Healthcare
Sparkle Paper Towels
4 Easy Ways to Spruce Up Your Space This Season
The holidays are often filled with hectic store runs, last-minute decorations, and of course—plenty of overnight guests.
Why not save your time and your sanity by stripping the holiday cleaning down to the basics?
DUST AWAY THE DEBRIS
No one said dusting would be easy, but it’s an absolute must when preparing for holiday guests. Take the anxiety out of dusting by using a bendable duster to clean high ceiling fans. You can even make your own duster by covering a broom pole with a sock and elastic band to tackle cobwebs, baseboards, and other hard-to-reach places.
CLEAR OUT THE CLUTTER
Create a warm and inviting atmosphere by making sure your closets, pantries, and countertops are free from dirt and unnecessary clutter. Castile oil is an excellent non-toxic, multi-purpose cleaner. (It’s great for almost any surface!)
This would also be the perfect time to donate clothes, appliances, and other items you no longer need. Who knows? Your old items could make someone’s holiday a little brighter.
SNIFF OUT THE SMELLS
Create a cheerful ambiance by making sure there’s always a pleasant aroma in your holiday space. Brewing coffee is a cheap and easy way to quickly eliminate unpleasant odors. You can even make a delightful DIY air freshener by adding 5-8 drops of your favorite essential oil to a spray bottle with ¾ cups distilled water.
STOCK UP THE PAPER
It’s easy to underestimate the need for extra toiletries when doing your holiday planning. Be sure your bathrooms are stocked with plenty of toilet paper and clean towels; and be prepared for the inevitable spills by keeping plenty of napkins and paper towels on hand.
Tech, Marketing & Sales
Utilizing Interactive Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business
Outlet: www.startupnation.com
Client: www.ceros.com
Writer: Carmen Williams
Utilizing Interactive Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business
As market competition in many different industries continues to increase, businesses are working to find new and innovative ways to reach their target audiences. Although traditional forms of marketing have been and still are effective ways to reach target markets, there are several ways to utilize the latest trends in interactive marketing to help grow and develop your business.
Promoting Audience Engagement and Sharing
Social media is a form of interactive marketing that has become an ideal way to engage current and potential customers. Having a presence on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, allows your customers to become more familiar with your brand as well as strengthens your business’s reputation. It also lets customers interact with your brand in a way that makes them feel as though they are key players in your brand’s business decisions.
Interacting with your business through social media allows a customer to “get to know” you and your business a little better. A Nielsen study showed that 60 percent of global customers were more likely to do business with a brand with which they are familiar than with one that is completely new to them. Social media also creates opportunities to have real conversations with your customers and ask them how you can better meet their needs.
Increasing Conversion Rates
When your business executes interactive marketing strategies correctly, it can quickly turn your target audience into buyers. Utilizing websites and online stores that incorporate persuasive language such as “add to cart” and “buy now” are fantastic ways to promote conversion rate optimization (CRO). To increase CRO, you must make sure that your website is easy to navigate and has clear product and service offerings with straight-forward directions as to how to make a purchase.
Ceros is a tool that assists marketers with creating seamless and interactive digital content. At Ceros, we believe there is a fine line between focusing too heavily on either content or conversions— there must be a healthy balance between providing engaging stories for customers, while preventing conversions from being lost in translation. You must ask, “How do your goals help your audience achieve their goals?”, and keep this at the forefront of all of your site’s content. While it may go without mentioning, you must also be sure that your website has a professional look that will encourage your customers and prospects to trust your business with their time and money.
The Importance of Customer Referrals
One of the most powerful forms of interactive marketing is referral marketing. Referred customers tend to buy faster than other customers and in larger quantities. Another Nielsen study showed that 92% of customers trusted recommendations from friends and families more than any other form of advertising. Be willing to offer your customers incentives for referrals as well as consider partnership opportunities and affiliate programs through your website. Your customers interacting with you and then interacting with their friends and family on behalf of your business can do wonders for both your sales and your brand exposure.
