Being self-motivated as a leader is one thing, but how do you get your sales teams to work just as hard to keep customers happy and business growing?

There's no doubt about it — to be a salesperson, you must be a people person. Some of the world's most renowned businesses achieve such high success simply because they put their customers first.

How salespeople interact with a customer, from the acquisition stage right through to the final transaction, is the difference between making a sale and losing an opportunity to control the narrative and build your reputation.

Customer experience, teaching your sales teams to understand context and pricing, and reinforcing your point of difference will arm your team with everything they need to take your business to the top.

Sales and marketing strategies

Reinforce to your sales team that they are a welcome guest, not annoying pests.

Sales representatives often get a bad rap for being too pushy or disingenuous. People's time is valuable, and the last thing your teams should do is make prospective buyers feel like they're being conned or forced into purchasing something.

If you don't have customers, your business has nothing. Treating them as people rather than a source of profit is the only way to make authentic client connections that provide mutual benefit.

It's a leader's job to inspire their sales teams to want to get to know their potential clients — to really care about providing them with something that can change their quality of life.

Leaning on your marketing to inform your audience about your brand is also crucial. Tell them who you are, what you're about and what you can do to solve their problem.

By having a strong marketing strategy that sends a clear message about your business to potential clients, half the convincing will already have been done before they even get the sales pitch.

Context and pricing

When talking to your team about the pricing of your product or service, context is everything.

Leaders and their sales teams should always be aware of how people consume their goods based on factors such as market, business climate, price and demand.

This is where price elasticity comes in. If the demand for a product or service increases based on a change in its price, it's considered elastic. If there is very little or no change in demand with a price increase or decrease, it is deemed inelastic.

Let's take fuel, for example. This resource is widely considered a necessity, making it inelastic. Without it, drivers can't get from A to B using a fuel-powered vehicle. While consumers may choose to go to one fuel station over another, say, based on the cost per gallon, they still require fuel.

The same goes for things like bottled water in areas with limited access to clean water, electricity, housing, etc. Price elasticity can work in your business's favor when pricing is presented in the right context.

Much like price, so many things can influence a person's decision and ability to consume certain goods, so emphasizing the importance of context to your sales teams is crucial.

By encouraging confidence in pricing and assertive fee strategies amongst your teams, the sale is much more likely to land.

Differentiation

There are billions of dining furniture brands out there, just like there are billions of different toothpaste brands, formal wear brands and even gardening tool brands.

If your sales team spends their days searching for leads, whether through cold calling, emailing or door-knocking, they should know how to market your brand well.

​Telling a potential customer about your product or service is one thing, but convincing them that your product is better than the next requires sales representatives to understand your business's points of difference.

If a customer is going to ask, "Why would I buy your product over this product?" that sales rep better have a compelling answer. In fact, they should have a list of 10 reasons why your product is superior to your competitors' products. If they can't do that, quite frankly, they're wasting their time.

Arming your sales team with the knowledge they need to make customers see that your business offering is the only choice out of a sea of options is how you go from making a few sales a week to thousands per day.

Hosting brainstorming sessions with your teams, workshops and welcoming feedback are transformational ways to encourage creative thinking around your sales model and establish a set of unique value propositions and market positions.

Getting the sale

No matter what industry you're in, getting your 15 minutes of fame as a brand, let alone being a market leader, is not easy.

There will always be competition, but with a well-prepared, motivated and tactful sales team backing your business, the rewards will always be there to reap.

As a leader, reinforcing the values of client care, understanding the relationship between context and pricing, and what makes your product or service the best of the best is the surest way to make your sales team impenetrable.

Nurture your sales teams at all costs — your future business will thank you for it.




Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: ​Photo by Lisa Fotios/Pexels

This might sound crazy coming from an entrepreneur, but I've always had a thing for honesty. I despise lying and misleading because they inevitably cause more problems and create unnecessary challenges, both in one's personal life and in one's business endeavors.

Admittedly, it's not a common sentiment in the world of business, where the "fake it till you make it" mantra continues to ring loud, where the vast majority of business owners are deathly afraid of any failure and where it takes courts to extract admissions of guilt, incompetence or malfeasance.

