Below are ten ways to not only market your new business, but also market it at a low cost.

1. If you do not have business cards, stationary, envelopes or letterhead with the company information on it, have them printed up as soon as possible. Having these things will not only tell people that there is a new credit repair business in town, it will also tell them that you are professional and you take your work seriousl

2. Have flyers printed up with all of your business information on them. Include your contact information, your slogan (if you have one) and what you do. Post these flyers all over town and in certain businesses where there is a lot of traffic.

3. Advertise that you are a new business by putting an ad in the newspaper, on an online classifieds site and/or in the yellow pages.

4. Being a counselor in credit restoration involves building a client base. To advertise your expertise, offer free services at a credit repair seminar. Have people recommend you and offer services at a discount to those that bring in new clients.

5. Become actively involved in your community. The more people you know, the more potential clients and recommendations you could potentially have. Have business cards ready to hand out at any social event.

6. Offer to be a speaker at a public event and speak about the issues with credit reports and debt and ways to repair credit. Most places will pay you for speaking and you will also get the publicity that your new credit repair business needs.

7. Send out letters describing what you do and what your business is with all of your contact information. Be sure to put a business card in the letters.

8. If you own a vehicle, have your credit restoration company’s name and contact information printed on a magnet or on the side of your vehicle.

9. If you have any clients already, have them write out testimonies that you can hand out or post on a website.

10. Always be on the lookout for free ads and new places to advertise.

There is nothing worse than losing what could have been new customers to a novice caller’s nervous laughter and “Um…uh…”. While the uncomfortable first few calls will come to pass, one thing that will always be a part of a telemarketing job is knowing what to say, and when and how to say it.

Several hours each day of saying the same lines over will eventually become rote to your callers, but you should know what and how you want your employees to say at least this well before you even communicate it with them. Your best bet is to construct a script for your team to read off of, not necessarily verbatim or word for word, but rather as a set of guidelines that help to ensure telemarketing successes for everyone involved.

The script should stick to one page, getting out the purpose of the call early without leading right into anything to do with money or selling your product up front. It be double spaced so your callers can pencil in their own notes, vary in terms of font size, italics, boldness and underlining, and should be in the clearest and easiest to read font you can find.

If you are concerned about the way your callers may sound on the phone, have practice calls with them and evaluate their technique. Have them bring their scripts so they can take notes based on what you say will make them individually more effective over the phone. Some tips you might give them include to have read and understand what it says on the script, but to not rely too heavily on it to the point that they sound robotic or like automated messages. You can also ask more experienced or successful callers give example calls either with each other or real people, relying on the script at the appropriate degree.

But it isn’t just what is written on the handout that your callers should absorb like little sponges. Make sure they are all properly trained to speak to potential clientele, and have periodic meetings, if necessary, to go over any changes, or even make sure they are doing their jobs as best they can. Prepare telemarketing personnel for angry or annoyed people, threatening or disparaging words, hang ups, requests not to be phoned again, and make side notes and examples of appropriate ways to handle each situation in the script. Differentiate between a “no answer” and a”call back”, a “remove from list” versus a “do not phone”, and clarify what types of miscellaneous comments are worth leaving for the supervisor or a future caller of that person, versus which comments are a waste of time and space on the profile.

Using internet financial leads can be the most efficient marketing strategy for any entrepreneur or company. This is a powerful statement that has been proven to be true. Recent studies show that more financial firms are now concentrating on strategies that implement the usage of internet financial leads

Leads revolve around data that is collected by a business. This data contains all the important and relevant information about potential customers. This data is vital for any financial business that would like to expand or grow.

Lacking an effective means of communicating with potential customers can hinder a business from expanding. Internet financial leads target clients that may be interested in getting insurance, a home loan, or a personal loan. There are tons of companies that specialize in providing leads in the financial field. These companies provide in-depth information on individuals that may be interested in a financial product.

Are these leads reliable? Yes, many of these leads are very reliable. Many firms owe their success to leads that were purchased from companies that furnish internet financial leads.

Internet financial leads are created carefully. They are based upon criteria that exist within the financial market. For example, the loan industry bases it success upon making loans to firms and individuals that have sound credit. This can help a lending institution or financial firm target prospects that have good credit. No time will be wasted upon marketing to prospects that does not meet basic lending standards.

It is prudent for a firm to do its due diligence on a company that provides internet financial leads. Some lead providing companies are notorious for selling obsolete or outdated information. Purchasing outdated or obsolete leads is counterproductive and pointless. A firm can easily check out a lead generation outfit by consulting with surrounding business agencies and performing an internet search. An internet search will reveal unethical practices that any lead generating company may have been involved in.

