Increase Sales with Letters from the Heart

In additional to a monthly mailer, you should think about a quarterly mailing that is more personal in nature. Let your customers know what is going on in your life. It is like sending a personal letter to each of them. Olympia Funding is very successful in using this technique; they call this "Letters from the Heart". CEO Bill Hogarty encourages customer contact and he is insistent on customer service. It has been said that without the service, the contact is useless and without the contact, there is no one to service. These letters usually tell a story from a book, a famous quote, or some other familiar item with a personal twist on its interpretation. You will find that you will get responses to these letters almost immediately. Do not send them unless you absolutely stand behind what you are saying. Hollow letters are soon discovered.
If you have a database of customers, all you will need to do is generate the labels to place on the postcards you are sending. The postcards should be printed ahead of time then sent close to quarter end. You may want to skip your monthly newsletter this month but it is not necessary. Your customers may be looking forward to the news and they will also get a bonus with the letter from the heart. If Olympia Funding can be very successful with this approach, there is not reason why you cannot be as well.
Provide yourself with as many vehicles for contact as you can but make sure you do not overdo it. Make sure what you are saying is true and that you will stand behind the words. The result is a customer list that will keep on growing.

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By Bette Daoust, Ph.D.
Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet's Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at http://BizMechanix.com. You may also view her latest publications at http://BlueprintBooks.com Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker http://theNationalNetworker.com

Sales Cycles - How Long Is Yours?

Sales cycles vary but it is important that you understand how much revenue your average small-business client is going to generate during a 12-month period. You need to know how long it takes to earn revenue from the point your prospect enters the sales cycle.
Your sales cycle starts when you receive the initial lead and doesn't end until the point where that person writes their first deposit check and signs their first contract with you. The sales cycle encompasses all the time and energy you put into changing the relationship from a lead to a paying customer.
When you first start your business it will be your responsibility to estimate the total sales cycle time. You want to know how long it's going to take to go though the sales cycle with an average lead. Each section of the sales cycle involves time. Things to consider include:
How long are you typically in a qualification stage?

How long does it take you set the appointment?

How long does it take you to do some pre sales-call research to understand what you're up against before you walk in the door?

How long does it take you to do the sales call?

How many weeks are you on the sales call in the deep analysis and proposal?

How long is your follow-up cycle?
You should also consider what kind of funds are going to be required for each stage of the sales cycle and what activities you will need to do in order to convert leads into paying clients.
The Bottom Line on the Sales Cycle
Knowing the average time of your sales cycle is a large part of the business planning process. You won't know exact numbers but you need to estimate the total time involved. Think about how long you're going to be at different stages of the sales cycle. Knowing how much time each stage of sales cycle is going to take will help you figure out how long it's going to take to start generating revenue and producing a positive cash flow.

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By Joshua Feinberg
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Joshua Feinberg helps computer consultants get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too. Sign-up now for Joshua's free Computer Consultants Secrets audio training.

Your Clients Experience Life Events, Will They Call You?

