Larson’s Business Expansion Checklist

How to expand your business? You have more ways than you might realize. Here is a quick checklist for you to plan out your expansion. Think of your existing markets, your customers, your produces and services and your distribution channels and try to generate new alternatives for your business in these approaches.

A. Teleprospecting.

B. Hire a new salesperson

C. Sell more of your existing products and services to existing customers

D. Develop new products for existing customers.

E. Open up new markets for existing products and services.

F. Penetrate new markets with new products and services.

G. Create new uses for existing products.

H, Segment existing markets by customer types

I. Change your markets perception of your products and services.

J. Change your approach to your existing market.

K. Develop new channels and outlets for existing products and services.

L. Reposition existing products and services.

M. Fragmenting existing products, services clients and markets

N. Creating add-ons to existing products and services.

O. Developing “downstream” sales and aftermarkets.

P. Introducing products as add-ons to products and services.

Q. Bringing new technology to existing products and services.

R. Create entrepreneurs to sell existing products and services.

S. Selling technology as well as products and services.

T. Sell “piggyback” products and services with other products and services.

U. Enter into alliances with other companies whose products, services, markets, clients, distribution channels and outlets complements yours.

V. Buy into markets, products, services, know-how and clients.

W. Offering a wider variety of products and brands

X. Target new pricing niches within your markets as well as specific pieces of your competitors businesses.

Y. Go to group meetings you have never been to before.

Z. Become an industry expert in your unique area or business.

Larson Notes & Satire:  Start here and then do some more brainstorming. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

If you need really help sign up for our “Pick My Brain Consulting”

http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Pick_My_Brain

When you need to talk to someone about growing your business do you know who to turn to about those hard problems? Larson & Associates gives you a way to tap into a vast resource of knowledge build upon years of experience, some good, and some bad so you can navigate the vast ocean of business life.

For the answer to your sales and lead generation problems call Larson & Associates at 847-991-1294 or email me at howard@larsonassociates.ws .  One call is all it takes.

Howard Larson

Larson & Associates

Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition

Making good businesses great and great businesses even better

847-991-1294

howard@larsonassociates.ws

http://www.larsonassociates.ws

http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make teleprospection for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 10 hours a week. Maybe you should add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Better Phone Results

Getting more hits or sales off a telemarketing campaign can be difficult and daunting to say the least.


It is somewhat a science in setting up a good campaign and then it becomes an art form. An art form you ask? Oh yes, only 7 percent the communication process is based on what's said. 38 percent is based on style of speech and 55 percent on body language.


Basically you have 2 different ways to get a better ROI. First is to decrease the cost per order (CPO) and the second is to increase the amount of product of service ordered.


To decrease CPO you can either lower the cost per lead or increase the conversion rates. Both of which can happen through practice.


Most phone leads come from off line sources. List managers, SIC numbers, direct mail all play a pivotal role in your leads list. You can slide into web, and social media to get a different kind of lead but it still comes down to picking up the phone and making the call.


Then there is your call team. There are 3 basic kinds of phone agents. There are assassins who burn off all the leads off the list that they don’t get. The prospect then hangs up saying nasty things about you and your mother. Next there are the order takers. These people can be great if all your company needs to do is present an idea or product they can’t live without, also good for inbound telemarketing campaigns. And last there is the Sales based call agent who can take the time to ask questions and find out what their needs and trigger points are. Put this together with a good script and solid need based questions and you have a winner.


If you are out to sell more by increasing your revenue per order, you need more of the Sales based agents who can ask hard (or good) questions to cross sell your company. Or do you need to do a transfer program where the lead is passed off to a sales expert who can answer all the hard questions and leave the telemarketer as a lead in person who does not need to know EVERYTHING about you, your company and your product or service. If you’re selling technically orientated services or products you can use the transfer to have a telemarketing agent, who is not as trained to make the initial call and them pass off the call to the sales agent with their knowledge and experience.


Then look passed the initial sale to the repeat sale. You want that customer to have a good feeling on what happened so that the keep coming back for more, and yes, more is good


Larson Notes & Satire: We thrive on the transfer method of telemarketing. If we know 30% to 50% about you, your company and your product or service we usually have enough information to set up a call back with a more knowledgeable person on your staff. This is one of the best ways I know of to get a faster higher ROI out of your experienced sales staff. Use them for the hard stuff and use us for the easy things like making cold calls, with no call reluctance. Maybe that is why we get our clients into companies like Disney, Microsoft. We don’t care. We just pick up the phone and make the call.


