Sales
Solve a Problem, Get a Sale—and a Referral
How often have you bought a product based solely on an ad or a jingle? The truth is, prospects are rarely converted to customers based on bombardment strategies. The more effective strategy is to find potential customers who are already actively... ➡
Know Your Clients: A Gold Mine
Amanda Steinberg asks Ramit Sethi, founder of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, about creating a profitable customer base. Why don’t more people start businesses? Most people spend their time on fake business work, like creating a website, getting on... ➡
How to Get Paid
Think sales is the hardest part of running a services business? Wrong. Cashflow is harder. You're entitled to a downpayment. Don't wait until the end of a project to send an invoice. As part of your negotiation and written contract, specify... ➡
Tips for Going Retail
Bag from Kaela Designs How do you make that retail leap from selling your product on Etsy to having it carried in over a dozen boutiques? Ask the founders of Kaela Designs. Two years after the mother-daughter team launched their line of... ➡
Do You Really Need That Tough Customer?
So how can you avoid unrewarding clients and projects in the first place? I asked my brilliant Twitter friends for their personal red flags: @sarahjbray knows it's time to run when a potential client says, "It should take no time at all!" You're... ➡
Strategies to Drive More Revenue
Let’s help you make more money, shall we? Two questions to start: How many customers did you serve this July, and how much total revenue did you bring in? Time to calculate your average revenue per customer. For example, if you grossed $4,000 and... ➡
Socializing with CEOs Pays Off
When I was 21, I had the good fortune to attend the Social Venture Network conference, a membership group of hundreds of CEOs committed to building socially-oriented businesses that value social change alongside profits. The cost of SVN seemed... ➡
Running the Numbers on Fitness DVDs
If your entire market of customers bought your product, how much money could you make? Execs call this your TAM, or "total addressable market." Last year at Spark and Hustle, we met up with Gloria, an entrepreneur developing exercise DVDs... ➡