It's July - half way through. Your having a great year. You've written 30 new lives, some of which were multi-million dollar policies. You've added 10 new investment clients, and now you are managing about $22 million. Your income is projected to be up 20% over last year. Congratulations! But guess what? One of your clients acquired 4 years ago just had a baby, and you did nothing. In fact, you haven't spoken to the couple in over two years. Fortunately, they were approached by another professional and asked if they wanted to review their overall plan. They do. It was determined that they have not heard from you, and they see no harm in letting another professional handle their financial affairs. They increased their life insurance coverage, added a new policy and started a 529 College Savings Plan, all with the other guy. Where were you?
This may be a shock, but it is happening to you and you don't know it. You have failed to invest back into your business by setting up a client contact or management system. You are not recognizing birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates because you think it is not important. You did not even take the time to send a simple annual review form, reminding clients to call you when life events occur. You have focused your efforts on bringing in new assets and winning new clients, yet you have neglected the clients from the past. But it's not too late. You can start now, but you must do it right. Get a database or contact management system. Pay a college student, part-timer 0r your teenager to input the data. Make sure you acknowledge important events like birthday's and anniversaries. Also plug in some important things like hobbies, charities, favorite sport or team, children's names or any other tidbit that will help you connect through certain interests. Prompt clients to send you an e-mail or call you when things happen by sending out a review form. Mail client letters, send emails, newsletters and set up your website. Make sure they don't forget who you are and how you can help them. The list goes on, but just get it done.
Clients experience many types of life events that deserve recognition, praise and sympathy. As a financial service professional, it is important to stay in touch with and understand your clients. It's called empathy, and it is sales skill mastered by only a few. Businesses around the world are beginning to train their sales forces on empathy. You don;t want to get left behind. A great professional uses special times in people's lives to get in front of them and help them make sound financial decisions. It is a very rewarding job, but one must keep in touch. For examples of life events, as well as a comprehensive list of data you should collect from clients, visit my website at www.salesjive.com and log in to the Private Lessons area.
Once you realize how much business you may be leaving on the table, you'll figure out that keeping that business is as simple as staying in touch.
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By Jay Stubbs

Jay Stubbs is an experienced Financial Services Sales Director and Qualifying Member of the Milion Dollar Round Table.
Jay offers FREE Consulting and Speaking for Financial Service Professionals
For more information, sales ideas, advice and free consumer articles, visit Jay's website.
http://www.salesjive.com

Auto Insurance Leads Cost Too Much

If you are an insurance broker or insurance agent you know full well that generating sales leads is the toughest part of your job. You cannot live without them because it is what drives your business. It would be great if clients called you for an auto insurance quote but it just doesn’t work that way unless you have an advertising budget for things such as yellow page ads.
If you're like a lot of insurance brokers you buy internet auto insurance leads from online sources such as Insurance Finder or iLeads. This is quite a good system and a lot of insurance agents close a lot of sales via car insurance leads purchased from websites such as these. What normally happens with these internet leads is that the internet lead company draws on consumers that are searching for auto insurance quotes. They land on the website and fill out a form with the details of the type of insurance quote they are looking for. This is followed by the auto insurance sales lead website repackaging and reselling these leads to an insurance broker (sometimes the same lead is sold to multiple brokers). The broker then buys the lead, gives the client a quote and hopes to close the sale.
Not only are there websites that sell auto insurance leads but there are also those that sell all types of insurance lead including, home insurance leads, commercial insurance leads, liability insurance leads, life insurance leads, corporate group benefits leads, travel insurance leads, and disability insurance leads.
If you purchase insurance leads from websites that sell them, know that you are paying too much. Most lead generation websites draw visitors to their site buy paying for internet ads like Google Adwords. This is a system where these websites place ads in the sponsored area of search engines and pay every time someone clicks on the ad, usually between five cents and one dollar per click. The user then completes a form with his information and that information is then repackaged and resold to insurance agents like yourself, usually for between $5 and $100 per lead.
So, do you see how internet auto insurance leads cost too much? If you purchase leads you are paying a middle man, in this case the lead generation website, to gather information for you. You should know that you don’t need to pay a middle man to do this for you. All you need to do is set up your own website and buy these inexpensive "pay per click" ads. And, these days you can set up a professional looking website for under $100 and anybody can join the Google Adwords program to generate sales leads for themselves, including you!

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By Tino Buntic
Visit Tino Buntic's website http://www.trade-pals.com to receive free B2B and B2C sales leads without cold calling. TradePals provides free sales leads to insurance brokers, as well as other business professionals and entrepreneurs in major cities across The U.S. and Canada including Phoenix, Sacramento, Atlanta, Boston, Portland, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, New York, Chicago, San Antoni, Tampa, New Orleans, Denver, Winnipeg, Albany, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Memphis, Charlotte, and Baltimore. Create a free professional profile and post it in the TradePals business directory today.