Content Officer

Standing out at a Career Fair can make a difference in your career search. Career Fairs are starting to pick up, and Dice is running some nice ones, called Targeted Job Fairs. At a Silicon Valley Job Faire in early 2010, 10 companies as showing up, and Dice has 82 career faires scheduled for 2010 across the US.

How do you compete at a Career Fair? The competition can be considerable, but you can help yourself stand out from the herd with early homework. At AA-Careers, we have a simple 6-step process to prepare. Plan to go? Here’s how to prepare:

First, investigate the companies that are going and pick your targets. Use the web to check out the companies that are there before you even decide to go. Go to their sites and see if they have their job openings listed. Pick a rational number to target, and get ready to spend about an hour researching each one. It’s hard to do more than 10 in a day, and four to six is a much more reasonable target. For each company, you want to know: recent news, key product lines, and contacts you know. Try to see if you know anyone at the target companies. You’ll end up with a page or two of research for each company/job.

Second, if there are job openings on the web, read them to see what the organization is looking for. Create a mapping of your accomplishments and skills to the requirements of the job. Make the nomenclature match. If the hiring organization calls customers "clients", your resume should do the same thing. The accomplishments should be written in the style of the hiring company.

Third, create a ‘mini sales pitch’ for each likely organization/job combination. Write down a ninety second ‘thumbnail’ that you can repeat verbally describing why you are a fantastic prospect for that job. You’ll use this in your resume and when you meet the company at the job booth.

Fourth, modify your resume for each opportunity. The objective on your resume should exactly match the position you’re targeting. The executive summary should be a written form of your “mini sales pitch” for the job. Then choose the accomplishments and skills that most clearly match the job requirements. Especially at a Job Fair, the purpose of your resume is a sales tool for you – to get you on-site job interviews. It should be a no-brainer to see that you’re a match based on your resume.

Fifth, rehearse your ‘mini-sales-pitch’. Collect your research and the resume for each position – bring a couple of copies for each – and put each in a intelligibly labeled folder. Keep them in a lightweight briefcase or folio.

Finally, dress and prepare as if you’re doing on-site interviews. Dress well and be properly groomed. Avoid strong cologne or perfume…use any cologne or scent sparingly, if at all.

Remember to smile, and good hunting!

In essence affliliate marketing resembles an auction. Merchandise is advertised on your website and for all your effort, you’ll have a percentage from every purchase. There’s much less work, fewer overheads, it sells 24 hours a day, and even better, it is comparatively easy to pick up.

To begin with, you have to decide which products or niche area most suits your life. A method of going about this is, find out what solutions to a given problem a particular market segment is expecting, and which solutions will help them. One of the most efficient ways to find this easily is finding unique highly targeted words and phrases; there are fewer searchers for these as a rule, however a higher percentage of these result in a sale.

If you need to find these crucial keywords, you should use programs such as Micro Niche Finder. Information generated from this software or analogous programs or services results in related keywords in a list providing valuable information to gain top spot on the web based search engines.

Micro Niche Finder will also recount the number of searches, precisely how many other internet sites who use them, and how good that competitor is. Finally, the information returned can identify related domains, content for your web site, and draw attention to the greatest sales opportunities.

Putting together a site is the next step; but you’ll plainly need to do more than simply that. Search engine optimization is absolutely fundamental. This is where Seo Elite information and alternative programs can be useful. Your competitors’ websites are examined by SEO Elite information which then offers suggestions to improve search engine rankings.

With SEO Elite the info created by the software package suggests where you might look for pertinent links, what words or phrases to concentrate on, and even a list of sites for submitting articles to refer to. Succinctly, the data generated are the same kind of data that a specialist in search engine optimization would offer. When you know what market sector you’d like to sell in, put together some product promotion, and your web site is finished, then you are ready to get your website up in the search results. You will collect a regular pay check and question why you ever struggled to make enough money!

