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Is Your Sales Message Is Sending the Wrong Message?

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Successful selling is all about sending the right message. Are you making this mistake?

Is Your Sales Message Is Sending the Wrong Message?

"I am not selling you anything." Have you ever read that in the first couple of sentences of receiving an emaill to a piece of direct mail? What were your thoughts? Possibly something like mine? "Sure, Right, another sales pitch in disguise."

When are sales professionals going to learn that potential customers to potential qualified customers can usually smell something rotten in the state of Denmark (Shakespeare) and will hit the delete or the circular file in a blink of an eye? With all the help on the Internet by respected marketing and copy experts, why sales professionals to small business owners continue to engage in product based or poor education based marketing is truly beyond my gray matter.

Today I just received a message from someone who wrote the following:

"How are you doing? I know that you've probably receive tons of offers on how to make money online. I am NOT SELLING YOU ANYTHING.

However, I have some helpful information that can help you start a new business or improve your existing one. Whether you are a season pro or a newbie online, these FREE tools are sure to help you increase your online sales up to 300%.

Here are my areas of expertise:

• Internet marketing
• Domain registration
• Search engine marketing
• New business start up
• Online consultant
• And many more...”

First, contrary to what this individual wrote, yes she or he is selling me something because the areas of expertise were listed. Why list the areas if you were not trying to sell me something?

Second, there are a lot of free tools on line and to be honest a 300% increase is really not that much given so many with websites with online sales needing a few strategies to improve conversion.

Third and the most important point, this individual is clueless about the selling. From using a negative word which the brain ignores to understanding the importance of relationships, all this email did was to confirm to me her sales skills needed improvement. Sales Coaching Tip: When the brain hears "I am not selling" what the brain processes is "I am selling you." The brain ignores the word "no."

Unfortunately with all the hype on the Internet from marketers who can generate you bundles of cash in less than 24 hours to those who can increase SEO rankings even though their websites have a 0 to 2 Google Page rank, there are still a lot of people seeking the quick fix or what I call the magic blue rock. Individuals like the one who sent me the early noted email prey on those who are uninformed.

Sales folk are also prey to this type of marketing as they want to increase sales. However, the only way to create sustainable growth is through sustainable relationships. For business is still all about relationships. As a experienced salesperson just said to me "Make a friend first before attempting to sell anything."

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Article Tags: blink of an eye, circular file, direct mail, disguise, domain registration, emaill, free tools, gray matter, important point, individ, li li, new business, online consultant, poor education, sales pitch, sales professionals, search engine marketing, sentences, small business owners, something rotten in the state of denmark



Related Forum Posts
Re: Watch What you Read - I agree. i believe more video's should be like Jeffery Gitomers video's under his Sales rant. They are typically not more than 3 minutes. His model seems to be; 1. Main Message (or Point) 2. Example 3. Next steps to put it into Action take away the extra "blabber" and you've got viewers that will come back.
Re: Those Annoying Telemarketers - When I was making phone calls I received 2 different messages that really stood out... Message 1: "We can't come to the phone right now. If you're a telemarketer please remove this number from your records. All other calls...." I never bothered to hear the rest because I wasn't allowed leaving messages anyway. I had to actually talk to the person. Message 2: "This phone number is protected by Embarq Privacy Services (something like that). Please leave your name, phone number and reason for call, and the party you're trying to reach will determine if the call is important to them." I summarized, but you get the point. Embarq is a local phone company. I don't know if it's available nationwide or not. That's a new one on me, though. I utilize caller ID on my cell. Unless it's a local number, I don't bother to answer. If it's important enough they'll leave a message. I use my cell for online and offline business since it has these capabilities as well as voicemail. Gotta love technology.
Re: The Storm Brace a new invention - Hi Breck, I sent you a Private Message - please check your "new messages link"!
Re: Two hats - startup sales mentor and Message Slinger - 1st of all, thank you for the links, I will review them all and get a pic up ASAP. 2nd, to answer your question, I have always seen working for others as a means to an end result of running my own ventures. With my consultancy at full swing, and Message Slinger in beta, I am realizing the first part of these dreams. There is more to follow, and as it comes, sharing will be a joy.
Two hats - startup sales mentor and Message Slinger - Hello all, As a consultant, my focus is on helping companies in emerging companies jump start their revenue generation. As the CEO of Message Slinger, I try and aid in developing and offering the world's best online and e-mail marketing system, Please feel free to reach out and contact me about anything and everything, my third venture is helping anyone I can. All the best, Karl


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