Marketing In a Virtual World

Before the Internet, small business owners as we were usually limited to a local market -resorting to expensive advertising and brochures, direct mail, cold calling. We were hoping customers find you by word of mouth or Yellow Pages advertising.

Today, we can work with a consultant, a financial planner or a business coach in the country as easily as someone across the city.This is the age of the virtual client. However, while the Internet has made perfect sense to land a major client, you have never met in person; he also created new expectations among consumers.

Customers now "Google" around to find someone with your skills. They expect us to make  a good "deal" virtual for you. If you do not pass the test, or to make a bad impression, or appear dull compared to your competitors, you will lose potential customers.

The only way to be truly successful in business is to establish a good reputation. And understanding of how the business has moved into the Internet age can help you put your company's marketing potential in the virtual world.

The First Virtual Impression

The Internet has raised expectations among consumers and businesses will have a credible presence online.Many of us are now make "first impressions" of people and businesses via our web browsers. From the moment your name and company appear in a Web browser . Our first impression often means the difference between a blow to the business of your prospect, or be shut down.

"Social Media Optimization"

Think about it. You probably used the Internet in search of a company or a person you are considering doing business with. Certainly, customers and potential customers look online, too.Prospects you've never met form opinions about your business at the click of a mouse. Internet first impressions are not only influenced by the way your website looks, but also how your business appears often or how high it ranks in a web browser.

Become a Online center of influence

We all know people who command considerable attention every time they speak. Others want to listen, learn, and imitate them. They are centers of influence, a distinction, you can continue online by developing the following qualities:

• Share knowledge within your target market;
• Participate, listen, contemplate, and offer thoughtful responses;
• Be prepared to express an opinion;
• Assume leadership positions in your industry

Certainly, experience counts. But it is not the only requirement for an online center of influence that will earn the distinction of "trusted advisor" within your target market.

Start by making your website a resource for your industry. Feature lots of useful information, including articles, links, downloads, customer resources, and nothing else use to your target market. Be generous and give, give, give!

Place items online

Online articles based on your expertise by providing useful information that website visitors are actively looking. Online articles, position yourself as an expert in your field and pass a level of authority that establishes trust and opens the way for the sale.

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Social Media Optimization (SMO)

SMO is an acronym for "Social Media Optimization," which is actually a buzzword that refers to ways to optimize online content for social media distribution.

SMO is also used as shorthand for how the content is widely shared online, or the variety and number of channels in social media through which it is distributed. Sometimes it is referred to as Social Media SEO

What is the purpose of SMO?

Since SMO has become a popular marketing term, people use it to mean all sorts of things related to the marketing of websites, services and products, but in general, the goal of SMO is to drive traffic and exposure through the use of social media. Perhaps the simplest way to describe SMO is to say that it refers to almost everything about the smart use of social media.

There are many things people can do to websites and mobile content to make them most likely to be shared across social media, such as adding a Facebook Like button or "send this "for a Web page. These actions are examples of SMO, like everything that makes it easier for people to share content. These actions are considered SMO because they optimize content for social sharing.

How SEO is different from SMO?

SMO is related to SEO, an acronym for "Search Engine Optimization", which in turn means optimizing online content for better results in the search results.Both concepts (SMO and SEO) are similar because both involve optimization of online content so that it is more likely to be seen by a greater number of people.Site owners who want search engines to find and rank their sites more prominent have long referred to the practice of organizing and tweaking their sites to appear better to search engines.

Unsurprisingly, when social media became fashionable in marketing, SMO sentence arose to describe a similar concept for social media - refine online content or a website to facilitate the distribution of tools and social media services.SEO and SMO today are closely linked because search engines take into account how any content place in social media - or how it is widely shared - as one of many factors in formulas to determine placement in the search results.

Key Ingredients SMO

Good content - like SEO, high quality, good content is perhaps the most important in the social media optimization factor. It is real simple - the better the content, the more likely it is to be shared.

Sharing Buttons - Social sharing buttons are particularly important tools for SMO, too. Placing buttons in places where people are likely to click share and can strongly stimulate the distribution of this content. And long term, the additional sharing can lead to better search engine rankings.

Engagement - Encourage conversation, dialogue, or any other type of engagement with your content is another excellent strategy for SMO. It could be as simple as inviting comment or having a survey. Whatever the method, getting people to respond to your comment has a viral effect.