Next!


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Reach Out And Call

We have more marketing choices than ever before. Yes, there is mail, there is email, there is SEO, there is Social Media, but don’t underestimate the phone. You can twit all you want, you can blast away you can fill a mail box but until you talk to the prospect and sell something nothing is going to happen. It can be their dime or yours but some way shape of form someone has to reach out and make the connection.

Those businesses and marketers who put all their eggs in one basket, who fail to put together a well balanced multi-channel attack will miss out on connecting with some their prospects. Systems that want prospects to opt in to receive content can help a marketing harvest names and numbers, if they opt in. Systems that ask and ask and ask, but give back almost nothing.


Social media might be a wonderful thing (jury is still out) but until you pick up the phone and actually speak to the prospect you will never know.


In one survey put together by Rasorfish an interactive agency, people are STILL more inclined at a when they want something to go to a company’s actual web site or make a connection over the phone and talk to a rep.


Larson Notes & Satire: Telemarketing, telesales call it what you want, that is the main focus of how we help companies attract new clients. Sure we do mail, we do social media marketing, we can email blast, we get involved in SEO but in telemarketing we can go out and get the prospect rather than sitting back and waiting, hoping that they will call us. Now between you and me, I’d rather be more proactive in my sales rather than reactive.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

The Cost Of Bad Leads

Leads, can’t live without them and for some companies can’t live with them. What you ask. Can’t live with leads? Oh yes my friend that is if the leads come with a high cost.


If you are a company looking to expand you might be looking at buying leads. If you go this route you need to keep in mind several things.


If you go to the US Census you will find that every year there are about 600,000 new businesses created and there are about 600,000 businesses that fail.

In addition there has been a 33% turnover rate in jobs and employment of the more than 40 million jobs listed and that (are you sitting down) 6,000 people change jobs every hour!

Put that in the same area as the study done by “The Sales & Marketing Institute” it was bout that 70.8% of collected businesses cards had 1 or more changes within 12 months.


If you just go and buy a list, even a good list, you can almost figure that 10% of the information is incorrect.


If you were doing a straight direct mail piece at a cost of $0.75 to $1.50 of say 1000 pieces you are going to lose between at a minimum $75.00 to $150.00 of your costs up front.


So think about your looses before you start and you won’t be surprised. But then think, that is why there are companies that can keep you out of trouble in this area. You might pay the same price but you will get more and better results.


Larson Notes & Satire: Normally we don’t do a flat out direct mail program. At Larson’s we have a program that we normally put our clients though. Telemarketing-Direct Mail-Social Media Marketing. We get not only good results but results that are higher than normal. Call or email us to find out more.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Progra
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Is It Worth You Doing It?

Average ratio is 60 to 1 / calls to sales 1 of 10 cold calls leads to prospect appointment
1 of 6 appointments leads to sale


Most experts agree that it takes at least 5 ‘touches’ to finalize 80% of sales. The general statistics go something like this:
- 2% of sales are made on the 1st contact (touch). These are usually people who have already done their research and know exactly what they want;
- 3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact;
- 5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact;
- 10% of sales are made on the 4th contact;
- 80% of sales are made on the 5th contact.


The above are industry standards. So how can you get the odds more in your favor?


First off you need to be aggressive. That does not mean the traditional agressivenss associated with a telemarketer that brow beats you into submission or the classic “Used Car Salesman” idea. If you go in with a multiple touch, multichannel approach you will not cork someone off. How you construct your program will make all the difference on how fast your lead generation program will start producing.


Now while I use telemarketing as the main core of my programs. We also put in place SEO . direct mail, email blasts, social media marketing strategies, blogs, to name a few. In this way we can lower the odds of engagement. And getting a lead from ground zero to happy customer in the shortest amount of time possible, based on your sales cycle, of course.


Larson Notes & Satire: We need sales, we need them now! How many salespeople have hear that cry out of the mouth of their sales manager? What do you do? It’s like a street drag race. Your stopped at a stop sign. Engines poised and ready, the light turns green, you pop the clutch and go………. It can be done but like the drag race it takes a lot of energy to go from ZERO to 60 in 5 seconds.


