Are you frustrated with coming up short every time with what you’re trying to find over the Internet? Are you trying to find detailed information you need for your business without having to purchase the data? How would you like to also find information that would be of value for your prospects and increase chances of closing sales? Just ask Sam Richter, and he’ll show you just how to do it.

“What I do is teach people how to find information that you never thought possible,” said Sam. “It’s about tapping into the “Invisible Web,” finding information, and using that information to be a person of value to your prospects.”

What Sam refers to the “Invisible Web”, is the Internet that contains tons of valuable information on companies, CEOs, managers, industry news, competitors, latest trends, and other important information that people otherwise don’t know how to access. What you find through his teachings can amaze you, and otherwise help you to turn a cold call into a warm call, and better communicate to your prospects when giving sales presentations.

According to Sam, cold calling no longer works because one, people in a buyer’s decision are stressed out from doing more work than ever, and can usually use the Internet to find information on their own. The second reason is that prospects aren’t looking for sales reps and small business owners to pitch them their products and services, they’re looking for their pain to be understood, and relieved.

“When you customize your own sales presentation that’s tailored to the prospects based on their needs, you’re two times more likely to close sales with your prospect,” Sam said. “Instead of showing up with a catalog talking about your products, show up with some ideas and a plan on how to resolve their problems.”

What inspired Sam to help people learn how to research on the Internet more effectively was due to the fact that his marketing research and sales training helped several companies improve their sales and revenue. He’d received several letters from companies thanking him for his help. Aside from that, he spent years doing articles and journalism, and from there lead him to create and release the book, “Take The Cold Out of Cold Calling.”

Aside from finding the information that can be beneficial to companies, you have to still be able to convince your target market that you understand their situation. Sam suggests asking relevant questions. So for example, you find information on how a company and their competitor are marketing their offerings differently, you can tailor your questions based on that situation, especially if your prospect’s marketing strategy is weaker than their competitor’s.

“On my website, www.samrichter.com, people can download the warm call toolbar to make researching easier, as well as tips on how to research the Internet more effectively, so that you don’t have to be unprepared when contacting someone.”

Sam’s book, “Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling,” has won numerous awards and has recently been updated to the 6^th Edition, which includes fifty extra pages on the theory of “Sales Intelligence,” and more 250 pages step by step tips to researching what you need over the Internet, more examples on how to find information, and also social media strategies to generate profits by communicating with targeted corporations online. Aside from that, Sam gives more than 75 keynote, workshop and full day training programs worldwide (you can see what people think at www.samrichter.com/reviews), and he’ll be coming out with a new book in 2011.

“In general people say it’s difficult to sell in this hard economy. But in reality it’s hard to sell if you’re trying to sell the same way that no longer works. You need to provide value so you can be a business partner instead of a low commodity that is trying to sell products. By being a person of value that can solve someone’s problems, more business will come your way.

To find out more about Sam Richter, visit his website www.samrichter.com, or contact him at 612-655-3397.

Once you obtain a customer, don’t let them out of your sight. Unfortunately, that’s what most small business owners do. Most businesses forget the customer once they make a sale and move on to the next person. Conducting business this way will do nothing but hurt your business in the long run.

When customers purchase your product, you should continue to build a relationship with them. The reason being is that you want them to continue raving about your products and purchasing your products, even if competitors offer new products that are better than yours. Below are three tips to keeping customers loyal:

Follow up with new buyers in two days after they purchase- If a person purchases your product or service, the connection between you and that new customer has just begun. Follow up with them by calling them to see how they liked their new product or service. If it was a product that’s being shipped to them, call to ask if they received their product yet. Check with them to see if they have any questions and to see if their product is in good condition.

Continue sending customers follow up letters/calls- Continue to follow up with your customers every couple of months or so. Update them of everything your company is doing. Find out more about your customers. Find out some of the things they enjoy in their personal lives. Be creative and find ways that you can even offer something of value that’s relevant to your best customers.