Share your Stuff - Sharing your own content in social media channels is also a key element of any strategy SMO. The more channels you send your content, the more it will be seen and shared by people who do not visit your site to see it.

SMO Tools: Automate Your Social Media Management

A ton of tools for managing social media exist to help people and businesses optimize their content for social media, so that these tools can be considered SMO tools.

The tools include a variety of programs dashboards that enable people to manage multiple social media accounts from one place, like Hootsuite, Buffer , Social Flow and various Twitter clients.

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Benefits of Online Marketing

Marketing online is stretching marketing budgets for many companies. We are all looking for ways to market more effectively along to save the most money possible. The solution? Evaluate online marketing. Marketing your business online brings many benefits that are not available with traditional and offline marketing.

1 - You can make changes on the fly.

One of the advantages of online marketing versus offline marketing such as placing traditional advertisements in magazines, newspapers or on television is that you can change on the fly. By monitoring and check how your advertisements and marketing efforts are doing you can make the decision to change a graphic or wording and do it without any problem. This is not to be the case with traditional marketing and advertising.

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2 - You can follow the results in real time.

Online marketing allows you to track the results in real time using the online analysis to make a decision on how your marketing campaign is performing. There are ways to track traditional marketing efforts, but most of the time it can not be done in real time. This can mean the success or failure of your campaign.

3 - You can target specific demographics in your advertising.

Online marketing allows you to target specific demographics such as gender, age and location. You can even target specific income levels, education levels and occupation. You can do this in traditional marketing, but it is not so easy and is often a guessing game.

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4 - Variety of methods of online marketing, including e-mail, audio, video, blog, social media and newsletters.

There are so many options when marketing online. You can use audio, video, blogs, e-mail, social media and newsletters underway. If you were to do the same thing in traditional marketing, you need to select several media outlets to cover your bases.

5 - Ability to instant conversion

When you market online, you have the ability to instantly convert a client. This does not mean the case when evaluating marketing options in traditional media such as advertisements in magazines, newspapers or television. When you are marketing online, you can not only capture information from a potential client, but you can capture a sale instantaneously by a few mouse clicks, when it comes to offline marketing, it takes more time to convert a customer into a sale not to mention the personal power it often requires.

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Mistakes in Social Media Marketing

I've been writing a lot lately about social media marketing, and how to use it in your marketing strategy, but I must admit, I have recently become irritated. There are a lot of companies, I mean big business and soloprenuer who has started to think social media marketing is a get rich quickly or quick solution to small marketing budget to shoot through recession with little or no effort.

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Stop it! Social media is about interaction, and if I haven’t told you once, I aid this, at least a hundred times: it's all about interaction! In the interaction, build relationships; In the establishment of these relationships, there is the opportunity to share your products and services are. This will not happen overnight. Time, consistency and the establishment of a genuine interest is necessary in the creation  and promotion of these relationships. If you do not want to do this, then hire consultants to do it for you; if you do not want to do that either, then FORGET about SOCIAL MEDIA

There is no standard list of right and wrong when it comes to social media, but one thing is constant: no matter what industry you are in, what is bad and you will destroy your reputation in the media social. You can save your reputation by keeping these ways.

Social Media No and Nos

There is no you, INTERACT.

Meet others, Try to know them; It’s not just about trying to sell and promote your products because It will not work.

Spam is not RIGHT.

It is true that spam has become a problem in the social media networks, and we have to weed through it, as we do in our inbox email. No spam followers; if they do not ask, do not send. It's so simple! Permission Marketing is the key.

Inconsistency will lead to FAILURE.

You must be consistent when it comes to using social media. Participate once a month or once a week just not getting the results you want.

Do not be a social media snob.

Obviously, social marketing is to be social; be willing to learn from others, and remember it’s not only about others in your industry.

Want subscribers? You must be a FOLLOWER

Just like you cannot open a store and think the customers will just appear, You cannot just Sign Up and start thinking that everyone in the world will just come and follow you. You must be a follower. Social marketing is not about flying SOLO, Participate

Types of Marketing Strategies

It is important to realize that social media marketing works, but as with any marketing strategy, there are the fundamentals of that strategy to implement. You need to find the right social media marketing medium that will work for you and your industry campaigns and design your campaigns in a way that present the results you want. It is a little to no cost marketing option, but you have to invest your time. If you're not willing to do that, consider selecting another marketing option or outsourcing your social media marketing with a company that can help you create and implement your marketing strategy into practice. If you decide to outsource, just be sure to choose a company or a consultant who has an idea of what they do.

