by Lori Feldman on February 7, 2012
Are you of the school that says once you close a sale with a new customer, it’s time to go find another one? Guess what? You’re “Old School,” and you’re leaving easy money on the table. You’re also making your job a lot harder than it needs to be.
Let’s say it really is 5 times easier to sell an existing customer than it is to find a new one. Then you should spend 80% of your selling time staying in touch with current customers and only 20% of your time prospecting for new business. (Oh, look…we created another 80/20 Rule!)
Unfortunately, most of us reverse this ratio, at worst, and go 50/50 “acquisition” and “retention,” at best. [click to continue…]
by Lori Feldman on December 20, 2011
Sales quotes come in all shapes and sizes. Here's one I call the "Celebrity" sales estimate. It puts your product pics on the runway (and you can add a rep's image and autograph, too.)
In the past few months I’ve looked in every nook and cranny of my business for ways to cut costs, especially the “hidden” costs that you don’t realize are adding up. Like inefficient use of time.
Turns out one of our big time sucks is sales quoting. Some of our services are straightforward and easy to quote…maybe take a minute or 2. But our really lucrative opportunities often take a couple of hours to research, price and “pretty up,” so the sales quote “look and feel” matches the value of our work.
In fact, it turns out we have been spending approximately $25 per sales estimate we create. I checked with some of my clients, and plugged in their numbers, and we got a range from $20 – $150. And as we all know, not every estimate turns into a sale. So this seemed like a great place for a re-think on cost savings. [click to continue…]
