In the classic movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin’s less-than-charming character “motivates” the salesmen in the office to sell. He uses the famous sales acronym ABC: Always Be Closing.

For those of you without sales backgrounds, it means that everything you do and say to a potential customer should always be suggesting the sale and promoting that the customer should buy from you. That goes for your website, too.

Is your site “always closing”?

Only a few, good sites are always closing. One great site that’s always closing is Dell.com

Many sites only close sometimes. Instead of suggesting the customer buy, they end up acting more like store windows and turn their potential shoppers into window shoppers, simply looking at the merchandise before they move on.

Here are a few ways to help your site go from sometimes closing to always closing.

1. Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak. This famous saying reminds us to sell the benefits of the product, not the features. Roy Williams turned the diamond sales industry on its head when he told jewelers to stop selling their diamonds based on cut, carat, color, and clarity. Instead, he said they should sell their diamonds by telling people about the good reactions others will have when they see them. They tried it and he was right. Highlight the pain problem and keep it at the forefront of your customer’s mind. Then present your products as the solution. Do this over and over and over and over! (and over and over and over…)

2. Make your sales process very clear and very easy. Too many clicks spoil the sale. If a customer doesn’t know what they’re doing and they’re left up to their own devices, they’ll click here and there until suddenly they’re off your site. Number your steps, and tell them what number they’re on and what’s next. Instead of a “next” button, customers will feel more at ease to buy (and thus, more likely to buy!) if you say “you’re on step 2 of 4… click here to enter your mailing address so we can send you your product!”

3. Get your site in front of your customers quickly. Use images to sell your products… but not too many. This is a tough quandary for most entrepreneurs. You want to have a great site that shows off your products, but if you put too many pictures on the site, it will take forever to load and you’ll lose customers. There are no hard-and-fast rules for this. You simply have to try different configurations and do your best to keep people with all connection speeds happy.

4. Make sure the above-the-fold portion of your first page is amazing. “Above-the-fold” is newspaper jargon. In the online world it means the part of your webpage that your visitor sees without scrolling down. It needs to clearly spell out how great you are at solving your customer’s needs.

5. Don’t look at how others in your industry are selling. Be better than that. Look outside your industry and see how other people are selling their products. You may be surprised when you come up with a few good concepts that no one else is doing.

6. Always include things like a PS in your emails or send coupons to your customers periodically. Every chance you get, promote your product.

If you love what you do, you shouldn’t have any problem taking advantage of every opportunity to Always Be Closing!

Copyright 2006 Khera Communications, Inc., publishers of http://www.MoreBusiness.com, an award-winning website filled with sample business plans, marketing plans, templates, sample contracts and business agreements to help entrepreneurs start and grow a small business. Republished with permission.

