While you could certainly name the economy or inadequate marketing as the culprit, I’d like to suggest a third alternative. It may be the constraints of the billable hours model that keep you from your financial goals.

Let’s face it, there are only so many hours you can actually bill to clients. For example, the national average for consultants is 22 billable hours per week. You can only raise your rates so high and still find enough customers. And if you spend more time on marketing, that’s less time you have available to bill.

But there’s a way out of this trap. No matter what type of business you’re in, you can use intellectual property to crack the billable hours ceiling. Here are just some of the ways to start tapping into this resource today:

Package your process. What if every time you began work with a new client, they paid an up-front fee before you spent even one hour with them? If you sell a process rather than your time, clients will pay for access to your previously developed materials. Examples are workbooks, forms, assessments, surveys, games, self-paced programs, and train-the-trainer packages.

Give a class. When you assemble a group of people to learn together, you can earn more per hour than working with them separately. Classes can be given at your office, at a rented (or borrowed) facility, on the phone, or on the web. Your market for classes is not just your clients, think about what you could teach your colleagues as well.

Record a tape, CD, or video. The simplest way to make recordings is to capture your live classes or speaking engagements on audio or video. Make your unedited recordings available immediately on the web or by phone. More polished recordings can be made with the help of a local studio or editor, or you can learn to do this yourself with the right equipment.

Write a white paper, workbook, or booklet. Short publications like these are easily within your reach, even if you don’t consider yourself a writer. A simple 20-page booklet might have as few as 4000 words in it. If you’ve written four articles to promote your business, you’ve probably already written this much. These are perfect formats for e-books, which cost you nothing to print.

Author a book. This might seem an impossible task, but if you write one page a day, five days a week, at the end of a year you’ll have a full-length book. If writing isn’t your strong point, find an editor, ghost writer, or even a co-author who has the skills you lack. You don’t have to wait until your book is finished to start selling excerpts as articles and white papers.

Market other people’s products. If you don’t yet have your own product, don’t let it stop you. You can begin earning passive income by selling other people’s books and tapes, becoming a re-seller for software or assessment tools, licensing someone else’s process, or joining affiliate programs.

Any of these products can be marketed in conversations with prospects and clients, in your standard marketing kit, in mailings or newsletters, on your outgoing voice mail message, and on your web site.

If you’ve been counting on hourly fees for your entire income, you may be surprised at the impact developing your intellectual property will have. It will add not only to your revenue, but also your professional credibility. And in poor economic times, you will find that prospects who hesitate to pay for personal service will still purchase classes and information products.

We have identified 9 basic selling skills that will help you to sell your product or service. Ensure that you and your sales team master these skills and you will be successful at selling.

Research shows that fear of selling is one of the greatest barriers to business success and, often, professionals are the worst of all. But whether you are an accountant, advertising excec or business coach you still have to sell to keep the business coming in.

We have found a few ideas that will help you to become successful at selling yourself. The main idea is to know your product, know your client and be prepared and professional. The following tips will greatly enhance your ability to sell.

Acknowledge the value of selling

Be positive in attitude, love selling. It is widely accepted that the excitement and enthusiasm of the salesperson accounts for around 50 per cent of success in selling. In a world in which everything counts, the excitement and enthusiasm of the salesperson affects the customer’s responds.

Manage your sales activities effectively

As a salesperson, you are responsible for results. You can achieve the required result by setting it as a goal, and then resolving to pay the price that must be paid to achieve the goal. You need to establish clear sales goals. The subconscious mind responds to clarity. Having established the sales goals, it is necessary to determine the actions or activities which must be undertaken to achieve those goals.

Know your product

Know your product, its benefit and competitive advantage Why does your customer buy the product or service? What benefit do you sell? It might look like a haircut, but it’s probably admiration. It looks like a motorcar, but it’s probably status. It might be called a bungee jump, but it’s probably excitement. If you’re selling to other companies, the benefit is probably increased sales, lower costs or higher profits.