Survey your customers- Provide a questionnaire to your customers regarding satisfaction of your products or services. Keep it short so customers aren’t overwhelmed. You can use the answers you receive from your customers to strengthen areas of your business and your products or services. This way, you can rest assure your customers may never leave you.

Continue to stay consistent in staying connected to your customers. If you have to, hire a staff that focuses on customer satisfaction.  Customer satisfaction and loyalty will generate profits for your business.

To everyone that reads my Blog Posts,

Just yesterday I had written a article to Examiner detailing some important tips to make anyone more effective when selling products to consumers. I’m looking to do some freelance writing for Examiner, and one of the requirements was writing a 200-300 article regarding your topics you plan to cover for the company. Being that I provide content regarding marketing, sales and business tips and strategies I wrote about those areas, and wanted to to share the information that I wrote with everyone here.

For those who aren’t familiar with Examiner, they are a publication that was created in 2008 and quickly grew to be one of the biggest publications on the Internet in a short period of time. The reason being is because they allow freelance writers to get paid for providing valuable content for the rest of their readers. So for instance, if you know a lot about sports, you can write your opinions and any news information you find for them. It has to be your own content, however. So if you’re caught giving them content published by someone else, expect to get in some major trouble.If you are interested in becoming a writer for their publication, click on this link: Write For Examiner.

Below is my article I wrote for Examiner. Check it out.

Increase Your Sales By Providing Value To Your Prospects

When most sales people sale products to prospects, no matter if they try to be nice or be aggressive, the main goal is to get the sale. This is why most sales people struggle. They have been taught by their organizations on techniques to get prospects to buy their products. Some organizations teach sales people how to tell prospects about how great their products are and why they should buy them.

Unfortunately, prospects don’t care about a company and its products and services. They care about themselves. Since most sales people don’t know that, this gives people looking to be an expert in their field and a solution to prospect’s problems an opportunity to come in and reap the rewards. Since prospects care about themselves, they care about finding ways to relieve them of their pain, save them time, cure them of health problems, or ways to make more money. That said, as an expert you must answer the call for help.

If you’re an expert with computer engineering, you should be providing valuable information to your target market that cares about this field of expertise. That way, you’ll be able to gain their trust. Most importantly, you’ll be the go to person for prospects to run to for help. If they are impressed with an article you give them, and it helps them to solve a specific problem, they’ll thank you for helping them, and it’ll be much easier for you to suggest to them to buy your product if they really need it. Being that you’re the expert, you have power, and they’ll listen to you. If you approach every prospect this way, the sales will come, and you’ll quickly be the leader of your sales team teaching them to do the same.

I decided to touch back to this topic of removing prospect’s fears, for it’s an important topic to cover since a lot of network marketers are dealing with prospects that may have fear that’s keeping them from making a decision. Without customers, a business won’t stay around long, and so learning how to get new customers and keeping those customers around should be a top priority for anyone in network marketing or in business in general.

Do you want to know one of the most effectively ways that a prospect can become more confident in what you have to offer? The answer is, testimonials.  Yes that’s right. Testimonials are highly effective for getting prospects to do what you want them to do most, which is buy your product or join your business.

Why are testimonials so important? Because they tell prospects that other people have tried the product, was satisfied that the product helped solved their problems, and shows how confident other people are in the product you’re offering. People do not want to be the only one using a product. They need proof that other people are using what you’re selling and are happy with the results they’re receiving. Prospects want others to relate to their struggles and problems. To hear from other customers how satisfied they were using your products or services reduces or eliminates the fear, and makes the prospect more comfortable and willing to buy from you.

Remember this, a customer’s testimonial is a thousand times more powerful than what you have to say. A prospect may not always listen to you, but they will always listen to a happy customer. So when you have a customer, make sure to continuously keep your relationship with them well established. When you have happy customers, they’ll market your offerings for you. That’s also when you can call them and ask them for a testimonial, which they’ll be more than happy to give you.

