A Better Way to Sell

In the 70's, to sell your product and services to the marketplace, you hire salespeople. Their job was to create a "need" and sell their product to prospective customers. The method used were canvass and cold calls (you knock at the prospect's door), phone calls, and referrals. The quota was two-fold: number of calls/month and number of proposals/month. Once prospects were qualified, proposals were submitted and presentations were scheduled. Proposals were typewritten by professional typists. Presentations were done using "white paper", the size of a Manila paper. Drawings were done by professional artists employed by the company.The idea was the more the calls, the more prospective sales were possible!

The advent of personal computers changed this scenario. Apple came up with their Macintosh. IBM with their own brand of MS DOS-based PC. It was glorified typewriter but then you don't have to use "correction fluid" to edit. Corrections were done interactively on the PC using the keyboard. What a relief! Sales work were never the same again. More nice looking and computer generated proposals were done by the typing department. The Salesman's job became easier and more of their time were spent outside the office, calling on prospects.

Back then, to get the "word" out that you have a better product, you employ more salesmen, post mail brochures to prospective customers you don't know but you think will benefit from your product or services. The problem was, you do not have any idea if they have received your mails or who read them. So you ask the salespeople to follow-up or you call each one to know what happened.

Today, thanks to the development of the internet, there is a better way to get the "word" out! Enterprises are now maximizing the use of the internet by creating their own "web site" and have creatively used social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, etc. to their own advantage to sell their products and services.

The concept of E-marketing has created a lot of potential for anyone who has a good product but don't know how to market it. Entrepreneurs, small or big, can now revolutionize their mail campaign by sending professional looking newsletter, on a regular basis to existing customer base and have the ability to expand it. More and more sales are now done online! Using the net in your business can improve your relationship with customers, give you the edge over your competitors and drive down your cost of doing business in an increasingly competitive environment.