Identify your customers

Why should anybody buy your product or service? What is the benefit or improvement in their condition? Whose life will be enriched? Who will get the greatest improvement from your product or service? With which customers does your competitive advantage make a difference? With which customers does your competitive advantage make the biggest difference? Customers want to be more, have more, do more.

Identifying customer needs

Do not focus on trying to sell the product which you produce. Warehouses throughout the country are full of products nobody wants to buy. Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions! Find out what benefit your customer desires. Talk to your customers. You will be surprised how often price is not the priority. They may be looking for a local supplier, excellent service, a guarantee, any risk of loss to be assumed by the supplier, immediate delivery, staged payments. If you know your customer, then you have a far greater chance of forming a lasting relationship which should lead to permanent relationship selling.

Be Great at making presentations

Giving a presentation is one of the most feared events in Western society. In surveys of people’s fears, death is usually ranked around number six. Giving a presentation is usually number one. To be excellent at selling, you have to give presentation.

Be prepared to handle objections

“We don’t want it, we can’t afford it, we don’t believe you, we’ve tried it before and it didn’t work, we are perfectly happy with our present supplier and it’s not in the budget.” Your initial reaction could be that you are not going to make the sale. This is incorrect. You have to understand that an objection is a request for more information. As long as the customer is objecting, you are selling.

Close the deal

A customer is someone who is willing and able to purchase the benefit you offer. In a successful sales presentation, you eventually reach the point when it is time to ask for action, time to close that deal.

Always follow up your sales efforts

You may not sell on the first visit or first occasion. Make a decision to go the extra mile, make the second effort, follow up your initial approach. Contact the prospective customer once again within three days. You can always reopen a negotiation with new information, new price, new terms, a better offer following discussions with your boss. Keep your customer informed. Educate your customer to appreciate the benefit you offer and your competitive advantage. After making a sale, contact the customer within four weeks with a view to making the next sale. Follow up direct mail with a telephone call

You are free to reprint this article in your ezine or ebook, or on your website, as long as the contents in the article and the resource box are not changed.

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For your best consideration, be sure you checked the number of clients been using their service and there you will see that Cellit has successfully to gain trust from many companies in around the country as well as the international companies for their marketing campaign. One thing for sure is that almost everyone now has mobile phone in their pocket, which it means that it should be much easier for you to get the direct marketing campaign through their mobile lines than other ignorable platform. And there Cellit is there to accommodate you with the this mobile marketing system.

The application is quite simple though that you will be given the Short code for the access to their service and there you can publish your advertisement at any way you like it. Thanks to Cellit and its incredible mobile marketing system as now business owners can simply to figure out new effective marketing solution and to spend their money wiser than before.

Consider what is it that makes this advert attractive or what is it that this person’s offer is deemed to be unattractive. By carrying out this exercise regularly you will be surprising yourself with what you will notice about advertising.

Most advertising you see today is written poorly. It confuses the potential customer, it does not paint a desired picture in their mind, it does not give him or her a good reason to order the product now and, it focuses on features rather than the benefits of products/services. Many businesses failures can be tracked back to poor advertising although it should be mentioned that there are many other reasons for failure.

If you want to stay in business, you must learn how to advertise effectively and how to produce orders NOW! The aim of this article is to help whoever operates a business to improve his or her advertising technique.

No matter what business you do whether it is as: a shopkeeper, a sandwich bar operator, a business consultant, a window cleaner, or a mail order business, you must learn to create advertising that gets results. If you don’t, your business will be painful and short-lived.

Exposure:

First of all, let us look at one main reason for advertising. This reason is called exposure. Most television commercials and many newspaper and magazine adverts are made for this purpose. The advertiser wants their name exposed to the public and for the potential customer to think of them next time they are ready to make a purchase. Large companies are the ones who will do this kind of advertising. They have an advertising budget for the purpose of constantly exposing their name to the public and wait for their orders to come as people become more used to them and their advertising. Typical examples of this type of adverts are those by Coca Cola and Nescafe.

