for the author. Minor mistakes can turn an article that would otherwise get published several times and achieve a great deal for the author, into an article that is barely published and discarded by most publishers into the trash.

By avoiding these common mistakes, your article will appeal much more to publishers, and you will see the results from your article submissions vastly improve:

1. Do Not Write A Solo Ad

Many authors make the mistake of submitting articles that are actually little more than solo advertisements for their web sites. Containing little helpful information, they read like a sales letter and then urge the reader to visit their web site and thatกs before you get to the resource box.

The chances of such an article getting published are virtually zero. Publishers are looking for an informative article, a quality piece that they can publish in order to benefit their readership and their visitors.

This means that including a link to your own web site in the article body is generally a nono, unless for example, you are linking to a helpful article that adds further to the information you have included and is in context.

Your article should not read like a promotional vehicle for a particular product or service.

2. Do Not Include Affiliate Links

The site of an affiliate link within your article is a big turnoff for publishers unless your article is highly informative and of an extremely high quality, but that is quite rare.

Generally, if you want to maximize your chances of publication, avoid including affiliate links in your article. You can sometimes get away with it, if for example you include a link to a straight domain that actually forwards via your affiliate link to another web site. The publisher might not notice, as it appears to be a straightforward web site link, but I find it quite sneaky and dishonest, and I would not generally recommend it.

3. Avoid Spelling Mistakes

The sight of a spelling mistake in an article is another big turnoff for publishers. It turns what could otherwise be an acceptable article with good chances of publication, into a poor quality article that will end up in the trash. Publishers are busy people they don’t have time to edit out your mistakes. But the main point is that spelling mistakes leave a Very Bad Impression it points to a lack of care on your part, and reduces the credibility of the information provided in the article.

Take a minute to run your article through a spell checker thereกs a free one online at http://www.spellcheck.net/ before you submit it. You may be surprised at what you failed to spot.

4. Do Not Include Hype In Your Resource Box

While your resource box can include a link to your web site, it should not read like an advert. I see many resource boxes that read like overhyped promotional material more at home on a classified ad page. Your resource box should contain some brief information about you as an author, with a link to your web page nothing more.

A badly written, overlypromotional resource box can cause a publisher to reject your article, even if your article would otherwise have been accepted the simple reason is that such a hypedup resource box would กlower the toneก of their publication, and turn off their readership. Thatกs obviously not what they want to do.

Just respect your potential publishers, and keep your resource box brief and to the point.

As long as you avoid these common mistakes, you are on the right track, and you should see the results from your article submissions greatly improve.

Copyright 2005 Steve Shaw

About The Author

Steve Shaw provides systems and software for effective emarketing. Find out more about how to publish articles for profit online with his popular free ecourse, available at:

=> http://www.takanomi.com/publisharticles.php

This article was posted on February 23

by Steve Shaw

Ten Fatal Mistakes That Make Web Sites Stink

Ten Fatal Mistakes That Make Web Sites Stink

by: Herb Leibacher

Since you’ll spend lots of time and money to create your web site, don’t you want to make sure you’re not making mistakes that at best irritate users, and at worst make you lose customers?

After all, when you alienate users, you lose potential revenue. Who can afford that?

Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, says that the top 10 website mistakes include:

Not listing prices. Pricing in the most specific piece of information users need to understand the nature of offers. By not providing pricing, people feel lost and it reduces their understanding of a product line. Prices let users differentiate among products.

Inflexible search engines. Overly literal search engines reduce user ability because they’re unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, etc. It’s also bad when search engines prioritize on the basis of how many query terms they contain, rather than on each document’s importance.

Horizontal scrolling. Users hate scrolling left to right. Pages that require horizontal scrolling in standardsized windows (800×600 pixels) are terrible.

Fixed font size. About 95 percent of the time, this fixed font size is tiny, reducing readability significantly. Users need to be able to resize text as needed.

Blocks of text. These are boring and can lose users quickly.

JavaScript in links. When links don’t behave as expected, users feel lost. They also hate unwarranted popup windows.

Infrequently asked questions in FAQs. Don’t list questions you wish users would ask.

Collecting email addresses without a privacy policy. When websites ask for email addresses, users react negatively. In the age of spam, no one wants to give away this information without some guarantee.