Once you have a good set of testimonials, include them in your marketing materials, including emails and post cards. If you have a blog, have a testimonials section that has all the testimonials you’ve obtained. You can have a short testimonial on your business cards, only if you can fit one in.  You can even have a testimonials document that you can give to prospects of some of the best testimonials you have. With testimonials the possibilities are very well open.

Remember, prospects are much more likely to listen to happy customers than you. They’ll be more confident to buy by hearing from other people that has been satisfied with your products or services that’s not a part of your business. Think back of that time when you said you weren’t ever going to buy something, but then ended up doing so because a friend tried it and told you how great it was. Then when you bought it you was just as satisfied, if not more.

Let’s face it, when it comes to selling products to customers, we tend to spoil them a lot. Us as network marketers tend to give them total control, to the point where they are the bosses of us. Whatever the prospect says or does goes, which is what we do and what we’re taught at times from MLM companies. It gets to the point where, no matter what, network marketers start thinking that they need people to buy their products, and to join their primary opportunities.

That is far from the truth. We don’t need prospects; they need us. They aren’t in control of us, but we do give them that control. We let prospects ask all the questions and put the pressure on us. But that’s not how it should be. If you’re looking to be a leader, you don’t give prospects any authority to be in control.

By giving prospects the ability to be in control and asking all the questions to you makes you look weak. You can’t expect to get sales by just answering all of their questions. The reason why is that you’re not able to find out more about the prospects and their needs, and because then the prospect gets to decide for themselves if your product or company is right for them.

Let me give you an example of an experience where I was the prospect of a network marketer. Me I ask a lot of questions for I want to know what I’m about to get into is right for me, so I had a giant list of questions to ask the network marketer I was contacting.  I went through every single question and jotted down her answers on a notepad. Sure enough, she didn’t ask me any questions back at all. To add to that her answers were very long and broad. I had control of the whole conversation, and could have easily taken the conversation wherever I wanted to.

I was in control of if I wanted anything to do with the company or not, so the time she took answering the questions I asked was a waste of her time if I would of said no at the end. I could of lead her on for a long time with her possibly begging for me to join if she was desperate for new distributors, but I didn’t for I’m not type of person that expects to get everything he wants.

If you have that “I need prospects” mentally, and give that to everyone that you talk about your primary opportunity to, they can easily suck the life out of you. Some prospects test network marketers to see if they are strong or weak. The weak give prospects everything they need and want in order to make a decision, including brochures, compensation plans, free samples, etc. The strong find out first if the prospects are even worthy of giving them the information they ask for in the first place.

To put it in more perspective, the strong find out if prospects are worth their time. In order to find that out, you asks the prospects the questions, not them. You don’t have a lot of time to answer prospect’s questions all day long. By asking them the right questions from the start, you can find out within the first few minutes if the conversation should continue further. If prospects are being rude or sounding hostile when you ask them questions, end the conversation.  You don’t need rude or short-tempered people taking up your valuable time.

If a prospect asks you a question, always end the answer with a question of your own, or answer the question with a question of your own. That way you can still be in control of the conversation, and you can take the pressure off of you. Most importantly, you can take notes to what the prospect tells you in order to discover red flags or buying signals. Remember in network marketing, you’re in business, not your prospects. Run your business the way you want to run it. Never let anyone run it for you.

Your prospects have done it all before. They’ve bout all the books they could that promised them that they could make sales in the next two hours. They’ve paid thousands of dollars worth in attending seminars and found no valuable information from the speakers They’ve even tried products similar to what you’re selling that didn’t help them lost the weight they wanted, remove the dryness in their hair, or helped them to increase their stamina.

Prospects do have goals, or have dreams of where they want to be. I’m sure everyone dreams sometimes during the day, and for sure at night. But oftentimes, people don’t get to the end result that they want. In business, many people have dealt with that, and so do people in health and wellness, the beauty industry, and sports. People fail often, but with enduring the failure comes success.

When people fail, they hold a grudge on that experience, and will say they would never do such and such again. These types of prospects are cautious, and can be very difficult to deal with, for you can say all the right things to them but they still don’t want to listen to you. That flashback of their last failure pops up in their minds again, and holds them back from making a purchase. You can often times discover when a prospect is cautious when they express doubt through talking about a bad experience with a similar product they used midway through a conversation.

