7 secrets of using guarantees to increase your sales

7 secrets of using guarantees to increase your sales
If you want to encourage people to buy your product or
service, you have to make the decision as easy as possible.

Based on the techniques of hypnosis and Neuro-linguistic
Programming, you want them to picture in their mind what it
will be like in the future after they have bought it.

It may be difficult for them to do that if there is too
much risk involved so your marketing task is to remov the
risk.

The way you do that is through some sort of guarantee.

Most potential buyers will be a bit skeptical of buying
whatever you sell and a guarantee removes a significant
part of their risk.

People want to know that you will "put your money where
your mouth is." If you have confidence in your own product
or service, this will help your customers feel at ease,
leading to more sales.

For this reason, the concept of "risk reversal" is crucial.

If you can't stand behind your offer with a guarantee of
some sort, people are likely to purchase from someone who
does. So don't line your competitors' pockets by ignoring
this vital piece of the marketing puzzle.

Some people are too scared to offer a guarantee as they
worry that people will take them up on it.

The reality is that some will but, provided you deliver
good quality and don't make unjustified claims, you will
win more business by having the guarantee than you will
lose in this way.

Here are 7 secrets of making your guarantee as powerful as
possible.

1. Promote the value of your guarantee: Specify the details
as though it is another product that adds value to your
offer. Spell it out in plain, simple English. Make sure
it is "no questions asked" to help put your customers at
ease.

2. Make it personal, if possible: It's useful to help
people see that there is a person behind the guarantee. So
consider making it a "personal pledge" or a "personal
promise" written to the buyer.

3. Longer is better: The longer the guarantee period, the
more comfortable the buyer will feel - and longer
guarantees typically lead to fewer refunds. The ultimate
guarantee is 'try before you buy', where you pay only if
you are satisfied.

4. More is better: If possible, it's often a good idea to
offer a "better than money back" guarantee. Let your
customers keep something even if they decide to return the
product. This helps them see the purchase from you as
totally risk-free - because you're the one with all the
risk.

5. Be creative: Think about what the customer really wants
and consider offering guaranteed results rather than
offering money-back. For example, a computer repair shop
that will fix your machine even if it takes 5 trips back to
the shop will really stand out from the crowd. No "or your
money back" needed!

6. Make it prompt: When a customer asks for a refund, make
sure it is prompt and courteous. Consider them a priority
as it's better to refund the money than to have an
unsatisfied customer.

7. Work on reducing refunds: No matter what you do, you can
still expect to give refunds from time to time. It is a
simple fact that customers change their minds or were just
looking for something else. But use it as an opportunity to
get feedback and make any changes needed to your product or
your marketing.

A good guarantee can provide a high level of comfort to
your prospective customer that will make it easier for them
to see the potential of working with you. So it's well
worth making it part of your marketing package.

----------------------------------------------------
Robert Greenshields is a marketing success coach who helps
entrepreneurs and independent professionals to develop the
right mindset and marketing strategies for higher profits.
Sign up for his 7 free secrets of making your marketing
more effective at http://www.PersuasiveMarketingPower.com

10 Simple Ways to "A-Ha Yourself!"

10 Simple Ways to "A-Ha Yourself!"
You: The business owner, the lifestyle entrepreneur, the
one with the fire in your eyes and the passion in your
belly. You need to get your message, mission and vision OUT
THERE.

Your goal: To reach your Ideal Audience, target market,
potential allies, strategic partners, industry groups,
trade associations, fellow thought leaders, media outlets...

You can't contact them all the time (and they may not
always want to hear about you at a given moment). What you
can do is make connections, both purposefully and
organically, so when they're ready, you'll spring right to
the tops of their minds.

But then the overwhelm sets in. Who are they? Where are
they? How can you reach them? And, most importantly, where
do you start?

No sense making it harder than it has to be. Start with 10
of the easiest ways to "A-Ha Yourself!" - put your boldest
insights into joy-filled action - and work up from there.

