Revenue Coach Shares Proven Strategies to Increase Sales

Let’s look at our websites and social media from a proven sales perspective. Revenue Coach and author Kristin Zhivago helps helps brands become to customer-centric. 

What Your Current Clients Can Teach You 

• What you think is important, isn’t what is important to the customer
• Go where the customers are: a lot of CEOs are NOT on Facebook
• If you’re imitating another company then you’re blowing it…customers are coming to you for a reason!
• Best market research/data mining is asking existing customers the RIGHT questions
• Client interviews will reveal the trends, in 6 phone calls; they’ll all basically say the same thing
• Anticipate their questions and help buyers on their journey. You guess= you lose!
• Have to ask current customers the right questions in the right way
• People are doing their homework on you before they even contact you
• If you call your customers yourself, you will still get the data, they’ll just be more polite
• If you’re only asking one question of an existing client, ask them what they would do if they were in your shoes.
• Channels,social media etc.- without customer knowledge is like whistling in the wind
• Treat customers properly and give them what they want

• Buying process changing radically. Overall, you are NOT in control of the process
• Buying: First friends, then websites, and then Google
• 80% of buyer’s questions are answered by others, not you!
• Need to know why and how buyer’s bought from you
• What’s going to happen to me after I buy? A key question buyers have that you need to answer.

• “Marketing is no longer about what you say, it’s about what you do.”
• Don’t follow fads and don’t obsess with channels!
• Is your data flawed? If you’re relying on salespeople, focus groups, social media, surveys and 3^rd parties, the chances are your data is flawed
• Stop selling and start supporting the buyer process
• Relationship marketing is a misnomer. Do you want car dealers showing up to dinner?
• Surveys are a waste of time, people will not say in writing what they are really thinking
• Need to understand where you are in the spectrum to know what to say on your site, newsletter and other content
• Everyone is doing something that gets in the way of sales
• Usually you’re screwing up how you’re presenting the product or something else that’s fixable
• Are you emphasizing what everyone already promises anyway? Everyone expects a boat to float
• The problem with social media, It’s the biggest time-suck!
• Usability matters more than design: We don’t look at billboards on the highway never mind on your screen

Branding

• The difference between branding and your brand? Branding is what you say; your brand is what they say about you
• Branding is the promise you make. Your brand is the promises you keep

A special thanks to all the NIM attendees who tweeted during the event! @KristinZhivago, @JoAnnLefebvre, @SusanneDay, @johnpicozzi, @PRnick, @scottindermaur, @vallerieMalkin, @trendyjenny, @NEMultimedia, @sue_DesigEditor, @NewMediaNPT

Don’t miss Newport Interactive Marketers’ next gathering: March 29 public is welcome to the film “Connected” at the Jane Pickens Theater. Tickets are $10, payable to the theater. Preregistration requested.