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Is Email Marketing Dead?

All of us receive a lot of emails every day; it is difficult for marketer to get his message in the inbox. What does it mean? Is the email marketing dead?

We have seen some companies give up on email and move towards social networking, mobile messaging and instant applications, including messaging. We've all seen a shift in marketing budgets used in social channels and digital display, but I'll show you why email marketing is not dead and you have to give the highest value to your email campaign so that you get a higher return on investment.

Email still represents a much larger share of customers as compared to social media channels. After all 91% of us use email on a daily basis.

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I'll tell you what is dead when it comes to email marketing -It is the "email blast", where you put everyone together in one list and just blast them till they are forced to hit the spam button . These types of emails exaggerate consumers. It's like watching your favorite TV show and being hit with a commercial every 2 minutes. Annoyed??

Remember, we have the tools to understand the behavior of our customers. If you are not using these tools as analysis, surveys and segmentation you are missing the boat to marketing and it's time to reassess your approach.

As a marketer you need to understand your customers and reach them with information that not only are relevant, but also find attractive. Your messaging must talk to them.

That is your contest, if you take it. If not, email is dead to you. If you are ready for the challenge then I have a couple of best practices that will help you to ignite the spark in your email campaigns.

Re-opt in campaign

If you've been sending emails and you realize that many of your messages are bounced or returned as spam may be time for a new option in the campaign. Rebuild your list with new Id’s and make sure you are sending the mail to only those who want to receive them.

Sure, this may mean that you lose 50% of your list, but its better to emailing those who want to hear from you to purge out those who do not?

A re-opt in campaign can save you time and money in the long run. Just think about it, every email you send costs you to those who do not want to receive it and it also a effects your reputation.

Go ahead; ask your customers the magic question - "Do you want to continue listening to us," Keep your copy short and to the point.

Rebuilding trust

Now that you have rebuilt your list, you need to rebuild trust. You can build trust by sending an email to the information they have requested and respecting their time. Use your list to engage your subscribers and create a dialogue. It's OK to market and sell your products, but focuses more on building relationships and continues building trust with them so they want to do engage with you.

Another way to build trust is to let them know what to expect when they subscribe to your list. Will you be emailing monthly, weekly, or only when there are special offers? What content should you expect? If you set expectations in the beginning there will be no surprises. A good practice is to send a "welcome" email after subscribing explaining everything out for them.

Segment and optimize your campaigns

The days are gone when you write one message for everyone. You have to make sure your list is getting the information they want. Asked to list the information you would like to receive. Are they interested in the products and / or specific services? Are they only interested in special offers? Do you have unique demographic features that allow you to customize your messaging? Segmentation is the key in optimizing and maintaining a committed list.

Provide Value

Do your emails include information all about you, your products and services? Give value to your patrons. Provide your subscribers with unique content that is interesting, educational and engaging. This will make your subscribers to read it. If this is all about "selling" and provides no value you will quickly make your subscribers to lose interest in your emails. Remember the messages that  are more personal solves a problem and educational are the most effective email content,. If you follow these things you will see your email list to grow gradually.

Email marketing is not dead if you use it as a marketing tool to encourage conversation with your subscribers, your potential customers, in a way to know their needs and gives them the answers they want.

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10 Fantastic Feature that Microsoft Band has

10 Fantastic Features that the Microsoft Band has!

Microsoft unveils the ‘Microsoft Band’

1. Microsoft Health is a new service that allows you to live healthier lives by providing actionable insights based on data collected from fitness equipment and applications you use every day. It is designed to work for you, no matter what phone you have, the device that you wear, or services you use. Microsoft keeps track of the most insightful personal physical health easier and more holistic. Microsoft Band, the first device powered by Microsoft's health, helping you achieve your wellness objectives by monitoring your heart rate, steps, calories burned and sleep quality. It also helps you to be more productive with forecasts and email alerts - right on your wrist.

2. Microsoft Band works with the phone you have.

iPhone, Android or Windows Phone? Microsoft Band is designed to be great on multiple platforms. With Bluetooth 4.0, your data syncs to your phone in the background, so that Microsoft Band is always updated. You do not have to connect to get the latest.