Internet financial leads can help any business expand within a reasonable amount of time. Using these unique leads has helped financial firms and lending institutions increase their business. A firm should always perform their due diligence on the provider before making a purchase.

Small businesses, like most mortgage, debt, or insurance companies struggle to do all the things necessary to provide stable revenue. Most are only a few people and everyone wears a variety of hats, from accounting to sales to marketing. This makes it hard to do any of it well.

This is the challenge. How do you get predictable revenue out of a business that is constantly juggling priorities and focus? One thing is for sure–consistent revenue requires steady approach to marketing and sales.

Sales is Probably Your Expertise

My guess is that your expertise is sales. That’s where you should be focusing most of your efforts. It doesn’t work out that way does it?

You work your leads hard, but cold calling and prospecting can be a lot of work for little gain. Most sales people end up spending too much time hunting. This process of directly prospecting, touching every person just to see if they are interested, is very inefficient.

What you need is a little marketing to bring in warmer leads.

Marketing Can Be Neglected

Unfortunately, what you need is getting neglected. This happens for one of two reasons: You don’t know how to get started or you simply aren’t that good at it.

This neglect send you into a panic when the sales pipeline gets low. Then even the little bit of marketing that you do pull off gets done poorly. Again, resulting in too much effort for too little results.

Both Marketing and Sales Need Consistency

Your efforts constantly jump from marketing to sales as your pipeline goes from empty to full. Unfortunately, your revenue goes through the same volatile cycles. You need to find a way to smooth out these gyrations.

The key to predictable revenue is predictable marketing and sales. Aged Internet leads can help.

Since most marketing and advertising is designed as a broadcast it can be very expensive–random direct mail, newspaper ads, or cable spots. The advantage of aged Internet leads is that you get the professional lead generation and targeting of real-time Internet leads, but at a steep discount.

This can steady your marketing efforts and keep you focused on selling to qualified sales leads.

There is a distinct difference between leads and a list of names. I call a list of names and numbers suspects. Data providers often mislead clients into believing that they are getting leads when they get these too good to be true prices on thousands of leads.

Make Sure You Have Leads

The fact is that a lead implies that the consumer has taken some intentional action on an offer. That may be calling an 800 number, requesting over phone to be transferred, making an email or contact form inquiry, or opting into an email campaign. Short of that you have a list of names.

Regardless of what type of lead data you are buying, you need to move each of them to a viable lead. Develop a sales process that assumes all your contacts are simply data until you make contact and convert them into “your” personal leads.

Turning Suspects into Leads

Here is the simple sales process I recommend:

1. Load all new data into a “suspect” email campaign
2. Power dial all new data with an intro message and phone number verification
3. Invalid emails and phone numbers are cleaned out of the suspect list
4. Positive responses to emails and phone calls get bumped up to leads

Now you can go into sales mode on these leads. All of the verified data now needs to make it’s way into your lead management software or CRM system.

Notice this initial process can easily be accomplished in-house or even outsourced–potentially keeping you focused on sales.

Turning Leads into Sales

With good clean leads in your database it is time to begin moving them towards a sale. I recommend again using a combination of email campaigns and regular calling.

Your emails should focus on education and market updates. These will give your customers confidence and build trust. It also allows for your calls to be more about touching base, checking for questions, building a relationship, and hopefully closing a deal.
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We have all heard the infamous sales mantra–ABC, Always Be Closing. But what about Openings? This is the essential question Anthony Iannarino, of The Sales Blog asks, what’s more important the opener or the closer?

Closers are Charging Hard, Maybe Too Hard

Often the ABC persona will run customers hard into the ground. That means lots of rejections, which is a natural part of sales. However, is it possible you are shoving off good prospects because of your aggressive approach?

A good sales person is more about keeping customer on track than shoving them into a purchase. Buyers remorse can be a damaging result and certainly doesn’t encourage referrals.

Openers are Starting a Relationship

The good thing about practicing your opening is it gets a good conversation underway. I have always believed that good conversations are the heart and soul of sales performance.

People love to talk and more often than not about themselves. This is a marvelous opportunity for sales people. Customers talking about themselves is filling your ears with angles to encourage them to buy.

Focusing on being a good opener is likely to increase your conversion and your overall batting average

But, You Still Need to Get the Job Done

Just remember though–In the end you still need to get the deal. That means pushing a little, at the right moment, with the right pressure to get the deal done.

Perfect that opening and then learn the art of closing.