Source: High Quality Article Database - 365articles.com

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR (INTRODUCTION)
Consumer Behavior complements and consummates the application of “Marketing Concept” in every organization as a way of achieving overall corporate objectives. Consumers’ experience has been widened by their exposure to competing products, rapid changes in technology, which result in regular availability of innovative products. The information-age consumers are ardent information processors that undergo a lot of internal and external considerations before and after purchasing a product or service. They set high expectations for any product or service to meet their present and future needs. Marketers’ success now anchors on the extent to which they understand and respond perfectly to the behavior of consumers. Marketers are compelled to search for new ideas, theories and principles from behavioral sciences like anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics. It has been found that a consumer involves consideration from these perspectives when making their purchase decisions. However, only a few part of these fields have so far been incorporated into consumer behavior. This relevant part includes topics on which practical researches have been conducted and validated. For a marketer to penetrate the hearts of numerous prospects and consumers, to let them react positively to his products or service; understanding the behavior of consumers is unavoidable because the knowledge acquired about the consumers has an important role to play for the marketer ‘success.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND MARKETING
Professional marketers uses an understanding of consumer behavior to anticipate future behavior based on the implementation of specific marketing strategies. A knowledge of consumer behavior serves as a strong basis for the development of effective and efficient marketing strategy. A careful monitoring of Consumer Behavior in the competitive market enables the marketer to measure the success or failure of a specific marketing strategy. Marketer also uses knowledge of consumer behavior to segment their market.
BUYING DECISIONS
Howard and Sheath (1980) have distinguished three types of buying decision behavior:
1.Routinised response behavior
2.Limited problem solving
3.Extensive problem solving
In buying a product or service, the buyer goes through a decision process consisting of problem recognition, information search and evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behavior. The marketer’s job is to understand the buyer’s behavior at each stage and what influences the prospects and consumers.
Limited problem solving exists when the need is known, every information on the alternative means of solving the problem is also known and the decision maker has to make his decision within the given spectrum.
Extensive problem solving embraces greater uncertainty and there is risk that the final decision is wrongly made. Often the decision maker on his own has very little information on the items and may seek to update this from his friends or professionals.
MODELS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
A model is a simplified representation of a real phenomenon. Model of Consumer Behavior can be expressed verbally or algebraically, but in some cases they take the form of elaborate mathematical form or flow chart. For example, consumption C is a function of income Y, or
C =F (Y)
All Marketers, in collecting, analyzing and interpreting data, use MODELS as a basis for the systematic study of Consumer Behavior. They are interested in understanding the decision processes involved and the relationship between or among the variables that affect consumer decision-making processes.
Consumer Behavior models are concerned with the relationships between inputs into the buying decision, and resultant outcome. This outcome may be positive or negative, a decision to make purchase, or decision to reject a product or service. In dealing with consumers, marketers are confronted with a variety of response possibilities and countless environmental variables.
MODELS CLASSIFICATION
Models of Consumer Behavior can be classified under three broad headings:
1. Black box models; which take no account of the mental processes involved in decision taking, and internal variables are ignored.
2. Personal variable models; which are primarily concerned with internal psychological variables and take no account of external environmental variables.
3. Comprehensive models; which aim to include all categories of variables that have an influence on Consumer Behavior. This model takes both the personal and environmental variables into account. They include the so-called “grand models” such as those put forward by Howard and Sheath, Engel, Kollat and Blackwell, Nicosia.
For detailed information on consumer behavior and application to improve marketing performance and boost sales, purchase my e-book titled “Multi-dimensional Analysis of Consumer Behavior” on my website.

Source: High Quality Article Database - 365articles.com

Bankruptcy is a situation in which someone who owes money will seek relief from their debts by going to court. Though bankruptcy can be good in some situations, it may not always be necessary. Just because you are in a financial strain does not mean you should immediately file for bankruptcy. There are some things you will want to take into consideration first.

Will I or Won’t I?

There is no easy answer to whether or not you should file for bankruptcy. Before making a decision you should first consult an attorney or credit counselor. They will be able to look at all the factors involved with filing bankruptcy, including the advantages and cost. The amount of debt you have is one of the most important factors for whether or not you should file for bankruptcy. It is important to remember that there are many alternative solutions. One solution is to hire a financial manager.

The Financial Manager

Hiring a financial manager is a difficult decision for many people. They take control of your finances, and will pay your bills for you. They will give you a set amount of money to use for anything you wish, but their goal is to make sure all of your bills are paid on time. Using a financial manager is a good idea if you find that many of your problems come from being irresponsible with how you spend your money. Once your bills are under control, you will be given back control of your finances. If this makes you uncomfortable, you could simply use a counseling service. You also want to make sure you use a service that has an excellent reputation.

Many lenders will work with the borrowers in paying back the money owed. It can be difficult for a lender to get back all the money they loaned out to you, even if you file for bankruptcy. Taking you to court will cost them money, and is very time consuming. When collection agencies get back the money that is owed, they will often charge the lender fees, and this will reduce the amount of money they get back. Because of this, many lenders will waive certain fees or charges as long as you make your payments on time.

Refinancing Your Home

If you are the owner of a home, you should consider refinancing in order to use the equity to pay off your debts. This could be a great alternative to filing for bankruptcy. You are likely to get tax deductions for using this method of paying off your debts, and you will also be likely to have much lower interest rates over the long term. You should be cautious when choosing which debt consolidation company you want to use. Many companies will charge you huge fees up front and leave you with a loan that will take years to pay off.

Be Wary Of The Credit Repair ‘Services’

You should also be careful with so called “credit repair” services. Any service which promises to pay off or eliminate bankruptcy from your credit history are likely to be fraudulent. They will end up taking money from you and perhaps making your credit worse than it was before using their services. It is important to only use services that are highly credible. Avoid fly by night operations at all costs. They will leave you in a world of despair and make huge profits at the same time. You should only file fof bankruptcy after you’ve talked to an attorney or credit counselor.

While bankruptcy can relieve you of the debts you owe, it will stay on your credit record for years, and it will be very difficult to apply for a job, home, or even a car. We live in a society that is very credit prone, and it is important to have good credit.

Joseph Kenny writes for the Personal Loans Store and provides more information on debt consolidation loans available on site.

Source: High Quality Article Database - 365articles.com