Your Online Business Sales Cycle
Creating a profitable business online is a process, just
like creating any other business. Regardless of what it is
that you’re offering, your cash flow is based on your
sales. Once you know and implement the online business
sales cycle (which anyone can follow), you’ll be able to
create consistent cash flow for your business, too.

Here are the six basic steps in the online business sales
cycle:

Step 1. Choose Your Prospects

“Prospects” is basically business-speak for potential
clients and/or customers. So, who is the person who is
ideally suited for your product, program or service? Who’s
your ideal client or customer? Who makes up your target
market? Is it parents, health professionals, copywriters,
dancers, artists, entrepreneurs, boat owners?

It’s critical for the success of any business to choose a
group of people to work with, even if that group is very
broad at first. As you become more and more aware of what
kind of client or customer shows up for you, you’ll be able
to more narrowly target that portion of the market, which
will make your marketing a lot easier and bring you cash
flow a lot quicker.

2. Invite Them into Your Funnel

Once you know who your prospects are, you’ll want to invite
them into your Marketing & Product Funnel by giving them a
free taste of what it is that you offer in exchange for
their email address.

There are many ways to do this - using your email
signature, offering free introductory teleseminars,
speaking, co-registration programs, Google Adwords, writing
and submitting articles, listing with directories,
participating in discussion lists, etc.

3. Keep in Touch

Once your prospects are in your funnel, you’ll want to keep
in touch with them on a consistent basis. Common marketing
knowledge tells us that it takes a minimum of 5-12 times
for your prospects to see your message before it even
registers. That’s why so many direct marketers will send
you postcard after postcard with the same offer. They know
that the only way to get you to take action on their offer
is to expose you to the same or similar message over and
over until you’re ready to hear it.

A very effective way to keep in touch with your prospects
then is via an ezine. Because following up with your
prospects is vital to making sales from them, publishing an
ezine on a consistent basis does this work for you. The
bonus is that you can follow up with all of your prospects
at once, instead of one by one, which leverages your time -
something you should always be striving for.

4. Make Offers

And because we want to leverage our time, if we’re putting
in the work to write and publish an ezine regularly, then
we want to make sure that we are getting a return on that
investment. To do so, you want to make at least one offer
in your ezine that can result in sales for you.

You want to be sure to provide valuable content, but you
also want to make sure that you invite people to take
advantage of one or more of your offerings in each issue.
If you don’t make the ask, you won’t make the money. So, if
you’re uncomfortable asking for the sale, my best
suggestion is to get over it fast if you want to stay in
business for the long haul.

5. Master the Upsell

It takes most new small business owners awhile to grasp the
concept of an upsell, but once they do, it takes their
business to a whole new level.

Once you have one offering to make to your prospects, start
putting together your next offering. You always want to
have a place for them to go to next, always have something
else to invite them to or to take advantage of. Find out
what else they want from you, then create and offer it to
them.

The more products you have to offer, the more sales you’ll
make because, instead of having to find new people all the
time to buy your one product, you can upsell your current
clients and customers into your other offerings. And
selling to people who have already bought from you is much
easier than converting new prospects all the time.

6. Repeat the Process

The online business sales cycle is pretty simple really.
Once you’ve done it once, it’s very easy to repeat. As
you’re creating your own sales cycle, I suggest documenting
what you do as you go along to make it that much easier to
duplicate the next time around. Each time you repeat the
process, your list of prospects will grow and so will your
income!

—————————————————-
Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & CoachT,
founder of ClientAbundance.com and creator of 21 Easy &
Essential Steps to Online Success SystemT, teaches
professionals how to attract more clients, create
profit-making products and services, make more sales, and
ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE
tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit
http://www.ClientAbundance.com .

(Here’s an article of great value to small business owners, www.GBN-Online.com)

So much depends on a phone call. A phone call, when executed professionally, functions like a business tool which you can take advantage of to gain more benefits for your business or career. Unfortunately, though, some professionals underestimate the power of a phone call. They don’t understand how it can affect their work.

People form impressions about you over the phone. It could be based on how you sound, the way you talk, your accent, or your tone. Whatever it is, you have to be very ethical and polite. Introduce yourself to the person before requesting to talk with someone else.

Speak clearly. You don’t know if the other end is getting good reception of your voice. So to be sure, speak clearly and audibly. Don’t talk to someone else when you’re on the phone. And if the person asks you to spell some words you said, do so politely.

Watch your tone. A lot of people are very sensitive about the tone other people use when talking to them. To avoid being judged as ill-mannered, check your tone. Avoid sounding monotonous or high-pitched. Talk formally but with a casual vibe to come across as friendly.

Say your purpose. People usually ask you what you’re calling for. If it’s not confidential, say why you need to talk to the person. If it is confidential, tell the person you have to deliver a personal message.

There is a way to know if you are ethical in phone conversations, aside from asking your friends. You can record your phone calls and see for yourself how you talk to people on the phone. Listening to yourself will tell you where you have to make improvements so that you can make your phone calls very professional, ethical, and effective.

Secret Pictures for Getting  Head Right For Success
The secret to achieving and doing anything well often times
has to do with how you picture things.. Successful parents,
business people, coaches, teachers, athletes, and many
other successful people have over time come to realize that
picturing the end result is many times the special
ingredient that brings everything together into a smashing
success.

Drawing a clear picture in your mind is an important piece
to the success puzzle. I’ll use exercise as an example.
Have you pictured your end result? Have you very clearly
seen what you will accomplish after a certain amount of
time and effort has been exerted? Do you picture it as you
practice your skill? Do you see yourself being healthier,
leaner, faster, stronger, and more alive? If you do, you’re
on the right track. If you haven’t practiced this yet, it’s
time to crank up your mental picture frame.

The human mind learns best with pictures. The more that you
employ this strategy the more you will be able to achieve
your most incredible goals. Even though hard work and
determination are an important part of your eventual
success, giving your subconscious mind the opportunity to
create your success is a more important element of you
achieving your goals.

By painting the picture of what you want in your mind’s
camera you begin to gather a momentum and a belief that the
end result is attainable. By giving yourself a picture you
are giving your mind a chance to steer towards the intended
target. Without a clear picture it is much more difficult
to hit the bullseye.

Through practice and repetition you will continually come
closer to your target and eventually hit it. It’s important
to remember that even though you have fixed a thought in
your mind, in all likelihood it will still take some time
to reach the goal. Patience and belief is required for you
to go on and eventually win. The trials that you encounter
along the way, even though many times unexpected and
challenging, bring you a new knowledge along with a growing
ability to handle adversity and press on.

A straight line to success is the least fulfilling. Your
subconscious mind has a unique ability to come up with
answers that you would never have invented by struggling
and thinking about them. Many times it’s most beneficial to
relax and not think about how you would do it but just give
it over to your subconscious. Often times you will find
that the answers that you are given are brilliant and the
journey that you had to go on was extraordinary and not at
all what you expected.

Practice picturing what you want as you engage in the
actual activity and at other times during the day. The
stronger the thought and the picture, the more likely that
your goal will be achieved. Starting towards any goal
without a clear, passionate picture is like starting a road
trip to a far destination without using a map. Be sure that
your destination is very clear in your mind and that you
have gone there many times before.

Picture your success clearly and often,

Fred Nicklaus

P.S. Mind and body working together as a strong unit
creates a success harmony and energy. Movement along with
effective breathing stimulates the creative centers of the
brain.

—————————————————-
Core strength training is essential to good health and
ultimate performance for spurning creativity and energy.
Find the secrets to maximum core strength development at
http://www.combatendurancetraining.com