In the era of the web searching educated prospect...how can you gain an edge and get the sale?

In this era of the educated prospect that the web facilitates via everyone’s ability to search online, The prospect’s awareness of product, services and competitive offerings is often there before you are. So, how do you, as a sales type, approach making a sale in this era of the educated prospect?

You know, its not a matter of “lack of skills”. Our skills are still there. Its just learning how to adapt them to the "web as the new word of mouth and search" realities of our potential customers.

Their reviews of your businesses and competitors can tell us a lot re how our target audience likes to shop and what’s important to our target audiences. We should Google to find reviews of us and our competitors and really learn from them. In our newsletters we send if we ask about the issues we find, ask what’s important and look for comments, we can surely come to see patterns of what’s important to our prospects. Then, we can use what we learn an now know to have a discussion with a prospect from a basis of understanding them and their needs, not guessing at it.

Its not just price that makes a sale, its perception by the prospect of the value a seller brings into the evaluation as an “expert”.

In our prospecting and selling approach, I think we have to accept that we are starting with a much better prepared "prospect" that has researched online and already has a good feel for what they want.

Asking what research they have done, what they found out as we begin the face to face sales process and hearing it will actually help us hone in on a prospects actual likes and wants. We will look exceeding great then compared to our competition, be perceived as genuinely trying to make a good match for our prospects and the trust that creates should lead to a lot more sales.

What we hear must be shared with "Marketing", our internet sales people and our product development people. They then have real world derived "needs" to focus on and appeal to if we do that for them and our reach outs, ads, messaging will work in a powerful targeted way to help us acquire paying customers.

Regards, Neil Licht, privacy internet investigator, Repuration911 and Hereweare. callhereweare@verizon.net , ndlicht@reputation911.com

Improve Your Online Presence

There's a new company called MapWide that I think could really be a great tool for small businesses, especially those that are looking for a better online presence.

MapWide is essentially a network of industry specific sites (MapDentist.com, MapDoctor.com, MapAuto.com, etc.) that allow people to search for businesses in their area by zip code. Businesses can sign up for the service, and guarantee their listing will show up in the search. Having a MapWide listing also gives companies a rich-format profile page with all of their information, set up for them, but that they can easily edit and manage themselves. Along with the local search capabilities, each site is equipped with industry specific forums, chat rooms, and online coupons and specials.

I think the filtered-target results the search engine offers is really valuable to consumers and businesses. An online presence is essential in today's market, and MapWide could be a great way for small businesses to start that presence.

You can check out more here: MapWide