Direct response advertising:

The type of advertising the man/woman in the street is interested in is completely different. It is called direct response advertising. In other words, we are advertising and are motivating our readers to order now, to call an order telephone number and order, to mail a coupon (though this is not so common in Cyprus) and order, or to fax in an order.

We advertise a product and service and seek for people to make purchases now. As a small business, a quick way not to succeed is to place full page adverts costing hundreds of pounds without asking for an order NOW! You must cause the person to order today if you want to stay in business in any type of display advertising or direct mail.

Classifieds adverts are of a little different nature, but they work on the same premise. You don’t ask for a sale right from the classified (Which would be a large mistake because there just isn’t enough room in a classified to make sales).

Even asking for one pound in a classified advert reduces your response greatly. You will have them call your telephone number or your e-mail address in which they will receive an offer and a chance to order NOW! In all advertising it is important to ask for the order NOW.

Many people have contacted me and said, “I know that I have a wonderful product, but I just can’t figure out why I am not getting any orders.” You may be the same way. The simple reality is that it does not matter how fantastic your product line is. What matters is if your advertising for the product causes people to see themselves using it and that it will benefit them significantly.

Your advertising, not your product in many cases, will determine the success or failure of your business. Whilst it is true that your product needs to be very effective (or else you will experience a large number of returns and a short-lived business) your advertising will make or break your business.

Before we spend too much time detailing why you should create effective adverts, one can simplify the process by assuming that you want your business to make money. Hence one must write money-grabbing adverts!

Acquisition. It’s a big word in small business marketing. Companies are constantly looking at ways to draw new people to the business and generate new streams of revenue. In this quest, some small businesses make the mistake of focusing too much on new customer acquisition, only to find that their existing customers have been lured away by a competitor.

Ironic, isn’t it? The very tactics you use to drive new customers to your business are the same ones that your competitors can use to take them away from you. Losing sight of your existing customer base is truly an example of not seeing the forest for the trees. Did you know that on average, it costs a small business 10 times as much to attract a new client as it does to retain an existing one? Think about that the next time you are planning an acquisition marketing campaign, then use these three tips to ensure that your customers don’t fall prey to your competitor’s acquisition efforts:

One of the simplest and most cost effective retention initiatives I’ve seen involved sending your customers a brief letter and tossing in a gift certificate for a free coffee at a local coffee shop (if you’re a local business), or a national coffee chain (if you operate in a broader area.) It will only cost you about one dollar for each of your customers plus mailing costs, and you’ll accomplish two things. Firstly, they’ll be reminded of your company name and services thanks to your brief letter, and secondly, they’ll enjoy a hot cup of coffee and feel good about you gesture. That free coffee can go a long way towards client retention.

Get Them a Deal: Who are your customers? Are they small businesspeople operating in your area? Are they pet owners? Are they car lovers? The product you sell will dictate what your clients are interested in. If you have even a few dozen clients, you could approach another local business that sells a car related product (let’s say a new tire polish) and offer them a deal. You’ll send a letter to all of your customers and offer them a great deal on the tire polish of 40% off the retail price. The company you approach should be willing to do this, as they have the potential to make a number of sales at one time, and your customers receive something of value from you, making them remember your company name and feel good about your offer.

Take it one step further and reciprocate the offer. The tire polish company can tell all of their clients about your car wax, and you’ll offer them a 40% as well since you now have the chance to sell some of your product. Client loyalty and new business too, a total solution! Just make sure that what you offer to your clients is actually valuable and not just a hollow sales pitch. Your reputation may be hurt by partnering with businesses that do not invest as much in client satisfaction as you do.

Acquiring customers is important, but retaining customers is critical to the ongoing success of your business. Small gestures often go a long way towards thwarting the acquisition efforts of your competition, and ensuring that your customers remain aware of your company and interested in your services.

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Though BlogTelevision.net, I found lots of information about Direct TV sports packages. It featured the DIRECTTV Packages special football with complete review about the features along with the packages. BlogTelevision.net also gives me useful information about special offers in my city including the special price when I subscribe through their preferred reseller. Now I knew what kind of pay TV service I need and Direct TV will definitely be my preferred choice.

