Frank Furness Interviews Verne Harnish | Sales & Marketing Speaker

Craft Your Elevator Speech | Sales & Marketing Speaker

 Your Elevator Speech must be short and concise and you must know it off by heart. It must come so naturally to you that you can repeat it in your sleep. 

Introductory statements that are not elevator speeches include, “My name is Michael and I am a sales trainer”. “My name is Mary and I am a motivational speaker”.

None of these statements stimulate any conversation and will either drive potential clients to the other side of the room or bore them while they say to themselves, ‘so what’.

Remember every potential client is thinking ‘what’s in it for me. So if anyone can see the wiifm (what’s in it for me) after your elevator speech, you’re selling benefits.

A better strategy would be, “My name is David and I help international expatriates with their mortgages/help them retire early/maximise their investments (all benefits for them).”

Remember your goal is to keep the conversation going and stimulate a response from the person you are speaking to. Your goal is not to talk about yourself and what you do but it is to find out what the other person does and what is important to them, i.e. what’s in it for them.

To prepare your elevator speech, first identify how you can help your potential clients. List at least three things that you could do to help your clients, and then list three reasons why people should be doing business with you. 

Now…list three things you do to help your clients

1

2

3

Now create your elevator speech into three parts. 

Part one would describe what it is that you do, i.e. ‘My name is Frank Furness and I help organisations to understand the selling process in a fun and educational way.’ 

Now…write out your introduction and what it is that you do

My name……

Part two would describe how they would derive benefit from what you are selling them. ‘I help organisations to give their sales people the right skills, I help them to understand what motivates their sales people and give them strategies to sell to clients the way that they buy.’

Now write out your benefit statement

I help….

Part three is the ‘what’s in it for them’

 ‘What this means to you as the company owner, is so that they can be more motivated and exceed their sales targets.

The part three should always include a phrase like, ‘so that’.

Now ….write out your benefit statement.

After you have done this, put it all together and learn it well. Also remember that this could change depending on the clients and their requirements.

Frank Furness CSP CFP TOT is a professional speaker and trainer specialising in financial services sales and sales management. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 53 countries. His publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com and for resources take a look at http://www.frankfurness.com and http://www.technologytoolsforbusiness.com

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at http://www.frankfurness.com/  

How to Optimize your LinkedIn Profile | Sales & Marketing Speaker

Have you got a boring LinkedIn profile. You can bring it alive with articles, videos and PowerPoint presentations. My latest video will share how to optimize your LinkedIn profile

How to use Video to build your brand & increase sales | Sales & Marketing Speaker | Frank Furness

Video has to be one of the best ways to increase exposure and build your brand, especially using the power of YouTube.

• The latest research shows that:
• Content with visuals get 94% more views
• Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media network
• The average person reads only 20% of text on webpages

I have been involved in video for the past 10 years and uploaded my first video to YouTube when it started. I now have over 600 videos, millions of views and 6,000 subscribers.

Here are some of the things I have learned along the way:

• Content is king. It is all good and well having funny videos of cats for views, but in a business situation people are looking for good content that is relevant to the
• Sound quality is really important, if the sound is bad they will stop watching immediately
• A year ago I would have said that the length of the video should be less than 2 minutes. Latest statistics show the average viewing time is 36 seconds. Saying that, once again it is about the content. I have uploaded webinars that are an hour long and had great success because the content was important and compellin
• In the first few seconds tell them why they should be watching the video and what they will get from it.
• Have a call to action at the end of the video with your contact details and a live link to your website. Also tell them to comment, like and share your video as this will help with your views. 
•  Kick start your videos. I normally spend $10 on YouTube AdWords and $25 on Virool Promotion
• Have a great thumbnail that will catch attention and tell views what the video is about – take a look at http://jvz3.com/c/16130/132567 which will take you to YouTube Graphics creator which I use all the time
•  Have a great headline for your video. Again I use a tool that can be seen at www.simpleheadlines.com
• Once you have uploaded your video, remember to promote it through all your social media channels

I will be bringing out more articles on how to use video and YouTube effectively and also take a look at my Masterclass that I am running in venues around the world - http://frankfurness.com/video-a-youtube-masterclass

Frank Furness CSP is a Video Marketing & Social media presenter and author of two best-selling books.

He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 54 countries. His publications and resources have been sold globally. His YouTube channel www.youtube.com/salestips has over 600 videos, millions of views and over 6,000 subscribers. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com  and for resources take a look at http://www.frankfurness.com  and http://www.technologytoolsforbusiness.com 

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com  Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at http://www.frankfurness.com/

The impact of Social Media on Business | Sales & Marketing Speaker

Social media is impacting the way organizations do business massively. 

If we just look at some of the changes, they include the movement of:   

•  Television to YouTube
• Hard copy books to Kindle
• CDs to ITunes
• Websites to Mobile Technology

Online marketing has increased massively and the starting point for many organisations and individuals right now is to go to the internet to find information that will help them make a decision, validate the credibility of a company or person or check out reviews.

What this means is that companies have to accept change. They also need to change the way they market if they are using old, ineffective forms of marketing. 

Organisations have to accept that social media is here to stay and that it will be involved in some way or other in the decision making process.

Companies have to ensure that their websites have new information constantly, in the form of articles or video to entice customers to return. More importantly Google is all about new information and this will all help in getting their sites seen.

We have also become a visual society, so organisations need to ensure that there are plenty of photos and video. Boring text just does not hack it any more.

Organisations should also be connecting with clients and potential clients via social media. They firstly need to determine which would be the most relevant media for their audience and then post regularly. Facebook may be great for a wedding planner, but not as effective for a law firm.

There are many organisations that have realised the positive impact of social media are using it effectively:

•  HR departments connecting with potential employees and streamlining the recruitment process
• Sales teams using LinkedIn and advanced Google searches to generate leads and track clients
• Marketing teams cleverly using all forms of social media to build their brands and get their message seen and read.
• Operations using tools to connect with their global offices and suppliers

Personally, my plans on evolving my social media strategies this year include:

• Think Google – in everything I do. I will always ensure that any new information I publish will be incorporated into the Google family which includes: YouTube, Blogger, Google+ and Feedburner (and of course Google Analytics to measure the traffic on my website)
• Develop a strategy to constantly monitor what is being said about my business and respond quickly
• Create new content on an ongoing basis and sharing it through every social media platform that my clients and potential clients will be using
• Using the power of article marketing. Creating at least an article a week that is correctly tagged and posting it firstly to Blogger, and then promoting it with Google+. After that it will be posted onto my website, newsletter, LinkedIn and sent out to local magazines. This strategy has proved so successful that when British Airways and Avios recently announced a 75% cut in air miles, my article appeared at number one on searches for ‘British Airways’ and ‘Avios’
• Create at least two videos a month. Correctly tagged[FF1]  and with great content, this is my best form of search engine optimisation at the moment
• Using the vast amount of low cost, no cost tools out there to promote my products, business and brand.

Frank Furness CSP is a Sales & Social media presenter and author of two best-selling books.

He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 54 countries. His publications and resources have been sold globally. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com  and for resources take a look at http://www.frankfurness.com  and http://www.technologytoolsforbusiness.com 

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com  Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at http://www.frankfurness.com/ 

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