1. Write an email to a person or business that caught your
attention. It may be one-on-one, or it may be through their
marketing efforts, but if a person or business makes an
impression on you, let 'em know about it!

2. Comment on a blog or website. Let the blogger or site
owner know you came, you read, and you enjoyed it.

3. Blog. Design the blog around your business, passion, or
expertise. In the best case scenario, those are the same
things.

4. Write useful articles to your target audience. Assist,
inspire, answer, inform, educate, debunk, entertain! Then
send out to ezine publishers, magazines, article
directories, and more. (Epiphanies, Inc. uses and
recommends AhaArticles.com.)

5. Submit a news release. Got news, an upcoming event,
seasonal tips, a new product or service, etc.? Sanctify it
with a press release to your local media, and with online
services like PR.com, PRWeb.com, or MarketWire.com.

6. Create a social networking page for yourself and/or your
business. Seems like there's a new social networking
website cropping up everyday! But for now, just concentrate
on the biggest and best, such as: LinkedIn, Facebook,
MySpace, Squidoo.

7. Teach about your topic. Whether it's a speaking
engagement, class, workshop, seminar, webinar, or
teleclass, get in front of an audience and let loose on the
things people need and want to know most in your field.

8. Serialize your knowledge. Create a series around a
theme, process, set of steps, bag of tricks 'n tips, crazy
shtick, you name it. Don't just go for the written word,
either. Try out audio (Epiphanies, Inc. uses and recommends
AhaAudio.com) or have fun directing a few YouTube videos.

9. Send out ezines, newsletters, or autoresponders. Build
an opt-in list and start sending them regular doses of
user-friendly, info-rich content relevant to their lives.
Repeat! (Epiphanies, Inc. uses and recommends AhaCart.com.)

10. Last but not least, get yourself a website. Preferably
a real website, with a dedicated domain, and matching email
addresses. (That means no you@gmail.com, @hotmail.com,
@yahoo.com, @aol.com, etc. Epiphanies, Inc. uses and
recommends AhaWebHost.com.) Make it easy to read, engaging,
and make each page its own relationship-building
experience. And don't forget one clear call to action on
each page!

In this new world of marketing, opportunity comes knocking
from the strangest places, on the most unlikely of doors.
The more you increase your visibility and active
involvement on the Web, the more you welcome new
connections, customers, clients, and serendipitous
possibilities.

----------------------------------------------------
(c) 2008 Epiphanies, Inc. As the "Content Lovers" of
Epiphanies Inc., Lani & Allen Voivod help lifestyle
entrepreneurs and million-dollar businesses "A-Ha
Themselves" in fun and profitable ways. For FREE articles,
marketing tips, and content strategies designed to fire up
your passion and profit-ize your niche, sign up for their
"Inciter" ezine at http://www.EpiphaniesInc.com !

How to Position Yourself for a Bonus

How to Position Yourself for a Bonus
Everybody looks forward to a nice, healthy bonus on top of
their salary, but not everyone warrants it. In most
workplaces bonuses are distributed on the basis of work
performance, so it's important to think well ahead and plan
out how you can earn the type of bonus you think you
deserve.

Remember, employers are constantly observing you, and it is
your year-round accomplishments that factor into the type
of bonus you may be eligible for. You cannot just start
working harder a few weeks before bonuses come out and
expect to get a great results. Rather, make it a point to
give it your all every day you are at work. Here are some
easy and actionable ways to work toward a sizeable bonus:

Volunteer to help others with tasks that you may be
valuable on, even if it's not part of your direct
responsibility. If another team or group needs help, be
quick to step in and offer your advice or services. This is
especially true when the task is something you are
particularly skilled in. Don't wait for someone to come
over and ask. Volunteer to show how proactive you are and
how willing you are to give of yourself to improve the
overall bottom-line. Be sincere in your efforts to help
others and you'll be pleasantly surprised that what goes
around does come around.