Most people look at what their competitors are doing to market their businesses and then simply imitate that, whether good or bad.

The best marketing strategy does not involve selecting only one or two marketing approaches that we see others using.

The best marketing approach resembles an octopus.

An octopus is very effective at catching food with eight limbs. If the octopus loses one limb it may momentarily lose some of its strength and agility, but it adapts and continues on as an effective hunter and predator.

It’s the same with marketing your business. The more marketing approaches you use simultaneously the more successful you can become and the easier it is to continue growing your company.

You will continue to thrive despite the challenges that your competitors may face. No setback in any one marketing approach will ever devastate you or pose major problems.

Despite the many options available most companies use no more than two or three marketing methods at best to grow their company.

Few realize that there are over 100 methods for bringing in new business, for increasing web traffic, for selling more to existing clients, and for increasing repeat sales that their competitors are not using.

They basically imitate worms in their marketing attempts. A worm’s approach to life is singular. It does not use multiple limbs because it has none. Its existence is slow and labor-intensive. Very unlike an octopus.

The great thing about this is that most competitors are making this same mistake. They may be too busy, too shorthanded, or too myopic to do much more than hand out boxes of business cards and sit around talking ‘fish stories’ of the one that got away.

That is a marketing approach to avoid.

Don’t just settle for an ad in the yellow pages, your local newspaper, or on the radio.

Use as many marketing methods as make sense for your industry, your market, and your company. Then you will become a marketing octopus while your competitors remain marketing worms.

What is a Life Settlement? A Life Settlement is the sale of an existing life insurance policy for a lump sum of cash that is more than the cash surrender value. A life insurance policy is property, like a car, house, stocks and bonds that can be legally sold in accordance with applicable laws. Through a Life Settlement, a policy owner can realize value today from an asset that is generally thought to only have a benefit when the insured passes away.

How can Life Settlements be used in Fundraising? There are many variations and complex estate and tax planning strategies that can be employed when utilizing Life Settlements in a planned giving program. However, in its simplest terms, a Donor who owns a life insurance policy gives the policy to the philanthropic organization that in turn immediately sells the policy for a lump sum of cash through a Life Settlement.

In order for a policy to be eligible for a life settlement, it must meet the following criteria:

• Insuring an individual over age sixty-five (65) or with a serious illness
• With a face value of at least $100,000
• Issued over two (2) years ago

Donor Benefits:

1. Making a donation to his/her favorite philanthropic organization without depleting cash reserves or losing income-producing assets;
2. Getting a tax deduction for the fair market value (selling price) of the life insurance policy instead of only the cash surrender value;
3. Being able to see their donation put to use during their lifetime rather than after their death if the organization did not utilize a Life Settlement;
4. Eliminating the requirement of continued premium payments on the policy;
5. Removing a taxable asset from their estate if the policy was individually held.

Organization Benefits:

1. Receive a donation from a Donor who may not have otherwise been in a position to contribute at all;
2. Collect a lump sum of cash today instead of having to wait for the insured’s death to collect the proceeds;
3. Not having the financial burden of paying premium payments to keep the policy in force;
4. Providing a valuable option to the Donor that furthers their tax and estate planning objectives and invites the opportunity for future/additional gifts.
5. Improved annual budget forecasting ability

How Does a Life Settlement Work?

Once the Donor is considering gifting a life insurance policy to the organization, the life insurance policy should be appraised. Typically, a Life Settlement Broker can determine its eligibility for a life settlement and will undertake it to obtain the highest offer for the policy.

The value of a life insurance policy is determined by a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the age and medical condition of the insured, type of insurance policy, rating of the issuing insurance company and amount of premium payments to keep the life insurance policy in force. Most types of insurance policies can qualify, including universal, whole life, and converted term. When a mutually agreed upon price is determined for the life insurance policy, the organization that now owns the policy is paid a lump sum in cash, the ownership and beneficiary rights are transferred to the purchaser. All future premium payments are the responsibility of the purchaser and upon the death of the insured, the death benefit is payable to the purchaser. The cash proceeds from the Life Settlement may be used by the organization in any way – there are no restrictions regarding the use of the funds. The money may be invested or spent on current projects. Because some Life Settlement Brokers offer fundraising support, it makes sense for organizations to partner with them for their expertise.