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This type of marketing is a lot like an auction website. Your internet site promotes merchandise and in return, you will get a commission from each sale. There’s less work, very low overheads, it works 24/7, and it is simple to pick up.

At the start, you have to decide what merchandise or area best suits your life. To do this, find out solutions to problems a unique market segment is going through, and then discover how you can assist them. An efficient method of achieving this speedily is to find groups of highly targeted words and phrases; by and large customers search for these less often, even so greater proportion of these convert to a sale.

These crucial keywords can be discovered by using applications like Micro Niche Finder. Info collected from Micro Niche Finder or similar applications and services creates related keywords and phrases in a list giving valuable information to get top ranking on internet searches. Further information is also accessible by the application, for instance the number of searches every one gets, exactly how many different internet sites who exploit those keywords, even competitor information. Ultimately, Micro Niche Finder data will help you find associated domains, material for your site, and point out the best sales opportunities. Building a web site is the next step; however you still have a couple of fundamental things to do. Search engine optimization is absolutely crucial. Here Seo Elite information are helpful. Competing websites are examined by the program which then offers advice on improving search engine rankings. With applications such as SEO Elite, info supplied by the software advises you on links, the most profitable keywords, and information on where and how to upload articles. Concisely, the data produced are the same kind of data you might get from a practised SEO professional. Once you have determined what target market you’d like to sell in, design some advertising, and your site is finished, then it’s time to lift up your search results. You will collect a regular paycheck and question why you did not think of this sooner!

Imagine being the coach of a baseball team and your star player hits the ball and runs toward third base. We both know the player would be called out. As odd as this may sound, salespeople are called out everyday in sales because they head for the wrong base in sales. There are rules in sales like there are rules in any sport. A salesperson can’t afford to bypass any steps in the sales process or they will be out.

One of my roles as a sales coach is to monitor sales activities and match them with the key objectives of the sales process. The sales representative must understand the rules of sales and be prepared to follow them. When I’m teaching someone the sales process, one of the best ways is to relate the game of sales to baseball. For example, before a salesperson gets to third base, they have to go through first and then second base. Sales is very much like a game and the sequence must be followed in specific order or we will be out! When this happens, we lose an opportunity.

My field of Dreams for Sales
My game of sales has five bases and coming home is when we close. Here is a quick layout of my dream field for sales. The key objectives of reaching each base is highlighted.

When salespeople follow the rules for selling and a proven sales process, they always WIN! Are you following the rules of sales or a sales process? If you don’t have one, please feel free to use mine. My sales process works and is easy to explain and visualize.

Steve Martinez is the founder and CSO (Chief Sales Officer) with Selling Magic. The Business Development company is sales oriented and a CRM pioneer in automating and customizing ACT or Outlook with the best practices of sales management for increased sales. http://www.sellingmagic.com

Here are some basic tips to make sure that your fundraising event is well prepared and reaches it’s potential:

Delegate – don’t leave it to the same committee members to organise everything. When you decide on your activity make a list that covers what needs to be done and then accept offers of help from other people or simply ask people to help. Make people responsible for a specific task and then let them get on with it!

Have one person in overall charge – it leads to less confusion. Fundraising members should know who to speak to about their particular area of responsibility. Nothing is worse than if you’re the person who’s agreed to hire the bouncy castle or book the disco and you have three different people asking if you’ve done this.

Plan it – the old adage `fail to plan, plan to fail’ is oh so true! Make sure that everybody understands what they are supposed to be doing and when they’re supposed to be doing it by! Bad planning often leads to duplicated effort – have a clear plan. Have a contingency plan too – if you’re running a school fete have a dry weather layout and a wet weather layout. There’s nothing worse than running around two hours before the event wondering where you’re going to fit the face painter and the jewellery craft stall.

Advertise it – make sure that people know about your event. This doesn’t mean expense – be creative with this – use the local radio, the free press, the church notice boards, the school magazine etc etc.

