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Bill Lee - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Bill Lee is a highly successful business man, consultant, seminar leader and author. He is a charter member of Master Speakers International and a member of National Speakers Association.
He and his partners grew BMA, a South Carolina-based distribution business from a start up to a $640 million business in just 20 years. Today, Bill is a business consultant who works with owners and managers who want to improve their bottom line and salespeople who ... [More]
[View Bill Lee's Extended Author Bio]
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- How to Get Prospects to Call You
[Business:Sales-Training] If you're not asking for referrals, you're missing out on one of selling's most basic principles. Here are the precise words to use when asking for referrals.
- Money Making Ideas - Looking Back at 2007 and 2008
[Business:Management] At the end of March 2009 I conducted a survey among the 20,000+ owners, managers and salespeople who read my weekly electronic newsletters. I was thrilled with the number of responses and learned a lot about why so many businesses lost money in 2007 and 2008 - Poor Reaction Time.
- Failure to Hold Employees Accountable For Measurable Results
[Business:Management] Discretionary bonuses often do more harm than good. Tie employee bonuses to measurable results to achieve an optimal return on your company's bonus dollars.
- Your Nose Is You - the Wall is Your Business
[Business:Management] To exhibit more leadership in your organization, to keep your people inspired in good times and bad, commit to One on One Regularly Scheduled Meetings with each person who reports to you.
- How to Build Your Confidence for Selling
[Business:Sales] This article will show all salespeople how to avoid allowing their most improtant presentations from turning into a disaster.
- Markup On Cost Versus Gross Profit Margin
[Business:Sales] This article will show salespeople with some degree of pricing authority how to optimize gross margin without losing the sale.
- Top Salespeople Manage What They Measure
[Business:Sales] This article describes what salespeople might do differently in 2007 than they did in 2006 to raise their personal productivity.
- Incentive Pay No Substitute for Strong Management
[Business:Management] This article shows managers how to get the most mileage from incentive pay plans and avoid incentive pitfalls.
- One Rule for Owners, Another for Employees
[Business:Management] This article shows owners and managers how to avoid tempting their employees to be dishonest by being extra careful not to break the rules themselves.
- First Things First
[Business:Sales] Here's a simple technique for managers and salespeople to use to help them keep their eyes on the most essential tasks and avoid allowing urgent tasks to break their concentration.
- What Does Your Company Do Better than Its Competitors?
[Business:Sales-Management] Companies that wish to compete more effectively must clearly distinguish their product and service offerings from their competitors. This article shows owners and managers how to set their companies apart from the competition. Includes excerpts from businessman and author Nido Qubein of High Point, NC.
- Tips to Deal with Inter-Departmental Conflict in Your Organization
[Business:Management] Polarization with organizations, between departments, can inhibit an organization from achieving optimal levels of productivity. This article offers suggestions to reduce inter-departmental conflict.
- Rules that Guarantee Financial Independence
[Finance:Wealth-Building] This article offers a step by step process that guarantees financial independence for salespeople or anyone who is willing to follow a discipline. Don't be old and poor! Follow the rules.
- There's Magic in Thinking Big
[Business:Sales-Management] Follow the rules in this article for more accurate sales projections for 2007. High expectations tend to lead to a higher performance.
- Is Anyone Really Managing Sales in Your Organization?
[Business:Sales-Management] If you are looking for an effective system to manage your salespeople, this article is just what the doctor ordered.
- Earn Big Bucks in Sales Even Though You're not a "Natural"
[Business:Sales-Training] This article shows the normal every day salesperson how he or she can be sales superstars even though he or she is not a "natural" at selling.
- Point Your Employees Toward Financial Freedom
[Business:Sales-Management] Sales managers can use their influence to help their salespeople become financially independent. This article suggests some ways how to do so.
- Reward the Behaviors You Want Repeated
[Business:Management] This article offers a seminar exercise that clearly illustrates the kinds of management behaviors that yield the most effective results.
- Don't Hire Salespeople Who Are Price Buyers Themselves
[Business:Sales-Management] Sales managers who pull their hair out because their salespeople can't successfully defend their prices will benefit from this article. Many times, this problem can be solved simply by avoiding adding salespeople to the sales team who are price buyers themselves.
- What's Management's Role in Pricing
[Business:Negotiation] This article discusses the relationship between the salesperson and the manager in arriving at pricing decisions to optimize the company's gross margin.