Go the extra mile and do a better job than you are asked to
do, to show that you never settle for the bare minimum.
Never do anything half-heartedly, or overlook mistakes that
you could have easily corrected. Strive for
perfection—this will prove to the employer that you
really do deserve a bonus that is a cut above the rest.

Be proactive in mentioning and evidencing your
accomplishments to the employer who makes bonus decisions.
Of course, you don't want to overdo it, but you need to
make sure that the higher-ups notice what you are
contributing to the workplace on a daily basis. If you go
out of your way to help another team, why not casually
mention it to the employer if you see him in the hallway or
the elevator?

Remember, bonuses are given on the basis of the work
employers observe you doing, so make sure you give them
plenty to admire! And as I say elsewhere, always keep in
mind that proper preparation prevents particularly poor
performance.

----------------------------------------------------
Ken Anczerewicz is an author and publisher devoted to
providing time & money saving resources designed to help
career & job seekers of all ages achieve their financial
goals. You can check out his best recommendations for
creating your own income stream by clicking here now:
http://www.resourceriver.com

Up With The "P" Word! Use High Payoff Procrastination Today!

Up With The "P" Word! Use High Payoff Procrastination Today!
You know that task sitting over there, on the corner of
your desk? Yeah, the one you've been avoiding... Or should
I say, the one that's been pre-occupying your mind,
distracting you from getting anything else done
effectively... The one you're not getting solved but you're
sure having a lot of mental chatter about.

Back in the days when I was in the Big 8 consulting world
(or was it Big 6, 5, 4...) I had to write reports for
clients. For hours at a time I was combing through the
results of our team's analytical work and turning it into
narrative explanations to support the recommendations we
were making.

Some of these documents ran for 100s of pages. And, as is
natural when working with language, there were times where
a written discussion ground to a halt. I just couldn't come
up with the 'right words' to use. Aggravating as all get
out! Sitting there staring at black ink on a white screen
with my progress utterly stalled.

One part of my mind was as blank as the screen while at the
same time I was berating myself for not coming up with
better language, not moving on to the next thing I knew I
had to get to, not willing to give up on sitting there
until it was done - and a flood of inner critical chat
having a party inside my head!

I really wanted to escape from the assignment and I'm
smart... I figured out a great way to 'get away' from it.

I was one of the rare folks who had a Macintosh computer at
that time, and on my Mac I had a game called Tetris. This
program dropped shapes composed of four blocks from the top
of the screen and there was limited time to use key strokes
to change the orientation of the object before it touched
down. The object was to create a full horizontal line of
blocks so that they'd flash and disappear. The more times
the player succeeded, that faster the program ran... until
the only possible way to succeed was to get into a Zen-like
state where the hands moved faster on the keys than a
thinking mind could direct them.

So there I was, sitting at my desk, looking like I was
intently 'working'... yet doing something that had nothing
to do with writing a report.

And a funny thing happened ~ the perfect words for that
sentence showed up from some corner of my mind.

The first time it happened I was startled and grateful and
wrote down the sentence that showed up with such clarity.

The second time it occurred, I noticed that I'd had myself
really focused on the game.

As you can imagine, my inner critic started having a field
day.

"You're not supposed to be playing games! Your'e at work!
You're just masquerading here! What if someone catches on
that you're goofing around?"

I'm nothing if not stubborn, even in the face of my own
inner critic.

The next time I got stuck for language, I deliberately
played the game and tracked how long it took for the
phenomenon to produce the result.

Instead of wasting hours writing lousy language that
wandered uselessly in circles and made a mess of ideas, and
re-working it to death for even more time, I could shift to
15 minutes of Tetris and have a cogent sentence present
itself with complete clarity!

And my inner chat evaporated and the momentum on my next
task was focused and undistracted.

In fact, I decided to turn this amazing procrastination
process on deliberately. I'd look at the information
gathered, reading through it thoroughly, and then turn on
the program and let my subconscious work it's magic, and
let me know the key ideas to bring out or a key point to
describe in the report.

