Newsletter ArchiveSUBJECTs:Slumping Sales and Possible Remedies - Pop Up Ads The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter This issue is for Friday, December 07, 2001 Table of Contents 01.Slumping Sales and Possible Remedies 02. Pop Up Ads *01 Slumping Sales and Possible Remedies Every company or salesperson goes thru a sales slump at one time or another. Right now, there's a lot going on in the world. Maybe you just can't seem to hit the sales quotas needed for success and are dealing with sales underachievement. However, don't be too quick to blame your lack of performance on world events before you do a little self-evaluation. Try asking yourself or your salespeople these questions. -Do you and your salespeople believe that your company offers a quality product or service? Lack of faith in your product or service will cost you sales. Most people can’t sell a product they don’t believe in or see as a bad value. -Do you or your salespeople have good work habits? Coming to work late, taking two hour lunches, creating busy work, killing time, lack of purpose. These are signs of poor work habits. -Are you or your salespeople having trouble with outside pressures? Personal problems concerning family, money and health can affect a individual's performance. -Are you or your salespeople having trouble with drugs and or alcohol? Some times your best salespeople live by the motto, “Work Hard, Play Hard” and some of the traits that make them good salespeople also place them at great risk for these types of problems. When sales are slumping, tension starts building and you can begin to press for orders instead of working at your best. Don’t panic. If you do, things will just get worse. Have the fortitude to take action and try these steps. 1-Admit that you are in trouble and start working to solve the problem by building a plan of action. List five things you could be doing to work smarter and harder. 2-Realize that the problem started weeks or months ago and will take time to turn around. 3-Determine if you might have changed something in your sales process that could be causing the problem. Did you change your presentation or try a different approach? It could be the problem. 4-Review your sale presentation, take the customer's perspective. Have a third party evaluate your presentation. If possible tape record a real presentation, then evaluate it afterward. Act to correct any problem you find. 5-PROSPECT! Start making new contacts with a fresh group of people. The simple fact is, the more people you talk to, the more sales you will make. You can’t score if you don’t get in the game. 6-Remember what made you successful to start with. Think about your past success, visualize how you felt and hold that image. If you believe you can’t be successful, you won’t. 7-Read a book on sales, you can discover methods or ideas you may have forgotten. Keep the slump in perspective. Once you accept the fact that you can change it, you will. Have patience and work at it. Bad times do turn around. If you would like to pass on your ideas on how our readers might improve their business send them to me (Chuck Arning) at chuck@inter800.com AT&T TeleConference Services are available 24 x 7 to help you take care of business at a moments notice. It's easy, effective, and affordable. Call now 1-800-232-1234 or visit us at www.att.com/conferencing/index4.html *02 Pop Up Ads I'm going to start by asking your forgiveness in advance. You see, I'm about to go off on a very personal rant, disguised as a newsletter article. My first subject regards pop-up ads. These are the ads that "pop-up" in a separate browser window when you visit a web page that utilizes this form of advertising. Advertising trade publications and reports refer to this as "aggressive". I prefer the term intrusive. Disruptive, annoying, and totally ineffective are some alternate terms that could also be used. What amazes me is, according to Web analysts at Cyveillance, 30 percent of the top U.S. sites currently utilize this technology. Some sites, such as Excite, exercise restraint, providing only one pop-up during each users visit. I can live with this. Others (who shall remain nameless) have the ads set so they reappear every time a link is clicked (oftentimes displaying the exact same ad again and again). Further, I've seen pop up ads that "hide", meaning they don't appear instantly but run in the background unseen. They periodically generate a new pop-up window, but closing this window doesn't close the source of origination. Clicking the application on the task bar produces nothing and the ad can only be shut down by using the Control/Alt/Delete function. To me, this is flat-out wrong. The only equivalent I can think of would be a TV commercial that continues to replay even after you've changed to another channel. Another tactic I'm not too thrilled with is called "mouse trapping". Mouse trapping is a technique designed to keep people within a web site. It prohibits the user from backing out of the site, returning them to the Home page whenever the back button is used. Give me a break. This would be the equivalent of locking a store's doors after a customer enters. Personally, I subscribe to the rule that if a practice or technique seems deceitful or sneaky, don't do it. While I am a huge proponent of advertising sponsored content on the web, I don't think cramming ads down people's throats, hiding ads that can't easily be disabled, trapping visitors in your site or any other dubious tactic is the solution. If I visit a web site, presumably it's for content within that site. I'm not likely to get distracted by a totally unrelated ad and wander off on another path. In fact, such is my haste to get on with my business, I seldom even read the ad at all. Further, sites that bombard me with these intrusive, annoying ads are probably going to be avoided in the future. >From my own research, these ads are not very effective. If you utilize this type of advertising within your site, ask yourself, is it really worth destroying your relationship with a viewer for a couple of bucks a month? For those that mousetrap, do you really think that blocking people from leaving your site will encourage them to buy from you after they've already decided not to? And what about those that HAVE made a purchase and still can't leave? Technologically speaking, just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should. If you're going to add advertising to your site, please exercise common sense. The tactics I've mentioned are intentionally disruptive to a consumer's surfing experience and will elicit a viewer's resentment, which in turn may be directed at either the advertiser or the publisher. >From Cyveillance's Brian Murray, the senior director of client services: "There is undoubtedly a growing level of consumer frustration online that poses a threat to global brands. The use of these aggressive techniques is highly disruptive to the customer's experience and highlights the shortsightedness, desperation and inexperience of some online ventures. For companies with established brands, association with technological practices that frustrate shoppers can undermine brand equity. Left unmanaged, the abuse of popular brands can divert customers from their intended destination, wreaking havoc on the customer experience." George Paul george@gotollfree.com Vegas Vacation has the best rates on Las Vegas Hotel Rooms. Don't make a reservation without calling us first! Call 800-637-6442 or visit our ad in the Internet 800 Directory: http://inter800.com/02281174.htm Banners? Pay-per-click? Why not target your market with links or information placed in relevant content? The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter offers direct access to business people who are interested buyers. Advertising: Information on how to sponsor this publication: Call 800-299-1879 Thanks for taking to time to review our newsletter for this week. If you know of anyone that might benefit from receiving this newsletter, send them to (http://www.inter800.com/news800/ ) where they can subscribe. All Contents Copyright ©1995-2001 The Internet 800 Directory Subscribe To The Newsletter: |