- Tips to Stay in Prospects' Good Graces
[Business:Sales] Looking for ideas to open more prospects' doors, this article is loaded with the kind of amunition you need to bring in more new customers.
- What Is Selling, Exactly?
[Business:Sales] Many times salespeople become confused as to when the time is right to quote a customer. This article will help them better understand when to quote and why not to use low-ball prices when they do.
- Price Is a Bigger Issue Among Salespeople than Customers
[Business:Sales] If you believe your customers' number one criterion for buying is based on price, perhaps this article will convince you differently. Of price, quality and service, pick any two you wish. You can't have all three. Companies go broke when they attempt to offer all three.
- Communication Channels that Open Prospects' Doors
[Business:Sales-Training] If you are a salesperson and you're having difficulty getting your prospects' favorable attention, here are some prospecting tips that will open more doors.
- The Fine Art of Delegation
[Business:Management] If you can't find enough hours in the day to get your job done, perhaps you're not delegating effectively. This article contains ten tips to make any manager a more effective delegator.
- Lessons from Sports Commentators: Give Credit to Co-Workers
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Do the departments in your company bicker, complain and criticize each other? If so, there's a lot that your people can learn from sports commentators. This article outlines this message.
- How Salespeople Can Improve Their Listening Skills
[Business:Sales] When salespeople are talking they are learning nothing. It's only when salespeople listen that they are gaining insight into their customers and prospects needs. This article will help salespeople improve their listening skills.
- Sometimes Managers Are Just Too Soft
[Business:Sales-Management] If as a manager your people are not living up to their full potential, perhaps it's because of the way you are managing them. This article suggests how managers can do their employees a favor by being tougher on them.
- How to Calculate Value Added
[Business:Sales] Salespeople use the term value added all the time, but what does this term really mean? This article will give you some insight into what value added means and how to use it to earn a sales and marketing advantage. Your VALUE is often determined by the SIZE of the problems you can help your customers and prospects solve.
- How Easy is Your Company to Do Business With?
[Business:Customer-Service] Many companies sincerely believe that they are really easy to do business with, but never confirm their internal beliefs. This article offers both examples and recommendations for companies that want to build a reputation for being easy to do business with.
- How to Respond to Customer Complaints
[Business:Customer-Service] It's a lot easier to keep an angry or irate customer happy than it is to replace the customer. This article shows customer contact personnel the steps to take when a customer is upset.
- What's Standing Between You and a Six-Figure Income?
[Business:Sales] If you are not happy with your current income from selling, this article will tell you specifically what to do to boost your income.
- Managers Must Attack the Process, Not Just the Problem
[Business:Management] Managers who usurp their subordinate's authority are not developing their middle managers. This article will show managers how to most effectively deal with a problem that occurs in one of their manager's area of responsibility.
- Selling Ain't Easy
[Business:Sales] If you're struggling to be successful at the profession of sales, this article contains a formula you may wish to consider adopting to turn your career around.
- Don't Throw Your New Managers to the Wolves -- Train Them!
[Business:Management] Is your company guilty of throwing new managers to the wolves, offering too little in the way of training? This article offers some excellent techniques to bring new managers up to speed much faster.
- How to Find Out if a Customer Is Telling the Truth or Making an Excuse
[Business:Sales] How do you find out the "real reason" for a no answer when you ask for an order. Read this article to learn how to find out if the customer or prospect is telling you the whole truth or could they be merely giving you an excuse.
- Ten Qualities of a Winning Sales Manager
[Business:Sales-Management] Many executives make the same mistake each time they promote a top notch salesperson to sales manager: they lose their best salesperson and get a mediocre manager. This article identifies ten characteristics of terrific sales managers.
- How to Avoid a Cloned Sales Force
[Business:Sales-Management] If you are frustrated with your ability to accurately assess the talent of potential sales candidates, this article will be of great value to you as a manager.
- Three-Stage Sales Strategy
[Business:Sales] Success in the selling profession requires a salesperson to be persuasive. This article offers the reader a template for persuading customers and prospects to make buying decisions that are in their best interest.
- Credit Management: Design a System and Work the System
[Business:Small-Business] Best benchmarks for measuring the credit function.
Six-step process for more effective credit management.
Benefits of out-sourcing credit an option for your company?
- Value Statements Open Prospects' Doors
[Business:Sales] When salespeople experience rejection, it's usually because they have not given their prospects a valid reason to do business with them. They have failed to answer the question in all prospects' minds: What's in it for me? Read this article for some ideas for VALUE STATEMENTS that will open your prospects' doors.