3. If you use Windows Phone 8.1, Cortana ask to take notes or set reminders with your voice. It will give you directions and news for sports, stocks, weather, and more. She is ready to help whenever you need it. Your own personal digital assistant gives you and makes your life easier. Extracts mail and calendar alerts will appear right on your wrist so that you know what you have to do and where you should be. And with the help of Cortana, your productivity will surely increase.

4. See incoming call and voice mail notifications on your wrist. Get your text messages right on your wrist and respond with a pre-established instant response. Do not miss the last tweet your friend or Facebook update. Get the latest posts, comments, photos, personal messages and notifications on your band. See all on your wrist.

5. Microsoft Band makes it easier to achieve your fitness goals. You can track your daily physical activity and review your stats with a glance at your wrist. Just like a personal trainer, Microsoft Band guides the constant learning about yourself, your current fitness level, and your future needs.

- Run: 

Whether you're on the treadmill at the gym or outside in the rain or sun, you can see a summary of your route with customized settings in the phone application, including rate divided and heart rate.

- Steps: 

Set a goal and track your progress.

-Calorie Calculator

Microsoft Band calculates the calories you have burned and the distance you've traveled each day.

- 24 hours heart rate monitor:

Gives you a better understanding of your calorie intake, sleep patterns, and peak and resting heart rate so that you can perform at your best.

- Monitoring Calorie

Counting calories you burn each day. See daily or weekly stats, set goals, and receive a "high-five" virtual when you reach it.

-Guided Workouts 

Fun and challenging training sessions for partners as fitness Gym and the physical condition of men with exercise prompts on your wrist and much more.

- Monitoring of sleep 

When enabled, Microsoft Band follows the length and quality of your sleep.

- Integrated GPS: 

Measure the distance you have run and your pace and follows the way. Save your favorites to retrace your steps and help you later.

6. The color touch screen is bright and easy to read, even in bright sunlight. Select "Watch Mode" to always display the date and time today without pressing. Set your laps or all of your workout with the stopwatch button. Set alarms to wake silently or remember go for a run. Choose the alerts you have on your wrist. Change notification settings on your phone and your Microsoft band match.

7.No need to reach for your wallet. Enjoy coffee on the go with your Starbucks ready to scan at arm's card. This is the result of collaboration with Microsoft for the Microsoft Starbucks group.

8.With your choice of designs and background colors, Microsoft Band reflect your personality. Press the icon on your band to turn all notifications off and enable Do Not Disturb. The battery is expected to last for 48 hours, and can be changed depending on the use of GPS

9. Microsoft has also collaborated with popular fitness applications such as:

- Runkeeper: 

You have a RunKeeper account? Synchronize your data with Microsoft Band RunKeeper for a more complete view of your active life with the applications you like.

- Gold Gym: 

Get the contents of fitness premium Gold's Gym right on your wrist. Establish and track your results in your application and follow prompts.

- MyFitnessPal: 

The band synchronizes with MyFitnessPal to help you track your daily calorie intake and see how many calories you use overall. 

10. Microsoft group comes with a 1 year warranty, dust and splash resistant.

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Must Follow Rules for the success of small business

Must Follow Rules For the Success of Small Business

Now a days everyone is starting and want to start its own business on a small scale. Here are some hard and fast rules for the success of your business

Target

They are not all things to all people. Decide on your niche - you narrow your focus and broaden your appeal.

Be Different

If your competitors are doing, do not do it. Stand out in a crowded market, where much of the advertising and products look the same.

Form a team

Do not hire an employee to fill a position. The use of a person, part of a team to build your business.

Be quick

Time is the most precious commodity. If delivery is expected Thursday show up on wednesday. Get return calls and e-mails.

Say thank you

Let your customers and employees know how much you value them. Better yet, do it the old fashioned way: take pen and paper and write a note for them.

Be consistent

Make sure your company has a uniform appearance. A customer should get the same taste from everyone in your organization.

Smile

Throw the reasons why you think that people will buy from you as price, quality of the product or warranty. They purchase it from you because they like.

Fanatical optimism

The glass must always be half full. Attitude will always win in the end and infect everyone around you.

Soft Sell

Never hard sell. Solve problems. Satisfy want. Do what is really best for your customers.

Leave your comfort zone

Never accept the idea that this is the only way we've always opted,Never accept that a new idea or technology would never work for you.