Sell tickets – if you’re running an event such as a disco, charity supper, guest speaker, cheese and wine evening etc that requires a ticket to get in make sure you sell the tickets in advance. Don’t just wait for people to pay on the door – get some sales revenue in before hand. This means that you will have a pretty good idea on how many people might be attending the event. This will help you budget and fund the cheese and wine, disco etc that you need at the event. It also has the advantage that some people might not actually make it to the event but you will already have received their entry ticket money into your fundraising coffers.

Divide and conquer! If you are selling tickets, raffle tickets, scratch cards, programmes, catalogue sales or products make sure that lots of people are selling a few of each. There is nothing worse than 3 committee members trying to sell 30 tickets each to the gala dinner. It’s much better to have 15 people selling 6 tickets each – it’s far less daunting a task. This has the added advantage that it should increase the mix of people at your fundraising (it’s not just the same faces over and over again). Always get new enthusiastic members of your group to sell a few tickets to their friends and family. This will keep your fundraising events fresh and lively.

Post Fundraising mortem! Make sure you learn from each event/activity. What went well? What didn’t go well? What would you do differently next time? Was the return on the effort worthwhile? Would you do that particular fundraising activity/event again? Keep a note of it somewhere useful (along with the names and numbers of useful contacts) the next organiser will be very glad of it!

Good luck with your fundraising!

For more fundraising ideas, hints and tips and where to find the people/small businesses you need to help with your fundraising events visit our UK wide directory. Take the hassle out of fundraising! Visit http://www.fundraisers-uk.com/main.php

Pareto’s Principle {the 80/20 rule) is vividly illustrated in the sales statistics of most industries, companies and professional service organiizations. Eighty percent of all products or services are sold by just 20 percent of the sales professionals in the United States and Canada. How does this rule effect the overall management of the selling process in your company or firm? Basically, Pareto’s principle impacts your selling process in three key areas:

Hiring The Right Sales People,
Training Sales Team Members, and
Coaching The Team To Higher Performance Levels

Almost all of the candidates that apply for sales positions today fall into the 80 percent group of sales or service industry professionals who produce only 20 percent of the sales. Therefore, when hiring, you must screen carefully to discover a candidate’s selling skill potential, not just his or her past sales success levels. It is almost impossible to find and recruit sales professionals in the 20 percent bracket because employers do everything in their power to keep their top producers happy, so the turnover in Pareto’s 20 percent bracket is extremely rare. Even if you find a “top gun” who is looking for a position, many organizations can’t afford to bring one of these high priced professionals on board.

If finding one or two top producers is difficult, think how hard it is to recruit a team of these superstars. Therefore, you need to change your mindset to find candidates that have the potential to move into the top producer or rainmaker category and then train, coach and manage them until they produce at the level of the superstars in your industry or pro-fession.

Just “liking” a given candidate for a sales position can lead to long-term sales or business development failure. Read these articles;

Hire A Six To Consistently Produce Sales Success at:
http://www.thesellingedge.com/archive7.htm

or
Hiring, A Key To Sales Management Success at:
http://www.thesellingedge.com/archive6.htm

To learn how to build a sales team where you no longer carry 80 percent of the team members. Where is it written that your company or profes-sional service firm must live with Pareto’s Principle anyway.

Good luck in producing a team of top producers. You can find some tools to help in the process of training and coaching your new hires at http://www.TheSellingedge.com.

VIRDEN THORNTON is the founder and President of The $elling Edge®, Inc. a firm specializing in sales, customer relations, and management training and development. Clients have included Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Deloitte & Touché, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and Wal-Mart to name a few. Virden is the author of Prospecting: The Key To Sales Success and the best selling Building & Closing the Sale, Fifty-Minute series books and Close That Sale, a video/audio tape series published by Crisp Publications, Inc. Menlo Park, California. He has also authored a Self-Directed Learning series of sales, coaching & team development, telemarketing, and personal productivity training guides.