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We have certainly discussed this before, but I want to take a little different angle on the topic this time. I recently received a marketing email from a lead management software vendor talking about the number of leads that go ignored in sales people’s pipelines. The number was enormous-they said 90%–I have seen objective research that puts it closer to 40-60%.

Regardless, this presents an incredible opportunity for you and your aged leads marketing strategy.  Assuming either of these big numbers is accurate it is no wonder customers are still willing to listen to you 30, 90, even 120 days after their initial inquiry. No one is talking to them.

Here are 5 simple steps to seizing this opportunity:

1. Create an aged lead script. It is worth putting some time into learning to introduce yourself to someone that has been dropped on the floor or whose needs have changed. I like to suggest an ear catching statistic-preferably one related to a change in the market or lending environment. This prevents the quick hangup while you are trying to spit out your name, which they won’t remember anyway, and it immediately explains your call.

2. Don’t lose track of them again. For heaven sakes manage your leads so you don’t drop them again. If you are going to work aged leads you should invest some of the savings from aged leads  into a good lead management system. If you lose them you will never get them back.

3. Reassure them along the way. You are certainly climbing a mountain in gaining these clients trust. However, if you keep them informed and reassure them of what the process is when you get that trust it will be locked. Coming through for a customer that has previously been disappointed can be a huge win for your sales pipeline.

4. Be hyper-responsive. Much like your strategy to reassure a customer of the process, your follow through is a trust builder. Try to be as responsive as possible. Immediately return calls and emails, even if you don’t have the answer yet.

5. Ask them for a referral. Don’t be shy. If you did a good job ask for that referral. They will want to repay you and are going to be interested in sending people they care about straight to you so those people can avoid getting put in the meat grinder they probably went through before you helped them.

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Cold calling is really the center of the aged lead business. You are making a commitment to working hard and making a lot of calls when you buy aged leads. Chances are these are leads that other lenders or debt businesses passed on or rejected.

Cold Calling is Real Sales

I think that is kind of a noble cause. I think the work that lenders and debt businesses do to convert my aged leads is something pretty amazing. So often the articles and books written about sales is negative towards cold calling.

I don’t think making a lot of sales calls should ever be looked at negatively. It is how this business gets done. And if you are able to do it and good at it to-you should be proud.

The reality is that cold calling is real selling.

Real Salesmen Love Cold Calling

I got on this thought when I saw this article from the Sales Machine on BNET. By the way if you are not subscribed you should be,. He’s got great stuff.

His article is strong. He contends that the top sales people love cold calling. Here is his fantastic analogy:

Here’s an analogy.  Most people hate exercising and don’t it; they’re called couch potatoes. Some people hate exercise but do it anyway; they’re called healthy people. A very small number of people exercise simply because they love it; they’re called athletes.

Do you want to be a Top Sales Pro?

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I know many of you blog to build your personal brand or increase you flow of high quality exclusive leads. The question is are you branding that blog or just spitting out content?

3 Reasons to Brand Your Blog

I came across a nice article on CopySnips.com about branding your blog. He is talking to copywriters and for-profit bloggers, but we’re all in the business of making money so it seems like a pretty important topic. This is especially important if you use blogging for lead generation, which you should by the way.

Here are CopySnips.com’s main points:

• Branding makes you easy to find
• Branding makes you memorable
• You can create and reinforce your brand’s image

Winning Customers, Why Make it Hard?

Ultimately, we all know that winning customers is about having good service and a quality product. I assume you are working hard on that every day, but why would you make it hard to find your great business?

That really is the problem you are solving with branding. It is not the glitz and the glamour. It is the making it easy part.

You need to use you blog in an intelligent way to get prospects familiar and funneling into your sales process.

So, take a look-see what CopySnips.com has to say.

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I wish I could attend the Sales 2.0 Conference in Chicago this month. The conference is often full of good stuff on sales innovation and data to back the ideas. This event is going to cover topics like: improving the productivity on your sales pipeline, sales lead management 2.0, sales 2.0 driven sales process, and social networking in sales 2.0. All ideas and topics we have visited here from time to time.

At the last event, in Boston, there was a great study done on when the best time was to make cold calls, which Geoffrey James, of Sales Machine turned into a clever quiz.

You should take a few minutes and go through it. You will be shocked how many of your assumptions about cold calling are wrong.

You know I am a big proponent of lead management and social networking in your sales process. And although this seems to be more B2B focused I think there could be a lot to learn.

I would recommend attending, but if you have conflicts like I do you can go to Sales Machine and get live updates from the conference.

Are there any good mortgage or debt industry sales conferences? I would think there would be a great opportunity for something like this.

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