- Selling Value vs. Price
[Business:Sales] Do you ever give your customers or clients something for free? If so, read this article for a technique to turn that FREE product or service into "psychic debt" that will improve the return on your investment. In the absence of a value barometer, your customers and prospects will use price to eleminate you.
- Do You Have a Destination in Mind for Your Business?
[Business:Management] Is your family in synch as to where the family business is going? A family divided risks failure to succeed over the long term.
- Don't Manage All Customers the Same Way
[Business:Sales] Don't throw the same pitch to every batter. Use customer categories to help determine how you will manage each customer. Time is a salesperson's most valuable resource, so don't waste any more of it than necessary.
- 20 Proven Tips to Avoid Hiring Mistakes
[Business:Management] Do you sometimes make hasty hiring decisions? Or are you sometimes guilty of hiring the best of the bunch? Do you keep people for too long even when you've given up on them? Read this article for 20 tips to avoid hiring mistakes.
- Seven Steps to Successful Selling
[Business:Sales] Do you ever ask for the order prematurely? Would you like to know how to earn the right to a prospect's business? This article will show you how.
- When Giving Service, Give It Cheerfully
[Business:Customer-Service] The key word when practicing good customer service is to do it cheerfully. Saying the right words is not enough; customer service workers must smile and behave as if they genuinely appreciate a customer's business.
- Be Stingy with Discounts
[Business:Negotiation] Do your customers understand that they can pay a lower price on the face of an invoice, but still end up with a higher cost? If you want to learn how to explain the difference between cost and price, read this article.
- Defend Your Prices More Effectively
[Business:Negotiation] Lack of pricing confidence can kill a salesperson's ability to defend the prices they quote. This article offers several tips to help salespeople feel more confidence when they must defend their prices.
- Checklists Allow More Time to Sell
[Business:Sales] Virtually 100% of salespeople report that there are frequently not enough hours in a day for them to get the job done. This article offers a really great idea that when implemented, helps salespeople avoid duplicating effort.
- Know the Law on Overtime Pay
[Business:Management] Is your company vulnerable to a lawsuit from a disgruntled worker who happens to have a brother-in-law who is a lawyer? Read this article to find out.
- Warm Up Cold Calls
[Business:Sales-Training] How to turn an otherwise cold call into a WARM call. How to display so much professionalism on the first call that your prospect will want to see you again and again.
- Tips for Remembering Names
[Relationships] Are you sometimes frustrated by how fast you forget someone's name you've just met? Remembering names can be learned by following a few rules.
- Effective Inventory Control Requires Discipline
[Business:Small-Business] Excessive inventory levels reduce the capital a business can access for capital expenditures. Implement the following disciplines in your company to optimize inventory control.
- Wouldn't You Like to Close New Business Faster? Practice Answering These Four Questions!
[Business:Sales-Training] Buyers are looking for concrete reasons to make a change. They are all asking themselves: What's in it for me? Answer these four questions to the buyer's satisfaction and your close rate will soar.
- How to Make the Sale when Confronted with the "Past Sins" Objection
[Business:Sales-Training] "Past Sins" prevent many salespeople from sales success. Past Sins are defined as mistakes a predecessor made with a customer. The customer responded by saying, "I will NEVER do business with this company again."
- Ownership versus Management: Be Sure There Is A Difference
[Business:Small-Business] If you own less than 50% of your company's stock, you are not entitled to have input into management decisions. Management must be earned. Neither the owners' children nor in-laws are entitled to hold management positions in the family business.
- Is Your Management System in Need of an Overhaul
[Business:Management] If you are not changing the way you look at productivity, you're behind the curve. Are entitlement programs alive and well in your company? Are your people in a rut?
- Eliminate Your Prospect's Pain to Close More Sales
[Business:Sales-Training] Open your prospects' eyes with well-designed questions? If your prospects don't know where and how much they are hurting, they are blissfully ignorant. How to make it obvious that you are a problem solver.
- Salespeople Enjoy the Price They Pay for Success
[Business:Sales-Management] Are your salespeople guilty of throwing the same pitch to every batter? Are they in a rut? Are their professional selling skills stagnating?
- Green and Growing or Dying on the Vine
[Business:Sales-Training] Did you grow over the past year or was last year pretty much a repeat of the year prior? Questions salespeople can andwer to determine if they are green and growing or dying on the vine. Techniques to develop your selling skills. Free recommended reading list.