Then I started telling everyone else in my group what I
noticed, and asked them to try it for themselves.

Guess what? Same result!

This experience is one of the ones that spurred me to study
how our minds and consciousness operate and start
deliberately using tools that leverage them. And now I
teach them to my clients so they can boost their own
effectiveness.

I discovered that procrastination is an outward signal that
the approach you and I are taking on a task may in fact be
getting in the way of leveraging the rest of our mind's
ability to join in and solve things - sometimes much faster
than expected.

I uncovered four other techniques that work superbly for me
and I now use them all the time and teach them in my
coaching forums.

So join me and put up a placard above your desk and
cheerfully use High Payoff Procrastination today!

----------------------------------------------------
© 2008 Linda Feinholz Management expert, consultant,
and coach Linda Feinholz is "Your High Payoff Catalyst" If
you're ready to focus on your High Payoff activities, boost
your professional and personal results and have more fun,
get her FREE audio mini-course "7 Quick & Simple Steps to
Increase Your Focus, Ease Your Effort & Accelerate Your
Results" and the free weekly newsletter The Spark! Visit
http://www.YourHighPayoffCatalyst.com

Coach your Employees to Success!

Coach your Employees to Success!
Susan, an engineering director, was feeling very
overwhelmed and frustrated. She had recently been promoted
to a bigger job and was not sure how she would be able to
manage more projects and more people. I was hired to be
her coach and together, we realized that in order to
succeed in the new position, she needed to start coaching
her employees. She did, and is seeing the benefits
already. Her employees are taking on more responsibility
and are therefore happier. She has more time to focus on
long-term planning for the department.

Coaching your employees is crucial. Some managers
mistakenly believe that coaching only applies to "problem"
employees, but nothing could be further from the truth. You
need to coach all of your employees, especially your stars.
By comparing "traditional" management with a coaching
model, you can see the benefits of coaching:

- Traditional management assumes the manager has all the
answers, while coaching assumes employees have knowledge. -
In traditional management the manager gives advice, while
in coaching the manager listens closely, and then asks
appropriate questions to help employees find answers. - In
traditional management it is difficult for employees to get
anything done when the manager is physically gone. With
coaching, employees have knowledge and can continue working
when the manager is not physically there. - In traditional
management, the manager is constantly fixing problems. In
coaching, employees fix the problems and managers spend
their time developing the employees. - With traditional
management, managers say, "Here's what you should do." With
coaching, managers say, "Tell me the options you have
considered."

The result? When you manage traditionally, employees feel
like they leave their brains at the door when coming to
work. When you are coaching your employees, they are
happier, more motivated and more productive.

One of the first steps you can take to start coaching your
employees is to switch from a "tell" mentality to an "ask"
mentality. When your employees come to you with an issue,
resist the urge to quickly give them the answer. Instead,
ask them questions about it. If you haven't been doing
this, it may seem quite unnatural at first. Let your
employees know what you are doing and more importantly, why
you are doing it. Once you start asking more versus
telling, you learn which questions resonate with different
people and it becomes more of a habit.

Of course, this is more easily said than done. Coaching
requires some specific skills, like observation and
assessment, questioning, listening and feedback. Initially,
coaching takes more time than traditional management.
However, when your coaching results in employees solving
issues themselves versus you giving them the answers, you
will find that they are more likely to come up with the
solution on their own the next time. In the long run, you
will save time and have a stronger team.

----------------------------------------------------
Kerrie Halmi of Halmi Performance Consulting specializes in
increasing women's success in business through speaking,
coaching and facilitation. Kerrie has over fifteen years
of experience in the Human Resources field with such
clients as eBay, Wells Fargo and Kaiser. She received her
MBA from the University of Michigan. To learn more about
coaching, join a teleclass on March 5, 2008. Register at
http://www.HalmiPerformance.com