Marketing Gets it Wrong, SWOT Analysis, and Ben Stein Sells Shoes

Here are three nice articles I recommend:

1. Sean d'Souza writes about why marketing gets it wrong most of the time at Psychotactics.com.

Sean says it's all about wants. I prefer to use the term "desires" instead of "wants", but I agree with much of what Sean has to say here. Most of my client companies have some salespeople that sell as if it's all about their product, their company, and their expertise. But it's more about the prospect's needs and desires. Desire is a strong motivator. If you can identify and magnify desire, you can then position your product to meet that desire, and that's when prospects become customers.

2. Read "SWOT Yourself to Success" at FreelanceAdvisor.com.

Many of you are already familiar with SWOT analysis, the self-evaluation tool that helps you understand your:

-Strengths

-Weaknesses

-Opportunities, and

-Threats.

This article is intended for freelancers, but a SWOT analysis is an excellent tool for business owners, managers, AND salespeople to do. You have to be willing to be a analytical to pull this off, but a SWOT analysis can help shine a light on your business that can help you be a more successful salesperson, business owner, or manager.

3. The actor, writer, and lawyer Ben Stein wrote an interesting article in the New York Times about the sales profession (thanks to Guy Kawasaki and his practical blog "How to Change the World" for calling my attention to it).

Read "The Sales Profession: Attention Must Be Paid." It seems Mr. Stein is a bit nostalgic for his first summer job as a teen selling shoes at "Shoe Giant." You'll have to register at the New York Times site to view the article.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Comments

[KMH]

Thanks for recommending Freelance Advisor we're glad you found the SWOT Yourself to Success article useful!
We've just launched a new freelance training section on the website that covers all areas of business from Sales, to Business Management and Financial Planning to P.R. It would be great to hear what you think about it!

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