- How to Get Your Foot in the Door
[Business:Sales] Common mistake salespeople make when talking with customers and prospects. To get prospects' favorable attention, talk to them about the kinds of topics THEY like to talk about. The research required to make a positive impression on your toughest prospect.
- How to Enhance Customer Retention
[Business:Sales-Management] It is less expensive to save a customer than to bring in a new customer.
Customer Care retains customers. Learn how to deal with an angry or irate customer.
- Don't Fail to Pay What It Takes to Attract Top Talent
[Business:Careers-Employment] In people, you usually get what you pay for. You can't hire a $70,000 employee by hiring two earning $35,000 each. The quality of your people equals the quality of your company...
- Tips to Generate Endless Referrals
[Business:Sales] Salespeople who follow these eight rules will generate a steady stream of business referrals.
- Customer Gifts Don't Have to Be Big to Be Effective?
[Business:Customer-Service] You don't have a huge budget for customer gifts? This article will convince you that even inexpensive gifts can be effective when they "fit" your prospects and customers. Includes several inexpensive gift ideas.
- When Salespeople Are Talking, They're Learning Nothing
[Business:Sales] Most salespeople talk too much. When salespeople are talking, they are not getting inside their customer's head. Read this article for some killer questions that will enable you to better understand where your customers and prospects are coming from.
- Beware of a Laissez-Faire Management Style
[Business:Management] A laissez-faire management will almost always prevent a company from optimizing its bottom line. Turn up the heat on your people. You're doing them no favors when you allow them to get away with anything short of their best effort.
- Managers Reward Behaviors They Want Repeated
[Business:Management] This article contains an illustration that shows the power of using rewards versus punishment to promote positive behavior you want to see more of.
- Prospecting for New Business: Selling at Its Finest
[Business:Sales-Management] Best questions to ask on prospect calls. Great article for sales managers who have difficulty getting their salespeople to prospect.
- Three Deadly Sins in Family Business
[Business:Management] Article identifies common mistakes many owners make in the family businesses they so often founded. This article is a must read for owners who wish to perpetuate the family business.
- Ten Ways to Make Prospects Like You Enough to Buy from You
[Business:Sales-Training] About 99.9% of buyers buy from salespeople they like, and go out of their ways NOT to buy from salespeople they DON'T like. This article offers ten proven techniques to make prospects like you enough to do business with you.
- Power of Pinpointing Accountability
[Business:Management] Is your business dependent upon your own personal mental and physical stamina? If so, you are highly limited as to the size business you can effectively manage.
- Are Your Sales Meetings Boring?
[Business:Sales-Management] Make your sales meetings educational events salespeople will look forward to attending. Eight ideas to make your sales meetings exciting enough for salespeople to want to be there.
- Passion for Profits
[Business:Management] Managers who are serious about profits will gain exposure to non competing businesses that out perform their own companies. Don't be afraid to hire people who are better than you.
- Getting Past the Gate Guard
[Business:Sales-Training] Prospects don't return your calls because they perceive no benefit to them. Give prospects a great answer to: "What's in it for me?" Voice mail messages should be a well-scripted 20 second commercial.
- Business Relationship Germs
[Business:Management] Identify the business relationship germs in your business and kill them immediately. Management cannot afford to alienate and lose good people. Here are several management pitfalls to avoid.
- You Get the Behavior You Reward
[Business:Management] High achievers want to be in control of their financial destiny. Discretionary bonuses put management in control, not the employee. Take advantage of your people's competitive spirit.
- Management Apathy Kills Corporate Potential
[Business:Management] Some owners are too close to the business to see the forest for the trees. Poor earnings call for proactive management. An outsider is frequently able to see solutions that current management has overlooked.
- CEO's Role in Family Business
[Business:Management] If the owner or the owner's offspring don't possess the talent to take the business to the next level, don't be too proud to hire a talented general manager. Management acumen is not hereditary.
- Five Steps to Successful Business Succession
[Business:Management] Passing a family from one generation to the next can be challenging for owners. Are you prepared? Do you know the pitfalls? This article offers four pieces of advice.
- Don't Take New Hires for Granted
[Business:Management] How does a new hire feel on his or her first day on the job in your company? Read this article for a checklist to make new hires get off to a terrific start -- from day one forward.
- Entitlement Programs Kill Corporate Productivity
[Business:Management] Entitlement programs are no longer confined to governments, they are alive and well in many businesses. And if they are allow to continue, they will sooner or later affect your bottom line.
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