Life Settlement Regulations

As of June, 2003, eighteen (18) states have enacted statutes addressing the sale of life insurance policies insuring non-terminally or chronically ill individuals and an additional seventeen (17) states have laws that only regulate the sale of life insurance policies insuring terminally or chronically ill individuals. Fifteen (15) states do not regulate the transaction at all.

Donated Life Insurance Policies

In addition, most philanthropic organizations currently own life insurance policies that have been donated in the past. If there is a need for funds sooner rather than later or if the premium payments are becoming burdensome, the organization can utilize Life Settlement transactions to sell those policies for lump sums of cash and put the money to work right away.

Life Settlements are powerful arrows in the quivers of professional fundraisers:

1. Generating money for their organizations by encouraging current gifting of life insurance policies
2. Turning already donated life insurance policies into cash

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Planning

Your logo should reflect the company it represents. Create a list of all the services or products the company supplies and try to find some common ground.

Sit down and choose the colours you will be using. This is best achieved by studying the corporate colours and maybe adding a few more shades of these colours. You should aim for a maximum of 12 but ideally you will want only one or two colours. Avoid very dark colours unless it is relevant to your company. If you send out a letter on headed notepaper to a client you will want your logo to jump off the desk at them to remind them who you are.

Remember that your design may have to be very small (a business card) or very large (the side of a van) so whatever you come up with must be scaleable. Try imagining your logo as a tiny image and then as a large image. If your using lettering will it must be readable at a very small size. Will the font appear correctly in a user browser on the internet?

Consider every place your logo might appear and work out what you will need to design for. A company that deals with older people does not to be bright and modern, something a little more sedate would be more appropriate.

Until you know the answers to all the questions above don’t move on to the next section.

Creating

Keep it simple. Look at any major company in the world and see how simple their logos are. Nothing fancy for the experts so why should you have a fancy design?

Look at what the competion are doing. DO NOT COPY somebody else’s work. Sometimes I get me best inspiration from studying other people ideas and coming up with a really original one based on a concept they have used. As long as it’s not a copy of somebody else’s work your not infringing copyright.

A tip for doing this is to use Googles Image Search. Type in some key word and select the image search with the word logo. For example if you were selling cars search for “cars + logo”. You will be presented with a selection of rival logos for other sites.

Use this to see what works and what does not. You will be drawn to the good designs and you will recognise what represents a company that sells cars. This search brings up the Alpha Romeo logo in the first few entries. This logo is slightly more complicated than you will want but works perfectly for a company producing cars.

Now start sketching some designs on paper. Keep all of the designs you make to hand as you never know when you might decide that the picture you drew before could be the one. When you have an idea don’t over develop it. You should aim to have at least 15 to 20 rough ideas before choosing 2 or 3 to work on further.

Developing

When you have chosen your two or three best ideas ask some friends what they think. Use your friends and family to test your logo. Everybody loves to give their opinion on everything so use that to your own advantage. Listen to what people have to say about your designs and you may learn something. Little things that you have not seen can be very obvious to someone that has never seen it before. Take a note of all the comments and go back to the drawing board. Look over what was said about every design and then, based on your own feelings and the comments you have collected, decide which idea you are going to develop more.

Create a slightly more refined drawing, or if you have some computer skills, make up an approximate design using a graphics program (don’t worry if you can’t do this as the next step will take care of that anyway.)

Unless you’re either a graphic designer or a printer, employ a professional to finish the work to a high standard. Your logo will appear on every bit of literature your company will ever produce and if it does not look professional then you don’t look professional. You will have saved a lot of money by developing the logo yourself so it is now time to ask a professional to finish the work.

Well done. You have just created an effective and attractive logo for your company. Be proud of your work and display it everywhere.