Virden assists clients through a unique personal coaching (telephone)program. He has taught at the Center For Professional Development, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and the School Of Entrepreneurship, Marriott School Of Management, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. You can contact Virden at: Virden@TheSellingEdge.com. or learn more about him at: http://www.TheSellingEdge.com

Sales management is an integral sub-system of marketing management. It translates the marketing plan into marketing performance. Sales management is hence described as the muscle behind marketing management. The sales manager in a modern organization holds a multitude of responsibilities. He has to plan, direct and control the personal selling effort of the firm. His task does not stop with the achievement of sales quotas. He is also responsible for bringing in the required profits. In addition, he is also responsible for creating the desired image for the company and its products. In fact, a modern sales manager has to do marketing rather than mere selling.

His firm expects him to assume a much larger role than the traditional responsibility of achieving sales quotas. It expects him to be customer-oriented as well as profit-directed. Sales managers set sales goals for their sales teams and bear the brunt of the responsibility for achieving the set goals. They assist the firm in measuring market potential and in developing sales forecasts and sales budgets. In addition, they have to develop the sales program and achieve the forecasted sales by implementing the program.

It is the responsibility of sales managers to build the sales organization. They are required to ensure that the sales organization is maintained in trim condition, capable of effectively implementing the personal selling program of the firm and sales policies and strategies of the firm. In addition, sales managers are also required to provide assistance in planning the other aspects of the marketing program, like product mix, pricing, distribution, advertising and sales promotion.

Sales managers foster an atmosphere for the growth of the firm. In addition, they assist the firm in the management of change. In a dynamic market, customer preferences and competitive forces are constantly changing; so too are technology and marketing methods.

Sales costs increase rapidly. In managing all these changes, the firm depends largely on the sales management.

Performance Management provides detailed information on Employee Performance Management, Manufacturing Performance Management, Marketing Performance Management, Performance Management and more. Performance Management is affiliated with Job Performance Appraisals.

When I was first promoted to management, I had to make a very difficult decision.

I had been the best salesperson on the crew, and Bud was number two. He and I vied for the management job, and the fact that I got it meant that he had to report to me.

This irked him.

So, when I recruited, trained, and launched the careers of new salespeople, Bud found a way to poke holes in their boats, to slow them down, to discourage them from challenging his sales supremacy.

In essence, my new people never made a credible challenge to his informal leadership.

He lorded over them, mostly nonverbally, with cold stares and by invading their work areas. I firmly believed he was trying to make himself look good by keeping them down.

And, I sensed his notion was if he could destabilize my leadership, by making it appear that I wasn’t doing a good job of staffing, training, and motivating, he’d step into my job, sooner or later.

This was intolerable, and in the privacy of my office, I set forth my observations, with a challenge that he had to pick up his sales and stop torpedoing my crew.

He denied everything, calling me paranoid, and effectively, he left in a huff.

Later that evening, my boss called for our sales numbers, and after hearing how paltry they sounded, I explained what had happened, and why. Boldly, I asserted with Bud out of the way, our overall sales level would rise.

His cold reply: “Well, I just hope you’re right.”

One way or another, I made it right, and our sales surpassed all previous highs. As far as I’m concerned, Bud, who had been the top producer, was keeping sales down, and for expectations to rise, for new and better producers to come forth and assert themselves, he needed to be out of the picture.

Look at your crew. Who is the leader?

Ask two questions:

(1) Can I afford to lose him?

(2) Can I afford to keep him?

Consider this homespun saying: You never want to tie a rabbit to a cow to see how fast the rabbit can run.

Look again at your salespeople: Who are the rabbits, and who are the cows?