Incorporating Content
Allowing customers to interact with your business through the valuable content that your business provides is also a fantastic way to gain new customers and increase your sales. The content that you offer your audience can include eBooks, email newsletters, podcasts, videos, and blog posts. Offer quality content that both increases your reputability in your given industry and allows you to keep in touch with your customers. Every business should aspire to have long-lasting customer relationships, as opposed to one-time interactions. Building strong relationships with customers can lead to repeat business, customer loyalty, and higher profitability.
5 Important Things Salespeople Learn About Sales
Outlet: www.tech.co
Client: www.intelliconnection.com
Writer: Carmen Williams
You’ve heard it said many times before: real life experience is much more valuable than anything you could ever learn from a textbook. This statement has never been truer than in the world of sales. Through having a career that is so hands on, unpredictable, and oftentimes challenging, a successful salesperson will inevitably learn several important things about not only the sales process, but also about personal growth and development.
1. It is important to work harder on yourself than on anything else.
Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln knew what every great salesperson must eventually learn: Before diving headfirst into the tumultuous sea of prospective customers, he or she must spend time sharpening and honing their own knowledge and skills. There’s nothing more frustrating than hacking away at a tree with a dull axe. Similarly, there is nothing worse than spending weeks trying to close a deal without the proper approach and technique. Salespeople learn that it is much easier to close a deal after first studying the prospect and perfecting his or her sales approach.
2. Potential customers will tell you how to win them over.
It’s often easy for a salesperson to be overly concerned with impeccably delivering the pitch he or she has been working on for months or flawlessly describing all of the ins and outs of the product or service. However, every experienced salesperson understands that the key to closing a deal is to stop talking and start listening. They learn to have in-depth and insightful conversations with their prospects in an effort to determine their needs, problems, and challenges. He or she then offers solutions that are specific to each prospect.
3. Selling products will make you money. Selling relationships will make you a fortune.
Salespeople who want to make a quick buck do or say whatever is necessary to close the deal before immediately moving on to working over the next prospect. However, all successful salespeople know that closing a deal is by no means the final step in the sales process; but rather, it is the beginning of what should be a long and fruitful relationship with that customer. Salespeople quickly learn that to keep their heads above water in such a competitive field, they must create meaningful relationships that foster customer loyalty, referrals, and future sells.
4. One must never lose his or her passion.
The passion that a salesperson should have is not merely excitement about making money or getting more customers. It is a genuine passion about both the product or service as well as fulfilling the needs of potential prospects. Salespeople discover that having a stale and indifferent view of what they do will create a domino effect of unsuccessful deals and unhappy customers. Attitude truly is everything in the world of sales.
5. Selling requires a process.
As outgoing and spontaneous as many salespeople may seem, a great salesperson understands that he or she cannot meet sales goals and targets without executing a consistent process or approach.
Late author and entrepreneur Jim Rohn said that, “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” These fundamentals are often so basic that they may seem monotonous or even silly. They may include making exactly 20 cold calls per day, personally meeting with each customer once a month, or sending a thank you email to the prospect after every sales meeting. Through experience, salespeople figure out what processes work best for them and consistently apply these processes to reach their sales goals.
5 Tactics to Close More Deals
Outlet: www.helloleadgeneration.com
Client: www.intelliconnection.com
Writer: Carmen Williams
Most salespeople are all too familiar with the sweat, blood, and tears that can often go into trying to close a deal. The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, states that 80% of all sales are made by 20% of salespeople. Here are 5 sales tactics that can quickly propel you into that top 20%.
1. Eliminate Your Prospect’s Fears
What often hinders a prospective customer from purchasing from you or your company? It’s the fact that your prospect needs a couple of days to “think about it” or “talk it over with the team.” That couple of days can easily turn into a week, a month, or even a year, without you ever closing the deal.
Why does your prospect feel the need to ponder for long periods of time or to get advice from nearly everyone in the company before making a purchase decision? The simple answer is fear. Whether they be money concerns or worries about the unstable economy, identify what your prospect’s fears are and immediately address them so that they will not hinder you from closing the deal.