As a former investment manager at a VC fund, I've had a front-row seat to entrepreneurship in the startup scene, which trades in smoke and mirrors like a commodity. Let me tell you — it's almost never about blatant lying. Most commonly, it's about twisting reality to craft a suitable narrative, e.g., cherry-picking growth metrics to aggrandize one's company, gaslighting customers despite legitimate complaints, making promises that are nigh-impossible to follow through, etc.
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Some companies, like Theranos, manage to fool everyone—even investors—and become massive success stories, albeit sometimes short-lived. But most startups cannot keep up the charade. In the U.S., half of all startups don't make it to their fifth year.

Of course, failure isn't always because of dishonest practices. There are countless legitimate reasons for a company to go under.

But I know what it's like to be at that critical juncture where your company is at risk, and I know the temptation to try to weasel through it with a seemingly small white lie in the hopes of saving face until things pick up in the future.

In fact, I've been there several times. And, every time, my business and I have come out stronger on the other side by owning up to the issues and tackling them with brutal honesty and transparency. I hope my experience can encourage you to do the same — not just because it's the right thing to do, but because I believe it's good business.

1. Transparency in crisis

My startup, Supliful, is a white-label CPG platform. Our clients are entrepreneurs — influencers, companies and online business owners seeking to launch their own private-label brands effortlessly. Accordingly, when our business runs into trouble, the trouble reverberates down the chain, affecting the operations of our clients.

One such recent case was in January 2024, when we faced many operational issues while moving to a larger warehouse in response to rapid business growth. Our fulfillment times were extremely slow, leading to complaints from our users. Timely delivery is the very core of our business. If we have delivery delays, we make our clients look like fools in the eyes of their own customers — a surefire business killer and not something that can be fixed overnight.

Instead of promising the impossible, ignoring complaints, or giving up, I set up an "ask me anything" session with our customers. I stood before them, let them voice their concerns and complaints and honestly admitted where we had fallen short. After that, I directly addressed the issues, explained our current situation in detail, and provided a realistic roadmap for when things would be resolved.

Our customers are entrepreneurs, too, so they understand what it's like to have business growing pains. They also loved the transparency and appreciated being fully in the know of what exactly is going on with their fulfillment provider, gaining a clearer picture of not only our business but theirs, too. Crucially, we also delivered on the roadmap we promised them.

2. Owning up to your mistakes

Much earlier in Supliful's journey, we had a different issue with an equally critical component of our offering — we encountered a major issue with the quality of one of our products. Customer complaints were piling up, and it became clear that one of our suppliers was not meeting the necessary standards.

Again, we could have tried to brush this under the rug, claim everything's fine with the product or make up excuses to deflect blame. But the reality was that ensuring product quality for our customers is our responsibility and no one else's. If the supplier doesn't cut it, then the onus is on us to find a better one.

We took a hard look at the customer feedback and acknowledged the problem openly with them. We sent out a heartfelt apology, explained the steps we were taking to address the quality issues and took the financial responsibility by offering refunds or replacements, even though our company was already facing rough waters.
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Looking back, the price we paid to retain our clients was a valuable investment — some of those who were most furious at that time are some of our biggest clients today. Again, customers appreciated our honesty, transparency and commitment to resolving the issue. Internally, it prompted us to find more reliable suppliers, ensuring better product quality moving forward.

Honesty is good business

Today, transparency and honesty are the cornerstones upon which our business is built. For example, I regularly share my business data and performance updates on LinkedIn — even when the figures paint an unfavorable picture. Brutal honesty doesn't have to be a reactive thing to do reserved for when shit hits the fan.

Sharing our story publicly and directly addressing all the issues builds trust with all the partners. This gives new business owners the confidence to partner with us and our long-term customers to stick with us. It has also paid back in spades in terms of business growth.

Sure, sometimes honesty is painful. It's not easy to own up to mistakes, especially when you know that they have negatively impacted others. But doing so is critical for getting to the end goal, namely, building a robust and sustainable business that can weather any storm.



Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: ​Photo by Jopwell/Pexels.com

 Email has existed for over five decades, and its prominence is only growing. Not only do we use it extensively at work, but as a marketing channel, email has proven its effectiveness again and again.

By 2027, email marketing revenue will grow to $17.1 billion, a Statista report predicts. It's no wonder that 69% of marketers use email to distribute content, increase brand loyalty, and boost sales.