“HeyLittle Cobra” by the Rip Cords:


Hey, Little Cobra, don't you know
you're gonna to shut 'em down


I took my Cobra down to the track,
hitched to the back of my Cadillac,


Everyone was there just a waiting for me
There were plenty of Stingrays and XKEs,


Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might
Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might


Hey, Little Cobra, don't you know
you are going to shut them down


When the flag went down, you could hear rubber burn,
The Stingray pulled me going into the turn


I hung a big shift, and I got into high,
When I when I flew by the Stingray, I waved bye bye.


Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might
Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might


Hey, Little Cobra, Don't you know
you are going to shut 'em down


Around the turn into the straight away
I was blowing off everything that got in my way,


Stingrays and Jags were so far behind
I took my Cobra out of gear and let it coast to the line.

Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might
Spring little Cobra getting ready to strike
Spring Little Cobra with all your might


Hey, Little Cobra, Don't you know
you are going to shut 'em down
Shut'em down, shut'em down, shut'em down...


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

It’s Really In The Outbound

How many emails, how many sales calls do I get by online web guys, SEO experts, get 2000 leads on line in a day people? Every week they hit me with their offers of more and more leads. It is wonderful to be loved. Now I admit my web site is nothing to write home about but it is getting the job done, people are finding it, reading it and some are reacting and even becoming clients. And as much as these wonderful people want to help they don’t seem to understand that in some categories with the help of landing pages I come up #1. Include that with my #1 status in a local search and well . . .


But hold on a second, let’s look at this a moment. Seems these we will make you #1 on Google guys are doing, can it be, OUTBOUND MARKETING. Oh MY Gosh, say it ain’t so! They are selling me “inbound marketing”, using “outbound marketing” techniques.


Don’t get me wrong here; I don’t want to be misunderstood. Having a marketing strategy of being found is good and being 1st on a Google search is a beautiful thing but it just does not create enough volume. We, you and I, need a certain number of leads which can then be converted into a certain number of sales to stay in business. Inbound leads only make up a small percentage of those needed prospects.


To get it done you need to implement two key elements, predictive prospecting and an outbound marketing plan.


When you need to find who would buy from you. You can find names but who out of the 1000’s of names you can collect are real prospects? Here is my way of finding top prospects, the same way I do it for my clients. I ask them to tell me 2 different things. 1st who are their top 10 customers. 2nd what kind of work is most profitable for them to do. If you can tell me that I can compile a list of the best possible prospects that will fit your business. Once you have this list of golden leads you are already down the path of easier closes because you know this kind of prospect and you already know you can help them with what you are now doing. Be lazy my friend.


The 2nd part is you need to go out and get proactive about prospecting, which is why many companies call us. It can be telemarketing, cold calling, direct mail, email blasts, but it is about pushing, yes pushing yourself in front to the prospect to talk to them, let them know you exist to help them in your specialty. Do it right you will find this the fastest way to find selling opportunities. Unless you are lucky most people do things and buy from the same companies they have worked with before. As Muhammad Ali once said, “You Got To Beat The Champ”. To beat him you have to go after him, not just trade online punches.


A special mention here of Social Media needs to be made. Singularly it is an important channel for you to be working. If you are paying attention to your 3 F’s (friends, followers, fans) you can send out targeted messages and get instant feedback which you respond to. Remember Social Media Marketing is about being social and that means you need to be there to socialize and become a known factor in your area of expertise, the expert in your field. It your listening your 3F’s will tell you everything you need to know to sell them.


Larson Notes & Satire: Be lazy my friends. Outbound Marketing is becoming a lost art. Sales people and even marketing professionals want to take the easy road to lead gen and prospecting, but the easy road is not the lazy way to do it. I strongly urge you to be proactive with both your inbound and your outbound marketing / sales work. Get 1st page in Google, twitter your way to the top, find your Facebook fan feeding frenzy that is all fine and wonderful but take a hint if you want to be “found” you need to be seen and the best way that I know of is in outbound sales and marketing. Don’t wait from them. Even if your 1st page Google, if they don’t search they won’t find you.


Create a balanced sustainable attack for long term success. Together inbound/outbound marketing can deliver you the best and most leads possible. Be lazy, stay lazy my friends.


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.