2. Consistently Generate Quality Leads
Finding the appropriate potential customers for the product or service you’re selling is a vital part of closing more deals. Creating blog posts and ebooks, utilizing social media platforms, and attending trade shows and networking events are fantastic ways to not only generate quality leads, but to also establish you and your company as a trusted expert in your particular industry. Incorporating a professional lead capture service into your sales strategy is also effective and allows you to focus less on generating leads and more on what you do best: closing deals.
3. Show Enthusiasm About What You’re Selling
Although it’s sometimes difficult to remain positive after hearing “no” after “no” from prospective customers, showing genuine excitement about what you’re selling can be the deciding factor in whether or not you close a deal. If a prospect detects that you truly believe in your product or service and what it can do, that prospect is likely to believe in it as well. Exercise and physical activity can help you recharge your mind and body before approaching prospects. Another way to give yourself a quick energy boost is to ask your current customers what they like most about your product or service. This positive feedback can give you the extra confidence and knowledge that you need to approach new prospects and close deals that are currently in the works.
4. Offer Your Prospects a Trial Program
What better way to prove the benefits of your service or product than by allowing your prospect to try it out free of charge (i.e. the “Puppy-Dog Close”)? This technique lets your product or service nearly sell itself by allowing your potential customers to experience it firsthand before making a decision. It’s not easy for a prospect to stop using your product after it has already become an indispensable addition to his or her personal life or company.
5. Do Your Homework
No matter how many calls you make, doors you knock on, or business cards you shell out, if you don’t know anything about your prospect, you will probably be doing these things in vain. Packaged, over-rehearsed sales pitches that are not tailored to your prospective customer are rarely successful. Start by discovering things that you have in common with your prospect in order to build an authentic relationship. Your prospect is much more likely to buy from someone they know and trust than from a stranger they just met. Also, learn what challenges your prospect is currently facing and brainstorm ways that your product or service can help your prospect overcome these challenges.
Getting into that top 20% is not as hard as it may seem. Use the tactics above to help enhance your sales strategy, close more deals, and more effectively build and maintain positive relationships with both current and potential customers.
3 Ways Oracle WebCenter Can Transform Your Organization's Content Management
Outlet: www.helloleadgeneration.com
Client: Oracle WebCenter
Writer: Carmen Williams
One of the key tools that helps drive success for any organization is effective content management. Many organizations have multiple types of important content including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and contracts floating around in cyberspace. What these organizations need to streamline their productivity is a centralized source for their content that is easily accessible and available to their members. They need a solution that effectively manages all forms of content across many different platforms including online, video, and mobile. TekStream provides services through the Oracle WebCenter Suite that can completely revolutionize the way an organization shares and manages content. These products can drastically strengthen an organization’s digital asset management, digital records management, and imaging and process management.
Digital Asset Management
With the sophistication of electronic communication steadily increasing, your organization must have a reliable way to store these often-complex media files. Whether they are video, audio, or images, Oracle WebCenter can provide a single repository for your organization’s digital assets. TekStream’s consultants will be available to make sure your organization meets its specific media needs, offering storage of your images in low, medium, and high resolution file formats as well as multiple storage options for your video files. Easily locate, view, and update rich multi-rendition content with TekStream’s assistance and expertise.
Digital Records Management
TekStream will ensure that your records are both organized and secure with Oracle WebCenter Content Records. No longer do they have to become outdated, messy, or non-compliant with Federal, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, or other mandated regulations. TekStream allows you to manage each piece of content’s complete lifecycle from creation to deletion. Its team will make sure your organization implements the appropriate solution to effectively and legally manage all of your records.
Image and Process Management
Even with all of the existing and available technology, the amount of unmanaged paper an organization has can easily get out of control. TekStream uses the Oracle WebCenter Imaging Solution to help manage papers containing key content and business information, preventing the accidental loss of vital materials. TekStream’s WebCenter Image consultants are experienced in using WebCenter Imaging to come with up with specific solutions for your organization and execute a step-by-step installation plan. TekStream’s implementation of Oracle WebCenter Imaging can provide benefits in many different areas of your organization including finance & accounting, human resources, and legal.
Don’t allow your organization get overwhelmed with content that is hard to access and modify. Let TekStream apply its leading content management solutions with Oracle WebCenter and provide customized tools that promote efficiency and growth.
