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CEO Advisor® Newsletter
December 2011

Increasing Sales in a Tough Economic Climate 

Building a business is an art and a science. After 32 years of growing businesses, hiring salespeople, training sales managers and implementing marketing plans within many companies, I have focused on the following seven critical areas that need to be mastered for sustained sales growth. 

 

Sales Leadership 

Selling is one of the hardest aspects of a business. It is both physically demanding (long hours) and emotionally draining (facing rejection continually). Weekly sales meetings, role playing, sales training, sales goals, accountability, metrics, motivation, inspiration and actively participating in prospecting and sales appointments are all extremely important to managing and building an effective sales team. 

 

Positioning, Branding and Differentiation
Effective marketing includes answering the most important question in the prospect's mind, "Why should I do business with you (and not your competitor)?" Salespeople without a unique value proposition often have to resort to price cutting or overly favorable terms. A clearly articulated and differentiated product or service will enable you to reap strong sales results. 

 

Potent Sales Messaging
Well-crafted, natural sounding and emotionally compelling sales messages including scripts for Sales Prospecting, Pre-Qualifying, Sales Presentation, Objection Handling, Sales Closing, Following up and FAQs are vital to every sales team. Sales scripts will help your salespeople stay on track, ask pointed questions and consistently close! A written script can also help you train new salespeople quickly, and convey a professional image of the company. 

 

Sales Tools
A strong "Call to Action" or recommendation is often missing, yet is critical to the sales process. Also, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution with your target vertical markets housed in the CRM can be the best investment you can make. Consistent and uniform use of your CRM by all salespeople is a must and requires management and training. Reporting from your CRM should be an integral part of each week and month to monitor progress and results. 

 

Hire the Right Salespeople
Effective sales professionals are often hard to find. Avoiding costly hiring mistakes is critical to reaching your goals and building a productive team. The proper process to hire and screen salespeople can bring the greatest ROI overall. 

 

Marketing and Lead Generation
Your sales team's pipeline is a shared responsibility between your salespeople and your marketing efforts.  A good, consistent, leads generation program should be in place and tracked diligently.  If you do not have a marketing plan in place, your sales will suffer significantly. 

 

Sales Strategy and Planning
Observing what is working and what is not, and making ongoing course corrections is vital. Not to mention studying the competition, monitoring the markets, and innovating to stay ahead. Retaining good salespeople is sometimes harder than recruiting them, but treating them right and compensating them fairly goes a long way. 

 

CEO Advisor, Inc. specializes in business growth focusing on sales and marketing - two critical areas of any business. Contact Mark Hartsell, MBA, CEO of CEO Advisor, Inc. at (949) 759-8676 or email at MHartsell@CEOAdvisor.com.
CEO Advisor, Inc. Advises Advanced Cluster Systems on Key Acquisition 

CEO Advisor, Inc. 
(www.CEOAdvisor.com), a leading business advisory firm serving the needs of CEOs, presidents and business owners of small and mid-size companies has provided mergers & acquisitions advisory services to Advanced Cluster Systems, Inc. (ACS), an early stage software company specializing in parallel computing and clustering.  


CEO Advisor, Inc. provides affordable, hands-on advisory services on strategy, goals, funding, sales strategy, marketing, finance, mergers and acquisitions to grow businesses to the next level.  As a trusted CEO Advisor® to business owners since 2004, the firm specializes in driving growth and profits exclusively for business owners in a one-to-one advisory role on a weekly basis. 


Advanced Cluster Systems (www.AdvancedClusterSystems.com) provides patented software that enables fast, efficient and cost-effective supercomputing-style parallelization of software applications.  The company's goal is to completely revolutionize the high performance computing software market with proven, disruptive technology.  


CEO Advisor, Inc. was instrumental in advising ACS' CEO on the proper strategy and method to acquire specified assets of its strategic partner.  CEO Advisor, Inc. created and negotiated the Letter of Intent, managed the due diligence and worked as the liaison and advisor between ACS, their attorney and the acquisition target to facilitate the acquisition.  


Mark Hartsell, CEO of CEO Advisor, Inc. states, "With nearly thirty years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, I identified the needs of ACS, formulated a favorable agreement and moved the acquisition forward to enable the two companies to create one very valuable, fundable company.  There are many opportunities for growth through acquisitions in today's economic environment.  I work with my clients to identify and realize strategic and opportunistic acquisitions."  


About CEO Advisor, Inc.
CEO Advisor, Inc. provides business advisory services affordably and effectively to meet the specific needs of CEOs, presidents and business owners of small to mid-size companies in a wide range of industries, including technology, services and light manufacturing.  CEO Advisor, Inc.'s mission is to advise business owners with the needed expertise and focus, coupled with hands-on advice and work performed to grow your business to the next level.  By specializing in the needs of CEOs, presidents and business owners, we focus on growth, opportunities and challenges that you and your business encounter every day. 


Contact CEO Advisor, Inc. today at (949) 759-8676 in So. California, or (301) 580-8071 in the Washington, DC Metro area, by email at info@CEOAdvisor.com or visit us at www.CEOAdvisor.com for more information. 

Testimonial  


"As a President of a mid-size technology company, I have been very pleased with the services provided by CEO Advisor®. He contributed in many areas, but identified marketing and sales as our primary need. His guidance and contributions have been invaluable in establishing and maintaining a meaningful marketing and sales program for the company. He is a knowledgeable business advisor and a pleasure to work with."
CEO/President, Engineering Services/Manufacturing Company

"As President of a small technology company, I have been very pleased with the services provided by my CEO Advisor®. He contributed in many areas, but identified marketing and sales as our primary need. His guidance and contributions have been invaluable in establishing and maintaining a meaningful marketing and sales program for the company. He is a knowledgeable business advisor and a pleasure to work with." 

 

CEO/President

Web Development Company
 



Whether it is growing a business to the next level, turning a distressed company around or preparing a company for an exit, Mark's firm, CEO Advisor, Inc, provides a broad range of services and Mark is there for the CEO every step of the way."

 


Partner

Haynes & Boone, LLP

Words of Wisdom


"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."

 

Jim Rohn

Business Philosopher

"Yesterday does not equal tomorrow. Forget the past and move towards your goals."
Tony Robbins
Motivational Speaker
"Yesterday does not equal tomorrow. Forget the past and move towards your goals."
Tony Robbins
Motivational Speaker



Prime Minister of the U.K.