URLs over 75 characters, which make it virtually impossible to email a friend a website address. If it’s too long to show in the browser’s address field, users won’t know how to select it. If the link is broken, users may not know how to paste it back together.

Mailto links in unexpected locations. Don’t place mailto links on names, instead make it clear that mailto address are just that addresses.

There are many companies that will help you avoid these website mistakes, including Web Builder Express (www.WebBuilderExpress.com).

Avoid Nielsen’s top 10 website mistakes when you create your web site. Your users will have a more enjoyable experience on your web site, which is a very good thing.

About The Author

Herb Leibacher

Create a professional web site for your business or nonprofit organization with Web Builder Express. At www.WebBuilderExpress.com, you can request your free Quick Start Guide that tells you how to create a great web site.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 14

by Herb Leibacher

Let Your Mistakes Improve Your Marketing And Your

Let Your Mistakes Improve Your Marketing And Your Profits

by: Charlie Cook

Have you ever sent out a sales letter and received little or no response, or put up a web site and found hardly anyone visiting it. Have you worked hard on an article only to find that few people read it and even fewer contacted you as a result?

Letกs be honest; everyone makes mistakes. The difference between the winners and the losers in business is that winners recognize their mistakes and avoid making the same blunder again. Each time you can recognize a marketing mistake and correct it your marketing will be that much better.

Marketing experts got that way by working full time at making more marketing mistakes than you can imagine and then learning from them. Common marketing missteps include:

Starting your marketing with a focus on your credentials, products and services instead of on client problems.

Using a label to describe what you do instead of a ขmemeข or value positioning statement that tells prospects which problems you solve in a sentence or less.

Developing a tagline, article title or web page title without taking the time to discover which words will attract your clients.

Wasting time on pushing information about yourself out to prospects instead of pulling them in with ideas they are interested in.

Not providing prospects with a free offer to get their contact information.

Forgetting to regularly follow up with prospects.

Building a web site without a clear stepbystep map of how you will attract visitors to the site, and what you want them do once they visit your site.

Not having offers and strategies to turn prospects into clients and clients into repeat clients and sources of referrals.

If youกve made any of the above marketing mistakes, you’re not alone. But if you want to grow your business, don’t repeat these blunders again and again. If you’re not getting the results you want, look for a new strategy, modify your tactics and change your materials.

Strategy Base your marketing on a clear set of principles. Have a clearly defined strategy and marketing plan. Use approaches that work for independent professionals and small business.

Tactics Plan your marketing so its organized and individual efforts are additive and contribute to building your business.

Materials Make sure individual marketing pieces resonate with your target market, get their attention and move them to the action you want them to take.

Fix your marketing tactics and materials by testing ideas, keeping the ones that work and throwing out the ones that don’t. If you self published a book, but its not flying off the shelves, identify the variables that could be affecting sales.

It may be the bookกs title, the sales letter, or the price and bonus offers. Pick one of these and make some changes. Test a different title, rewrite your sales letter, or the price and bonus offers and see what happens.

Depending on your timeline and goals, you may want to avoid making all the marketing mistakes on your own, and get expert advice from someone who has made or seen most of the mistakes before.

In the process of growing your business you’re bound to make marketing missteps. The more you make, identify and learn from the faster your marketing will improve and the more clients you will attract.

2003 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

About The Author

The author, Charlie Cook, helps independent professionals and small business owners who are struggling to attract more clients and grow their businesses. To get the free marketing guide, ก7 Steps to Get More Clients and Grow Your Businessก visit www.charliecook.net or write [email protected]

This article was posted on October 22, 2003

by Charlie Cook

Ten Sure Fire Ways To Lose Bidders

Ten Sure Fire Ways To Lose Bidders

by: Steven Woodward

When you realize the cost of placing an auction includes everything from auction site fees, cost of electricity, internet access, your time, and other auction management issues and expenses, why is it that many auction sellers lose bidders they’ve worked so hard, and spent so much money to get to their auctions, by making easy to fix mistakes?

The way some auction sellers approach their auctions, it’s clear there are as many ways to lose bidders as there are to skin a cat. If you spend enough time in the auctions you’ll see a lot of basic mistakes, but the question remains: why do so many people consistently make the same mistakes over and over again. Is it that they are just placing auctions for the fun of it without expecting to sell the item probably not!