As a startup founder, you may be wondering how to achieve the same success. Perhaps you feel nervous about launching or haven't seen great results from your first campaigns. With a clear and strong strategy, you can confidently overcome those jitters and press send.

Here's how to improve your approach and avoid pitfalls when planning email marketing campaigns for your startup.

1. Define your goal

​Before you start, define what you'd like to achieve with your email marketing—whether it's boosting website traffic, increasing brand awareness or making sales. Having a goal gives you more clarity about the steps you need to take next and how you'll measure success.

2. Gather your email list

It's time to put together your email list and make sure it's ready for outreach. Don't worry if your database is small – many startups see high engagement from smaller databases. What matters more than your list size is its quality. Have all your subscribers opted in to receive emails from you? You want to reach out to an audience who is expecting to hear from your startup.

3. Double-check your contacts

Aside from getting your subscribers' consent to send them emails, a high-quality list also means those subscribers are real and their contacts are accurate. Getting bounce-backs on your newsletters and campaigns will negatively affect your reputation with inbox providers. To avoid that, use an email verification service to validate your list before your emails go out.

4. Segment, segment, segment

With an opt-in, healthy email list, you're steps ahead of many of your competitors. Next, to further fine-tune your approach, analyze your customers and prospects to see how you can organize them in separate groups. Start with one or two filters, such as one-time buyers and repeat buyers, and niche down from there. To boost engagement, send these groups emails that gently encourage them to try more of your products.

5. Choose a good email marketing platform

Now that your lists are ready, it's time to pick a service to send your emails. As a startup owner, you may be cautious about spending too much, but this isn't an area where you should cut corners. Your email marketing platform should allow you to streamline your efforts and, most importantly, ensure high email deliverability so your campaigns reach your audience. Go with a reputable company.

6. Test your emails for mobile

​Some emails can look great on desktops but present errors on mobile devices, which can cause your audience to tune out right away. To keep people engaged, use a testing tool to point out any issues so you can fix them beforehand. Also, test your emails with your team. Apart from detecting errors, their feedback can further help you improve your content.

7. Don't procrastinate – hit send

If your list is in good shape, you found a reliable email-sending platform, and you're proud of your content, it's time to hit Send. Startup owners and marketers often postpone taking that big step because they're nervous about customer feedback. But procrastinating and obsessing over the smallest details will only increase your nervousness. Send your email so you can get that initial feedback and learn how to improve.

8. Show up as promised

​This is probably the best email marketing habit you can adopt for your startup. Sending an email here and there won't make much of a difference in your business. Showing up for your subscribers regularly will. What's more, sending emails regularly also gives you a chance to see exactly what your audience most responds to – so you can focus on that in your future campaigns.

9. Make every email better than the last one

While consistently emailing your audience is vital to your success, you must also strive to maintain and improve content quality. It's how you'll continue to boost your metrics: 47% of consumers open a brand email primarily because they always get good emails from that brand. So avoid sending an email just because it's due. Instead, work with your team to make every email count.

10. Partner with other startups

Partnering with other companies for co-marketing initiatives has been one of the best ways I've grown my own startup, ZeroBounce. My team and I continue to pursue these types of engagements as they help us gain exposure to new audiences. Reach out to businesses in your space and suggest a partnership, including an email cross-promotion. It will help you earn awareness and even new subscribers.

11. Stay up-to-date on email-sending rules

The email industry has seen many changes in recent years – from Apple releasing its Mail Privacy Protection update to Google and Yahoo enforcing new sending rules. To enjoy great email marketing results for your startup, stay abreast of any similar updates. For instance, large email service providers now require email authentication from senders reaching out to more than 5,000 subscribers daily. Following the rules ensures you're compliant with these protocols and helps you land your campaigns in the inbox and increase sales.



Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Muhammad Ribkhan/Pixabay

Want to rank at the top of search engines? Sometimes, you need to pay to play. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the practice of running paid ads in search engines — namely, Google — to attract more online traffic and customers.

But as a small retail business owner, you might not have the funds or technical know-how to run expensive, complicated paid ads. That's why it's essential to optimize the budget you do have and implement tried-and-trusted strategies to get the best return on your ad spend.

In this guide, I share innovative and cost-effective techniques for more lucrative SEM campaigns, driving better results for your small retail business.

