If you’re like a lot of small-business owners, you probably believe your advertising efforts are working because you’re making sales. But do you know which ads are working?

If not, it’s time to get a better handle on your advertising’s ROI. After all, why waste money buying advertising that isn’t working?

You need to look at two things: which specific ads bring in customers, and which advertising media results in new business. An ad placed in a weekly shopper-type publication may draw new business week after week, while the same ad place in a local, tabloid-format newspaper may not attract any new customers. Or, vice versa.

You can find out which ads and media are producing customers by tracking responses to your ads. …read more at How To Tell Which Ads Are Working – SmallBizResource.com, published 5 March 2009.

Flickr photo credit: Bright Star

What do clients really want and need from salespeople? What do they want from the sales process? Well, although it may seem to many frustrated salespeople that what clients want is to be left alone, this isn’t entirely the case, says sales expert Randy Illig.

„The idea that they don’t want to talk to salespeople isn’t true,“ insists Illig, a senior consultant with FranklinCovey’s Sales Performance Group. „They just don’t want to talk to all salespeople.“

Clients want a competent salesperson focused on their numbers and needs, not on his or her own sales objectives, says Illig. They want an efficient sales process that results in good decisions that work to their benefit.

„And the process should add value to customers by exploring choices and assessing the impact of those choices so clients can decide with confidence,“ he explains. „Because at the highest level, the biggest fear clients have is that someone will talk them into a poor decision and a bad outcome.“ ..read more at Making the Most of Your Sales Pitches – NFIB.com, published 4 March 2009

Flickr photo credit: Shutter Daddy