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Marketing Lessons To Learn From ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

If you have not heard of ALS Ice Cube Challenge I wonder if you've been walking around with your head in the sand. The ALS Ice Challenge is an excellent example of the power of social media to make something viral.

Types of Marketing Strategies

The ALS Ice Challenge is the seamless example of the power of social media, charity and celebrity endorsements combined to create a campaign that has exploded into a viral campaign. The contest is attributed to Pete Frates, baseball player Boston College who was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 While the story of how he started the challenge is heartbreaking, the result has been overwhelming and an actual case study of how social media can work when used effectively and for the good of others. Although Pete Frates Boston was the challenge. It quickly spread nationwide in the United States to India.

According to a press release issued by Facebook, where most of the challenge has been reported more than 28 million people have joined the conversation by posting, commenting or like publications regarding the challenge from 1 June to 17 August. It has been a reported 1.7 million related to the challenge posted and shared on Facebook.

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Public figures and celebrities have joined the challenge. Participants include Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry, Kobe Bryant and more.

So, what can marketers learn from this challenge? How can we take help from this challenge to create our own amazingly successful marketing campaigns?

Evoke emotions

Do not underestimate the value of emotion in a campaign. Peter Frakes helped Ice Cube Challenge ALS staff and many of the videos that we saw spread sentiment all over the campaign and rightly so. How you can use emotion to make your marketing campaign more personal? How can you share their values ​​and priorities in his campaign? Evoking emotion you'll draw more people and create a desire for them to take action and be part of.

Do not complicate

Keep your campaigns simpler. Often we complicate things and our prospects and potential customers asking what we want them to do. Think of the challenge - just maintained, the rules were simple, the action was simple. Take the challenge, soak with ice or make a donation to ALS - there was nothing complicated or confusing.

Timing is everything

The challenge began in the summer heat, it was the perfect time. It was also at the end of summer a popular time for family holidays, children freed from school and work hours are lax. The weather can make or break your marketing campaign. A couple of things that play at the moment of his campaign are seasonality, psychology, responsiveness and unique business cycle. Create the ability to be able to respond to any situation quickly and this will give you an edge over all your competition.

Get involved personalities and celebrities

Get public figures and / or celebrities can help in spreading their message. When celebrities and sports figures were in the Ice Cube Challenge ALS increased exposure to fans and helped spread like wildfire. This is not always the easiest component to achieve, but if you can it may be worth. If you think national celebrity is out of your league and budget of course, there is nothing wrong with considering those within your local market. Think about this, you'll be glad you did.

Be clear on your objective

Be clear on your goal; keep your eye on the goal. His campaign has a clear call to action. The goal of the challenge was to raise money by attracting new and potential donors. They succeeded; more than $ 40 million in donations were received from 29 July to 21 August. Compare this with last years $ 2.1 million dollars. They succeeded in their goal, as they were clear. Be clear in your campaign - what do you want your audience to do?

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Google Plus Vs Facebook

I have always used this scenario when it comes to explaining all the different social media networks -

• Facebook - Network for friends and family

• Twitter - Network foreigners

• LinkedIn - professional network

• Google+ - A collaboration of all the above

There was a time when people compare Facebook and Google - of course, there were significant differences, Google was a search engine - Facebook was a social network. But now Google has entered the picture with Google Plus it, social network. Facebook and Google+ have a little more similarities now and many ask me where they should spend their time.

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The answer is simple - spend your time where you get the most worth. That's the cool answer, but let me see if I can break it down into a little "nuts and bolts" explanation.

The introduction of Google Plus, we added the following:

Circles

Using circles to share specific things with specific people. You may not want your customers to see the same things that you post on a networking group. You can have the circle with a colleague where you share things with people that you partner with or work. This makes it a little easier to keep your work life and your personal life separate.

You can do with Facebook, but you'll need to create these groups in a list. This can be a little heavy, but it's a nice work around.

Video chat (Hangouts)

One feature that a Google+ offer that I think it’s great from a commercial point of view is video conversations. You can have up to 10 people join you for a video chat, they call these HANGOUTS. It's a great way to make a Q & A or even make a product demonstration. I like the idea and many musicians are also used to do shows and spread the word about their music. What could you do with video chat? Think of the possibilities, I think, by doing this you will see what a big deal it is.