1. Implement geo-specific targeting

The effectiveness of your SEM campaigns is largely dependent on targeting — whether your ads reach the right prospective customers in the right geographic area. Implementing geo-specific targeting allows you to focus your advertising efforts on people who are most likely to convert into real customers.

First, determine the locations you wish to target. These should be areas where your prospective customers are most likely to be. These may include certain neighborhoods, cities or regions, whether close to your physical store or in areas where you offer delivery services.

Next, log into your ads account and select the campaign you want to target geographically. In Google Ads, you can navigate to the "Settings" tab and view the "Locations" section. This is where you can add specific locations to target, such as by city name, ZIP code or radius to your store address.

Use the targeted locations as keywords in your ad copy. For example, if you are targeting Denver, Colorado, you might use terms like "Denver boutique" or "Women's Clothing Downtown Denver" in your ad headline or description. Monitor your ad analytics to assess the number of clicks, calls or conversions generated by your targeted ads, then refine your strategy accordingly.

2. Reduce ad spend by adding negative keywords

Negative keywords are used to prevent your ads from appearing in the search results for terms that are irrelevant to your business. For example, if you own a small retail store that sells luxury home decor, you might add "DIY" or "budget" as negative keywords to avoid attracting bargain shoppers or DIY-ers.

To identify negative keywords, review past campaigns to see if any irrelevant keywords triggered your ads. Further, brainstorm any common terms that don't align with your products or business.

Here's how to add negative keywords to a Google Ad campaign:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.
2. Choose the campaign or ad group where you want to add negative keywords.
3. In the left-hand menu, click "Keywords," and then select "Negative Keywords."
4. Click the "+" button to add new negative keywords. You can enter individual keywords or upload a list.
5. Once you've added the desired negative keywords, click "Save" to apply them to your campaign.

Negative keywords filter out low-intent or non-converting traffic. This leads to a higher conversion rate and better ROI.

3. Increase relevance with clustering and ad groups

In SEM, clustering and grouping involve organizing your keywords, ads and landing pages into groups based on similar themes, products or services. This ensures that your ads are very closely aligned with the interests (i.e., search queries) of your target audience. Clustering and grouping can reduce your ad costs, improve your ad Quality Score and boost conversion rates.

Start by identifying keywords that are closely related to each other. For example, if you own a dress boutique, you might create separate clusters for "formal dresses," "casual dresses," "summer dresses," etc. Each cluster should contain keywords that are specific to that category.

Ad groups can then be used to house clusters of related keywords and the ads that target them. Using the same example as above, you might create separate ad groups for Dresses, Skirts or Formal Wear, respectively. For each ad group, you'll write tailored ad copy that specifically addresses the keywords in that group.

Clustering ensures that your ads are matched with the most relevant search queries and the right types of customers, based on their interests. Grouping increases ad relevance, which can reduce your cost-per-click (CPC) and increase your ROI.

4. Increase online sales with Google Shopping ads

Google Shopping ads are unique ads that are created using the product data directly from your Google Merchant Center account. They display your products directly in search results, leading to more online sales, as well as local traffic and in-store sales.

Here's how to set up Google Shopping ads:

1. Create a Google Merchant Center account. You will need to provide your business details, verify your website and set up tax and shipping information.
2. Set up your product feed. This involves adding detailed information about your products, including titles, descriptions, prices, images and availability.
3. Upload your product feed to Google Merchant Center. You can do this manually or through automated methods like scheduled fetches or API.
4. Link your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts. In the Google Merchant Center, navigate to the "Account Linking" section.
5. Sign in to your Google Ads account and create a new campaign. Click on the "+ New Campaign" button, select "Sales" or "Leads" as your campaign goal, and then choose "Shopping" as the campaign type.
6. Create your ad groups, designate the products you want to promote, and update your campaign settings (campaign name, budget, bidding strategy, keywords, target locations, etc.)

Shopping ads can appear in the paid Google results, Google Play, Google Maps and the Shopping tab, allowing you to get discovered by more customers in more places!

With some creativity and refinement, you can generate more business for your small retail store with SEM. Adopt these innovative strategies to enhance visibility, optimize ad spend and drive more targeted traffic.




Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Photo by PhotoMIX Company/Pexels