Here’s our top ten sure fire ways to lose bidders (in no particular order):

Weak Headlines

Bad Photographs

Short, Sloppy or Excessive Descriptions

Unreasonable Terms

No Shipping Amounts

Lack of Response to Emails

Unrealistic Reserve Price

Low Feedback Rating

No Condition Information

Bad Start/Closing Time

Let’s look at each one in a little more detail and see if you’re making the same mistakes.

Weak Headlines

A recent auction was for a ขBlue Antique Chairข. This seller obviously didn’t want many bidders to look at the auction. By adding some specificity to the headline a much stronger draw is accomplished. How about ขRARE Victorian Wingback Chairข? Now if a bidder uses the search capability on eBay and they look for any of three key words: chair, wingback, Victorian, the auction will show up. Always use your popular word search tools to draw bidders.

Bad Photographs

With the popularity of digital cameras increasing, capturing your auction item has never been easier. Some tips are to be sure the item is lit well enough to show key details and/or any imperfections. Also, keep the size of your photos to a reasonable level so your auction doesn’t take too long to load.

Short, Sloppy or Excessive Descriptions

Not enough information – tons of typographical errors or a rambling discourse on why your wife is making you sell your item is a good way to lose bidders. Be succinct but provide enough information to describe the item sufficiently and create buyer interest.

Unreasonable Terms

Have you ever seen an auction where the seller states something like ขWe’re not responsible for items once shippedข or ขItem sold as isข without a clear description of the item’s condition? Remember if you want to increase the number of bids you receive or get your bidders to buy from you again, you need to focus on basic customer service.

No Shipping Amounts

Not clearly stating your shipping amounts up front prevents bidders from comparative shopping. State all buyer expenses clearly.

Lack of Response to Emails

Responding to emails takes time. Not doing so loses bidders. Return all emails as quickly as possible.

Unrealistic Reserve Price

Are you overpricing your items and then wondering why they’re not selling? Do your research and determine competitive prices before placing your auctions.

Low Feedback Rating

If you don’t care your potential bidders will disappear. Work on your Feedback Rating by meeting your commitments and providing great customer service.

No Condition Information

By providing a clear description of the item and its condition, with supporting photos, you maximize the potential of your actions.

Bad Start/Closing Time

Start an auction so it closes on a time or day that is inconsistent with your bidder’s profile (e.g. commercial buyers who bid at work or parents who aren’t available during work hours) will result in fewer bids.

Making sure you don’t make these few mistakes will improve the number of bids your auctions receive.

About The Author

© Copyright 2005 Steven Woodward All Rights Reserved

Steven Woodward is the owner, editor and publisher of the Auction Sellers Network (ASN); a web site for individuals and companies who are serious about utilizing the online auction marketplace for their business. In addition to topical articles, ASN provides an extensive resource center, news feeds, member forums and classified ads. For more information or to become a member please visit http://www.AuctionSellersNetwork.com.

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About the Author tag is left intact and included. We do request that we be informed where it is posted and reciprocal links will be considered.

This article was posted on April 04

by Steven Woodward

6 Affiliate Mistakes You’re Probably Making…

6 Affiliate Mistakes You’re Probably Making…

by: Anik Singal

Everyday I see more and more affiliates making the same mistakes. The worst part is that they’re just doing what they’re taught by the socalled ขexperts.ข

It’s no shock to me that 95% of affiliates make no money. The problem isn’t that some people are just ขbetterข than others – the problem is just the way the 95% are running their business. That’s why I’m going to diagnose the 6 most common mistakes AffiliateClassroom.com sees affiliates making everyday.

The 6 Mistakes you better learn to avoid like the plague:

1. Not Building For Search Engines:

If you’re an affiliate and want to be successful at it, you better learn to make search engines your best friend. Search engines are a better source for longterm, targeted and FREE traffic. Make sure to build your site in clean HTML coding, provide good content and optimize all your pages (not just the home page).