First off, what you should do when talking with a cautious prospect, is being a mentor. You’re trying to sell them your product, but first you must find out more about them. You can ask people what other products or services have they used, and they’ll tell you. Ask them then what results did they receive, and they’ll tell you that as well.

For example, when I worked at Apple, for the prospects I talked to that were new to Macintosh computers, I would ask them “Many of our visitors are PC users and are new to Mac. What has you switching from a PC to a Mac?” Prospects would always at that point express their displeasure of PC computers, saying that they crash often, are very non-user friendly, or would experience viruses. They would express their painful experiences with PCs, and I as an mentor for them would listen and build rapport to show them I understand their pains and that I’m there to help.

So you first be that mentor for them, you ask questions, and listen to their past failures or past pains. Then what you do is build rapport to show that you understand their pain. Justify their failures and then encourage them. Never should you criticize your prospects, even if it was their fault or if they were wrong. That’s a sure fire way to lose a sale and to decrease your reputation.

What you then do is show your prospects the many factors that are out of their control that contribute to their failures. In my case with Apple visitors their PCs did have the tendency to slow down, crash, or automatically install programs they never wanted in the first place. Some products are not user friendly, are difficult to use or understand, are low quality and break easily, have side effects that do more harm than good, or were just the wrong product for the consumer thanks to an unethical salesperson. By showing them the many factors, you’re telling prospects it’s not their fault, that you care, and that despite those shortcomings, they should not quit on their goals and dreams.

By this time the prospect is comfortable with you and realizes that you’re an expert that’s there to help them, and will listen to what you have to offer.  Tell them the benefits of buying from you and working with you. Tell you how they will succeed from using your products or working with you, and how you and your products differentiate from what they’ve used before. So if the last product they purchased was very difficult to use, tell them how easy it is to use your products, and the results they will get based on what they’re looking for. If there is a need you can help solve, it makes perfect sense to take advantage of that.

In my last blog post, I mentioned about how fear plays a role in a prospect’s purchasing decisions. I mentioned how fear holds them back and how trust should be earned in order to get a prospect to consider buying from you. In this blog post I’ll go a bit deeper in depth on a few way the fear can be removed or reduced in order to get to the last step, which is closing the sale.

To be very specific, prospects do not like to be sold to. They don’t want to talk to another sales person. They want to talk to a human being that understands their pain and can offer a solution to their pain. In order to open the door to where the prospect will want to communicate with you, you need to build rapport. What is building rapport anyways? Well building rapport is talking to your prospects in a warmly manner that makes them feel important, comfortable, appreciated, and more willing to talk to you.

You first build rapport with the prospect by a warm greeting like, “Hi Jane. This is Bob of _________. How are you doing today my friend?” This opens the door to the prospect to answer it in a warmly manner as well. Most of the time, they will ask how you’re doing as well, and say “I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”

As you’re talking to your prospect, you build rapport by saying warmly responses to their answers to your questions or responses to your statements. So when a prospect says that they’re trying to increase their profits without spending so much money, say something like “That’s a great plan. I understand what you’re saying indeed.” Then to add to that statement you can add, “I definitely want to help you achieve that goal.”

What are you accomplishing when you’re building rapport? Three things you are doing when you build rapport with prospects are you’re building their trust, you’re making them comfortable in talking to you, and you’re helping them to remove the fear. The real test comes when the prospect trusts you enough to tell you what’s bothering them, what they’re afraid of, and the reason they’re having a hard time making a decision. When you continue building rapport during this phase of the conversation, you’re showing the prospect that you care, that they are not alone, and that you’re here to help them.