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com

When I was sixteen and still at school, I worked in a department store on a Saturday. Cross selling was made easy for me then. For a while I worked in the menswear department. Someone came in to buy a shirt, and because all the related goods were displayed next to each other it was straightforward to ask whether the customer wanted a pair of cuff-links or a new tie to go with the shirt. If they bought a tie, the next cross sale was to suggest they also buy a spot-cleaner for the tie. A friend of mine worked Saturdays in a DIY store. Similar rules applied. Someone bought a tin of paint, and the cross sale opportunities were perhaps a paint brush; a brush cleaner; or even one of those implements to help keep lines straight. The basic rule to cross-selling then were – if you have a number of products to sell, group them together so that the customer doesn’t have too much of an effort in seeing the relationship between your products. That’s not to say that it will happen. Often the customer needs to be told about the relationship and have the idea planted verbally that they could buy more than what they originally came in for.

40 years later and the same rules apply. Trading on the Web has even made it possible to display not only your own diverse product range on the same page, but also relationships and partnerships with other companies. Yet research shows that simply because goods are displayed together does not hugely increase buyer behaviour.

Cross-selling from the sixties has evolved into CRM (customer relationship management) in the 21st Century. The theory is that the more products organisations sell to customer; the lower is the probability that the customer will buy elsewhere, and the more profitable that customer relationship will be.

CRM systems make it easy for the salesperson to identify additional sales opportunities. The first product a customer buys adds to the customer database of knowledge the company has about the buying habits and profile of the customer. If it’s a really sophisticated CRM system it will flag up to the salesperson cross-selling opportunities, and in some cases even provide the salesperson with the words to say.

Yet once again, research shows that even giving salespeople the words to say has increased cross-selling by only a very small percentage. Why?

Simple – selling is still very much a human face to face activity, and as such buyers are motivated by emotional feelings as much as by logic. The logical relationship between products and services can be totally overridden by the feeling that you are being sold to or that the salesperson is being less then honest in his or her desire to sell you something you didn’t appear to want at the outset.

Retailing should be relatively easy. Your goods are on display. The customer buys something and the relationship between the other products on display is understandable to you both. Therefore a confident suggestion about the relationship often works.

• If your business is more complicated, or your goods are not in the customer’s face (you might not have retail premises) then you need two things:

A story which includes your full range and explains how they are related, and/or
Customer databases which highlights the relationship – but which should still rely on the story in point 1.

• If you have a database be careful about telling the customer how much you know about them. Imagine you buy your cigars at the same tobacconist every week to be told – ‘I see that you’ve bought our product seven times this year, and yet my database reveals that you don’t smoke’.

No matter what you know about the customer it’s still better to have them tell you verbally in answer to a question. All of us like talking about ourselves, no matter how much the other person already knows about us.

It is clear that in a competitive marketplace it will be the people who can sell more to each customer and effectively stop the customer buying from the competition who will survive. The future appears to be that in marketplace where the rules of specialism seem no longer to apply that your specialism could become a competitor’s cross-sell. So we either form commercial relationships with other supplies, or we run the risk of them supplying our specialism.

I was in a German coffee-shop in the UK the other day that also sold clothes and kitchen accessories. I haven’t worked out the relationship or indeed the story – but people were buying. Cross-selling has moved into a new arena!

Frank provides individuals and organizations with consultancy in the fields of selling; organisational change management, performance improvement, developing managers as sales coaches, and teaching charismatic leadership behaviours and presentation skills to senior and executive managers. In addition he is recognised as a leading authority on sales and sales management development using the Coaching Sales Champions programmes he has developed over a period of twenty years as the vehicle for individual and organisational improvement. He strongly believes that whether we work in the public or private sector; whether our organisation is commercial or non-commercial; that we are all in sales. His favourite quote, which has become his maxim is from Robert Louis Stevenson – ‘Everything in live is selling’.

Frank was a founding member of the Sales Qualification Board (UK), and the Financial Services Lead Bodies Group (UK) – both organisations set up in the nineties to determine and publish standards for salespeople and sales managers in the UK.

frank@salisburypartnership.co.uk