Business blog

In my previous article, I shared some information with you about 12 things you can do to boost your sales and marketing results for the rest of this year. I’ve included the list of all 12 Ways to Increase Sales at the end of this article.

Once you have written your plan, it’s time to decide if you need to hire an expert to help you and what type of expert you should consider working with. If you are procrastinating and have not begun to write your sales and marketing salary plan, then you definitely need to talk with a professional who can help you get started. However, if you are motivated and organized and ready to move forward with your sales plan, congratulations! Now, you just have some more choices to make:

Option A. Do you have the time, energy and the knowledge to implement your plan successfully? If so, good for you! Just keep in mind, that as you create more success you will need to either hire someone to perform and/or manage operations for your business or hire a salesperson while you manage the daily operations. It’s very difficult to successfully manage customer expectations while continuing to put forth the level of effort required to keep your sales pipeline full of new prospects.

Option B. Or, would you prefer to assign the responsibility for your sales and marketing salaryefforts to a professional?

If you chose Option B, you have still more choices to make, depending upon your budget and other factors.

1. Outsourced sales & marketing - There are outsource service providers who can perform all of or portions of your plan. Some companies only provide the outbound telemarketing and sales appointment setting, while others will work with you to develop the details of your sales and marketing plan, develop a strategy and act as your full-time sales and marketing organization until you are ready to hire an employee. Fees for these types of services vary but are usually a good way to begin a sales program or test a marketing campaign without committing to a lengthy hiring and training process.

2. Hire a full-time employee(s) - Hiring a rock-star salesperson is every business owner or sales manager’s dream. Before doing so, it’s important to understand what the various compensation packages are within your industry: is it straight commission? a draw against commission? salary plus bonus? What level of professional will you need? Can you train this person or do you want someone who is ’seasoned’ and has an extensive list of contacts and accounts they can bring on board immediately?

3. If you choose to hire a full-time marketing (only) person, what are the specific responsibilities for that person? How will their performance be measured? If you outsource your marketing, be sure to work with someone who can outline a specific set of objectives and timelines for each project.

4. A combination of employee and outsourcing - Many companies outsource a portion of their marketing and sales programs at some point. This can combine the best of all worlds because the two can work together to generate great success. To do so, it’s imperative that the objectives of the project(s) are clearly outlined before implementation begins. Again, consider what your total budget is and find a resource that has the ability to accomplish what you want within your budget. You may need to implement your project in phases to stay within your budget and give the sales and marketing activity time to begin reaping results. This will, of course, depend upon your industry and the specifics of your situation.

If you are just getting started in business, or don’t have the ability to pay for experienced professionals just yet, here are some ideas to help you get to that point:

1. “Hire” an intern. Contact your local community college, university or high schools in your area and ask them how to post an internship within their system. Many students will work for free or minimum wage a few hours per week in exchange for a letter of recommendation and the ability to list the experience on their resume’. Hire an intern to perform some of your regular office tasks (such as entering data into your CRM and mailing information to prospects) so that you have time to focus on sales efforts. Or, many college students will have the ability to help you create marketing collateral such as brochures and web sites or write your marketing plan.

2. Plan your time wisely. Doing everything that needs to be done within your business can be time consuming and frustrating - especially if you are not well organized. Schedule a few hours every day to focus on your ongoing sales and marketing effort so that you can eventually have the budget to pay someone else to do this for you! After all, isn’t that part of the reason you started your own business - to have more control over your time (and more money?)?

3. Read and follow the next 10 weeks of this article series. It will include valuable information about specific ways to build your successful sales system. This is only Week 2 in this 12-part series that explores How to Increase Sales & Marketing with these 12 Strategies.

As promised, here is the list of 12 Strategies to Increase Sales and Marketing:

1. Get a plan

2. Hire an expert

3. Define your process

4. Organize your data

5. Define & expand your market

6. Be different

7. Communicate to your market

8. Look at your web site - would you buy from you?

9. Ask for testimonials

10. Do a better job at networking

11. Pick up the phone and call someone

12. Write something