When a prospect says they’re not ready to buy now, respond by saying something like, “I understand where you’re coming from. This is a big purchase for you and I want to help you make the right decision. What’s holding you back from buying today?” This is when the prospect will tell you the reason they aren’t willing to buy now, for at this point they are comfortable with telling you why. There’s many reasons from money, time, fear of what others might think, asking their spouse, buyer’s remorse, etc. If you had been listening to the prospect from the beginning, at times they may give you hints or tell you of their fears or doubts. It’s your job then to build rapport, and have a response that will eliminate that fear and doubt that will make them more eager to buy. If not, and the prospect is telling you when you had asked them for the sale, then build rapport, ask specific questions to find the problem, and offer a respond to eliminate that problem, and most importantly, the fear.

There are distributors in MLM home based businesses today that are probably urging to get a very good prospect that will buy from them. Some distributors may put all their effort and time into a few prospects that they believe will either purchase their products or sign up for their primary opportunity. Things may go good at first when trying to connect with them, but then out of no where either your prospects stopped returning your calls, or flat out told you that they don’t think what you’re trying to sell them will work.

Why is that? What makes a prospect interested at first in what you have to offer, and then all of a sudden they vanish never to return? What makes prospects all of a sudden tell you no when they had been leading you on as if they were ready to buy or sign up to your MLM business? These are questions anyone in network marketing is probably asking himself or herself. I can tell you that there can be many reasons for a prospect to change shift, more than I can explain in one article. In this post I want cover the topic of fear, which is one of the biggest reasons prospects change their minds.

I’ll tell you off the bat, fear is a poison that controls people today. With the massive layoffs that occurred within the last couple of years, people fear of losing their jobs. With the swine flu that occurred last year, people fear of catching it and dying. When someone purchases a product from a company that doesn’t work, they fear of buying from that same company again, let alone a product. So what if they were part of a MLM company that went out of business? You guessed it.

Your job as a network marketer is to help the prospects remove their fears. The thing you have to understand when doing that, is that some people have their fears hidden. They have them masked underneath because they don’t want other people to know about them, for they believe they will look weak if others did know. Most people don’t trust others with telling them what they fear. So if you haven’t built a relationship with them, they won’t trust you either.

To remove the fear from your prospects, you have to ask questions. Lots of questions if need be. First you need to build rapport and make them feel welcomed and happy that they’re talking to you. Get them comfortable by talking about everyday stuff first. Use a bit of humor to make them laugh or smile. Then afterwards, ask questions of their needs. Sometimes they will give you signals of their pains or past experiences. When you do that, you open doors to remove the pain and fear they’re having.

People want help from those willing to understand where they’re coming from. Take note that it takes time before a prospect will buy from you. It can take months before someone purchases from you or signs up for your business. During the whole duration you should be trying to build a relationship with them. Be a good listener and take notes of what your prospects say to you, and keep them on file so you can go where you left off. That way, your prospects will appreciate that you learning about them.

Having a hard time getting people to buy your product? You’ve chased several prospects down and have tried to pushed the sell on them, only to leave them defensive and running for cover.

One big fact is that people buy what they want, not what they need. Even if they need a product that will suit their needs, that’s not enough for them to buy the product. If the benefits of a product are great for them and fits their lifestyle, and the value of the product outweighs price, then they’ll buy.

An example of hard selling is when you receive an objection from the prospect like, “The price is too high,” and you as the sales person get on the defensive and tell them every reason they should buy right now. An example phrase would be, “Yeah the price may seem high, but like I told you earlier if you bought this right now, you would be saving $50,000 a year, which outweighs the $25,000 you would be paying for this equipment. Who would not want to take advantage of that? If I were you I would do so. You’re wasting your money by not buying this.”

Take a look at that phrase and see what’s wrong with it. First you’re giving the prospect too much information that they may not digest. Second you sound desperate to get them to buy. And third, you’re making them look stupid, which people will really resent against. That’s a sure fire way to ruin your chances of not only a sale, but of a loyal customer.

So never sound desperate, never throw too much information to the prospect, and never ever make the prospect look dumb. Tell them what they want to hear, and how the product you’re selling best fits their lifestyle or their needs. Ask a lot of open ended questions to get them to talk, and find the hidden objections so that you can eliminate them to make the prospect feel more comfortable to buy.