Small Business Marketing

The next time you get a rejection letter from a hoped-for employer or publisher, just send them the following:
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Dear [name of the person who signed the rejection letter],

Thank you for your letter of [date of the rejection letter]. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me [employment with your firm/a contract to publish my book].

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals. Despite [name of the co or agency that sent you this letter]'s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting [applicants/manuscripts], I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time.

Therefore, I will initiate [employment/publishing] with your firm immediately following [graduation/job change, etc. - get creative here]. I look forward to working with you.

Best of luck in rejecting future [candidates/manuscripts].

Sincerely,
[your name]

This is a piece I submitted to Selling Power magazine. Rather than waiting for publication in April 2006, here it is for your reading pleasure:

"The #1 factor critical to an effective sales call is intelligent prospecting and preparation.

The Internet is an incredibly rich resource for sales call planning purposes. There are several strategies that sales professionals can use to maximize the power of the information available from various sources on the web.

Here are some tips for using the Internet to research clients and prospective clients:

1. Google can be used several ways to hunt down information on both companies and individual executives. At the risk of being obvious, start by typing in the company name and/or executive's name. Alternately, to find out WHO you need to target in the first place, type in the company name and a position or title, for example, 'XYZ Corp Vice President' to find all references to people at that level. More specifically, you could also type'XYZ Corp Vice President HR' to find the top HR exec.

2. Use research tools like www.looksmart.com and www.findarticles.com to locate media mentions of the company or a specific individual.

3. If your organization does not subscribe to expensive business databases such as hoovers.com, Dun & Bradstreet, or Lexis/Nexis, you can often access these tools - for FREE - at your local public library. This ittle-known selling tip is worth THOUSANDS of dollars in expensive subscription fees, and even more to your bottom line if you use these tools to land a big sale!

4. Visit the websites of leading professional trade journals or conferences in your industry and search for the company name to see which execs have written articles or been guest speakers, what they spoke on, and perhaps any upcoming events where they're slated to speak. (An original approach to your first contact might be to help the exec by providing an article idea or to help her prepare for the speech by providing specific industry data/research on the topic -- or to connect them with a credible expert who happens to be in your "platinum Rolodex.")

5. Join and use social networking sites such as www.linkedin.com. These sites work on the principle of "six degrees of separation" and facilitate direct contact through your own trusted network of clients, friends, partners, and associates. Tip: Rather than contacting current employees at your target company, look for people who have your target company in their job history (former employees). These folks are often quite willing to help by connecting you to their former colleagues and giving you the REAL inside scoop on how the company buys your particular product or service, since there's no direct pressure on them!

This just in from Valerie A. Miller, office manager of Business2Business Magazine (www.b2bezine.biz)

Webster's Dictionary editors have made their choice for word of the year:

"Infosnacking." It describes time spent on the computer at work doing things that aren't work-related.

So... you're reading my blog - are YOU infosnacking? I hope so!!

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”—Author unknown

The Improvements
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.”

“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless he doesn't like sushi—then you also have to teach him to cook.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in the boat and drink beer all day.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak.”

From my man Jeffrey Gitomer's weekly sales e-newsletter...

It's that time of year: 'Call me back after the holidays.'

Humbug. Salespeople hate holidays. It's an excuse for decision makers to put buying decisions on hold. But the worst of them are the Christmas to New Year, 'Call me back after the holidays,' and 'Call me after the first of the year.' Two of the most hated phrases in sales. (They still rank behind 'We've decided to buy from someone else.')

Call me after the holidays is not an objection. It's worse. It's a stall. Stalls are twice as bad as objections. When you get a stall, you have to somehow dance around it, and then you still must find the real objection before you can proceed.

Here are 11.5 clever lines and winning tactics to use that will help overcome the stall:
To continue, click here.
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