I firmly believe that all affiliates need to study search engine optimization closely. If you want to learn how to optimize websites quickly without spending years studying, check out my ขpushbuttonข system at http://www.DominateSearchEngines.com

2. Not Enough Text – Too Many Banners:

This might be the #1 problem – I come across hundreds of these sites almost daily. Think back to why ขYOU’REข online – to find information right? What good are banners to you? Do banners provide you any good information? Absolutely not.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t discourage using banners – I just say to only use them after you have content on your website. And stick to just 1 or 2 banners. The goal here is to hook someone with good content, then urge them to click the banner to learn more. Don’t just slop up a bunch of banners and expect to become a super affiliate…

3. Promoting Only One Product:

This was something I learned from Ken Envoy and it made no sense to me until I tried it. Let’s use an example to illustrate: Let’s say you’re looking for a car and you ask someone ขHey, which one should I buy?ข Would you rather have the person show you 3, give you the positives and negatives and then ขsuggestข a car or just shove one of them down your throat and refuse to talk about anything else?

I think the answer is clear – you much rather have someone RECOMMEND something. So, do the same on your websites – let your consumer choose what link they click on (your conversions will go through the roof).

4. Not Giving Away FREE Products:

Another mistake I see done on almost 98% of the websites I visit – they have absolutely no viral marketing build into their system. If you want to hook someone and build loyalty, put some of your best information into a small PDF – give it away for free and watch your sales and traffic multiply. NOTE: This is a more longterm strategy so be patient…

5. HardSelling:

If you know anything about affiliate marketing, then you’ve heard of ขPRESELLข – well it’s a shocker that most people never use it. PRESELL is when you warm up to your visitor with some good content and information and then slowly ขrecommendข them to buy something.

I also never thought this would work until I tried it. Hardselling is what your merchant should be doing, you, however, should avoid it at all costs.

6. Too Much Going On…

This mistake is a bit related to the ขToo many bannersข mistake. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have WANTED to buy something but just couldn’t find the right link to do it.

Some affiliate websites have a million things going on – the reader gets so confused that they hit the back button and ขpoof,ข never come back. Keep your pages targeted and clean – go for ONE goal – to get the click over to the merchant(s) you’re promoting.

Golden Rule: The more you show them, the more confused they get.

I highly suggest reading those 6 again – they are very important to master if you want to become a super affiliate one day. Even I am going back to my old projects and still fixing my mistakes – they’re all over the place. But, the second I fix them, I see an enormous difference, you will too.

Copyright 2005 Anik Singal

About The Author

Anik Singal is a 21 year old successful entrepreneur online. If you want to learn more about exactly how to become a super affiliate and received Step by Step coaching from a team of affiliates, please immediately visit:

http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com

If you visit now, you can also signup for our Absolutely FREE Course…

http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com

This article was posted on March 07

by Anik Singal

Avoiding the Common Pitfalls in Marketing

Avoiding the Common Pitfalls in Marketing

by: Scott F. Geld

You know how important marketing is to your business yet many companies still make the most common marketing mistakes. We’re going to cover some very common mistakes below. You should check yourself and make sure you are not committing these common mistakes.

Some common problems are marketing the wrong product or trying to sell a product that has already been overdone. You need to be original. You also need to be sure you are marketing the right people. If you are trying to sell to the wrong people, you are not going to have any sales. Everyone knows what itกs like to get mail for home insurance when you don’t own your home, advertisements for your childกs college when you don’t have children and other similar กjunk mailก that is attempting to market to you when you can not use the product or service.

You do not want your marketing attempts to be in vain like those spam mails you delete and that junk mail that arrives in your mailbox. So to do this, you need to be sure to market to the right people. It is not hard to find out someoneกs profession or gender and the time you take to find put will pay off when you start marketing to future customers.

Another common mistake involves simple editing in print ads such as emails, newsletters and direct mail marketing. Some one will not want to buy from you if they see mistakes in your type. If you need to, have a professional write or edit the copy for you to be sure it is perfect. There is no room for error in this area. Your typos will make a terrible first impression and chase away potential customers.

Once you have attracted your customers, be sure to offer a high level of customer service. Train your staff to offer a personal and helpful service. Never try to place the blame for any problem on your customer and always make them feel important so that they are likely to return to you in the future.

You should avoid blaming the customer for problems or instances. Talk to them friendly and polite and work out the problem or situation without blaming or yelling. Excellent customer service can correct any problem that your customers might encounter.

About The Author

Scott F. Geld is the proprieter of Marketing Blaster,a payperclick traffic source that continually beats the other major search engines in conversion ration and ROI. Please visit us at: http://www.marketingblaster.com

This article was posted on September 14

by Scott F. Geld