Business articles by Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Strive to Help Each Prospect What is the ideal follow-up strategy? Consider these examples and then apply them to your sales and marketing efforts. Once I researched some software that promised to streamline my publishing business and integrate operations, as well as provide me with new tools. Given all this, I suspected it would be […]
When Marketing Data Is Absent, You Need to Go by Instinct Though the source of the old advertising quip is in dispute, its wisdom isn’t. The adage laments, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Tracking Traditional Marketing When it comes to traditional marketing channels, […]
Indirectly Promote Your Company and Products by Providing Valuable Industry Information I’ve talked about content marketing. Now we’ll delve into it more fully as a practical marketing tactic. Having written nearly five thousand content marketing pieces over the past couple of decades, it’s a subject I know quite well. The goal of content marketing isn’t […]
Don’t Overlook the Basics for Your Marketing Initiatives As a periodical publisher, I’ve run ads for my customers. As a marketer, I’ve created and run ads for myself in various publications and on websites. And as a buyer, I’ve reacted to ads. These experiences provide me with a 360-degree view, able to see ads from […]
If We Determine When Prospects Aren’t Open to Buy, Our Experience Will Confirm It Tyler, it seemed, was content to earn his base pay. He showed little incentive to close sales or earn any commission. Because he had one job to do—sell accounts—I expected his close rate would far exceed the office manager’s, who only […]
Price Matters, but Not in the Way You Think A common complaint I’ve heard over the years from my sales teams is that the prices for our products or services is too high. Yet in lowering rates to match the competition, it becomes a race to the bottom. I’ve seen this taken to an extreme […]
Marketing drives sales. You can’t hope to have the latter without the former. Over the years I’ve tapped many marketing channels. Some were successful and others not so much. At the call center where we specialized in telephone answering service, I made extensive use of Yellow Pages ads. Remember them? It was a different time. […]
Capitalize on Naturally Occurring Motivators, but Don’t Manufacture a False Sense of Urgency In the past, I mentioned a variation of the either/or close. I call it the special incentive close. Here’s how I use it when selling advertising for my publications. In essence it’s buy now and receive a special incentive or buy later […]
Ask Your Prospect to Choose Between Two Options, Both of Which Meet Your Objective Remember when I went on the sales call with Mitchell? In a few minutes I closed the sale he’d been working on for a couple of months. The “secret” sales technique I used is no secret at all. It’s the simplest […]
Interact with Sales Staff in the Field to Determine Their Strengths and Weaknesses Mitchell came to us in need of a second chance. With a lifetime of experience in the business world and history of sales success he seemed overqualified to work for our company. But he assured me this was the right job for […]