The group chat (Huddle)

By using Facebook, you can chat with another person, but you can not create a video discussion group. I do not know how it could play in the marketing efforts, but it's nice to have the option if you wanted to shoot colleagues to discuss a client or you can also use it as a Q & A free video option. Lots of luck here.

Sparks

Sparks is one of my favorite features of Google+, you can not only share content with your users, but users who have created sparks that correlate with what you share can see this information. Sparks is a recommendation engine that Google has set up for users to Google+. Users can find information based on their interest easily.

Streams

Tired of all the clutter and noise? Tweak your Google+ stream to display as you want to see. Select what you want to see circles in your stream and you're ready.

Search value

Research is limited, but we are already seeing bumps in circulation in search marketing when it comes to Google Plus. Using Google Plus and focusing on your Google profile, you'll begin to see rapid growth in search traffic. Many see the first indications that the activity on Google+ will help the visibility of your business and website.

It is important to realize that I'm not trying to influence any of you away from FB; if that's where your viewers are then by all means keeps it working. However, if you have not seen a return on investment from Facebook, it may be time to assess where you are spending your time social networking.

Where to employ your social networking time

Choose the network that suits you. When I say suits you, I mean it brings some payback on investment of your time. When evaluating ROI of social media for clients, I always tell them to look at the following to determine the value:

• Increase site visitors
• Increase impressions
• Positive press mentions
• Click-through
• Word-of-mouth mentions
• Employment applications submitted for your company
• Blog mentions
• Followers through increased social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn

When you understand what network gives you the best results among the above items, you know the network that works best for your business. Do not spread so, then the work you put into it is useless, find what works for you and participate in that - that's the key to social media success.

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Difference Between Marketing & Sales

Do you know what the difference between sales and marketing is? Let’s have a bird eye view on this question for a second. Without marketing no customer or leads to follow up, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress. Marketing and sales must work closely with each other, but most companies have separate units that do not even speak to each other.

If we divide the fundamentals, marketing is everything you do to reach and persuade prospects and the sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed treaty or agreement. Both are needs to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. If you work for strategically combining both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth. However, for the same reason, if the efforts are unbalanced or departments do not communicate may deviate business growth.

Your marketing should consist of strategies that you can measure your reach and works to convince your prospects that you are the one for them. It's the message that makes your customers for sale. It may consist of promotion, PR, brand marketing, affiliation marketing, viral marketing, DM and social media marketing

The sales process consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often accomplished by a meeting one-on-one, cold calling and networking. It is something that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance. Most of the time the prospect or potential customer has taken you through marketing efforts.

I like to think of it like this, your marketing efforts activate the procedure of the eight contacts that studies show it takes to move a prospect or potential customer to closing the sale. If marketing is done effectively you can begin to move that prospect from a cold state to a warm lead cable. When the prospect hits the level of "hot" is much easier for the sales professional or sales department nearby for sale

Do you see the cycle?

Studies have shown that multiple contacts using both sales and marketing to move the prospect from one level to another are needed. That's why it is important that you develop a process that combines both sales and marketing. This will allow you to reach prospects at all three stages; cold, warm, and hot. It's all about balance. Make sure you have combined the two, sales and marketing. They are not a single body. If they are different departments, departments should speak and communicate in order to be effective.

Not sure how to integrate marketing and sales?

Try this. Take a few minutes and divide your prospect lists and database into categories of cold, warm and hot leads. Then sit down and determine a strategy on how to proceed with each individual group.

For example, you could try the following contact methods:

Cold Lead Strategy - Send a direct mail promotion or special offer

Hot Lead Strategy - Try a follow up call, send a sales letter, or schedule a special seminar or training session for all of your warm leads together.

Once you have moved your prospect to the "warm" level it is time to proceed with the closing of the sale, call if you want to pass the baton. This will be easier to do if you are involved in some way perspective. You can do this by making a call from one-on-one, make a presentation or submit a proposal, estimate or contract.

What if you do not feel comfortable with the process of selling or marketing?

An alternative that is often successful is to partner with someone who has the talents you feel you lack. If you are stronger in marketing, search for the one who knows and aware of the sales process. If you are best in sales to find someone that can help support the message, craft marketing tackles that sell and give you the tactics and ideas. If you work in a company that consists of departments and is working alone you can do this by creating a partnership, outsourcing or hiring that talent.

Remember that the key to success in marketing and sales is balance!

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