When it comes to increasing your sales, there is a basic principle that you must remember:

Your prospects buy the benefits to fill specific needs or wants.  Your job as a business owner is to know, understand and deliver the benefits they’re looking for, which will differ depending on the needs of your customers, even for the same product or service. Therefore, it’s critical that you know the multiple benefits for each of your products and services and know exactly what your prospect’s needs and wants are. This is the essence of marketing; to create a match between your buyer’s needs and wants and your list of benefits.

There are two primary categories of information that will help you:

1. The first category is demographics. These are the characteristics that identify the ability, need and interest of a client to purchase your product or service. Demographics define those clients who need what you sell.
2. The second category is psychographics. These are the factors that identify the motivation or reasons why someone wants to buy your product or service. Psychographics define those clients who want what you sell.

As you identify your prospects’ wants and needs based upon their demographic and psychographic characteristics, compare this data with your own wants and needs. You will gain greater insight into your ideal client. Once you accurately target your ideal clients, you’ll spend less time and money to acquire them.

To start, you must research your current clients – the ones you presently deal with day in and day out. Select at least three of your current clients to interview. Perform the demographic research by personally interviewing these clients either on the phone, or in person.

Your Retail Consumers: You must know your consumers. Invest some time in understanding your prospects. Find the answers to questions like these:

• Who are your current clients: men, mostly women, do they represent a 50/50 mix?
• Is there a certain age or age range that tends to buy from you?
• Are most of your typical clients single or married?
• Do they have a high school, college or graduate degree or some where in between?
• Do you know their approximate income level?
• If not, do you know what zip code they live in? (Most zip codes contain homes or apartments that represent specific income ranges.)

Your Business Buyer: If you sell to businesses, interview at least 5-7 typical businesses you sell to. Find out the number of employees they have and their location to learn about their company culture and the number of subordinates you may have to speak with in order to get your sales message to the decision-maker.

When you sell products or services in multiple cities, you may require different approaches. For example, you may need to position your product or service differently when selling to a Manhattan-based business compared to a Houston-based business. In some cases, that difference can be day and night.

Traits and Patterns

When you have completed the interviews, compile all of the information to determine commonalities among your current clients. Collecting this information will help you find the traits they have in common, which will help in future marketing.

Having this demographic information will help you create a picture of your current clients. By identifying this client with demographic information, you can later begin your lead-generation efforts, and create a marketing message that is laser-targeted toward your ideal client. So take your time and be as specific as possible when completing these interviews.

It will pay off when you have a steady stream of ideal clients, increased sales revenues, and more profits.

Remember. when you're selling to business or consumers, 80% buy within the 5th - 12th follow up. It takes persistence!

Did you know images of hot women make men feel bad, too? Everyone knows that the way women are portrayed in US culture – sexy and super thin- makes most women feel a bit like yesterday’s leftovers. When we look at how media portays women they feel inadequate - and it's no wonder, when the average woman model weighs up to 30% less than the typical woman and maintains a weight at about 18 to 25% below what is considered healthy for her age and height. But the 50,000 or so ads the average American is exposed to a year aren't just affecting the girls.

The University of Missouri found that men react negatively to unrealistic ads, too. This will amaze you, it wasn't images of hot men that got the guys feeling self-conscious - it was images of hot women. Their research began by trying to see if men were as negatively affected by men's magazines as women are by Cosmo and the like. Men that were given men's magazines like Maxim had lower self image, which got the researchers to question exactly what about the magazines cause the drop in self esteem. So they showed men just the pictures of objectified women, men, and the articles and again checked their esteem levels. They found that, surprisingly, it wasn't the images of idealized men that made the guys feel inadequate - it was the women. Even more surprising was that the male fashion group reported the least amount of body self-consciousness among the three groups - the guys couldn't care less what the other men looked like.

If you've ever been in high school, it's obvious why seeing a hot woman would make a less than ideal looking guy feel bad. I mean, what guy hasn't choked when trying to talk to the head cheerleader? Attractive women are intimidating, and the mere sight of one is enough to cause average Joe Lunchbucket to give himself a quick once-over.

The theory is that a beautiful women makes a man self conscious because he’s reminded that he's not in her league - that is, they take one look at a hot girl and quickly realize there's no way they're good-looking enough to have her. Since women have the larger investment in children, they tend to be considered the 'selective' ones, historically speaking. The men and their billions of sperm have to compete with other guys to persuade a girl that they've got the genes to be worth it.

To test this theory, they broke the men into two groups – Group A received magazine layouts of sexually idealized females and Group B received the same layouts with average-looking 'boyfriends' added to the photos, with captions about how the female models are attracted to the average-looking men. Group A men who looked at just the model were felt self-conscious.  Group B men saw that the hotties liked 'normal guys,' they no longer felt the women were out of reach.

Bert Martinez is a sought-after international speaker and transitional teacher. Bert’s ability to help people handle their negative emotions and beliefs has earned him the nicknamed "The Emotional Engineer." Follow Bert on Twitter or Connect with Bert on Facebook.

             Imagine what it would be like if you had 5-10 people who are serious business professionals, who know more than you do about business, who are expert at things that you are not, who care about your business, who care about you, who would come together as a group just to help you solve or avoid problems?  How absolutely wonderful would that be for you?  Well, that’s exactly what a board of advisers does.  It’s a tool that if you use it correctly, would literally transform your business.  

            A board of advisers offers a diversity of benefits that every business can use.

The Benefits

            Benefit #1: Problem avoidance and problem solvers. These are experienced professionals.  They’ve been around the block and they’ve learned a few things. 

            Benefit #2: An objective opinion.  These advisors aren’t married to you and they’re not connected to your business other than as an advisory board.  They will, hopefully, be excruciatingly honest with you.  And that can be a really wonderful benefit. 

            Benefit #3:  Experience is a great teacher.  Learning from someone else’s experience is the best.  Now imagine yourself encircled by people who have these benefits to offer you and your business; advisers who are willing to spend time and energy with you, helping your business grow? Can you imagine what that would do for your business? 

            Benefit #4: Credibility. Surrounding yourself with a board of advisers enhances your credibility. Now, that’s power.  You not only get to pick their brains, but you also get to use their credibility.

            The power of a board of advisers is that it allows you to multiply your assets; it allows you to leverage the skills and attributes of outside professionals with your existing skills.  In most cases, we have to pay for these services.  We have to go and spend some big money to get people to help us with our business.  Well, with your board of advisers, you get that for almost nothing. 

What a Board of Advisers Is and Is Not

             Don’t confuse a board of advisers with a board of directors.  Most of us have heard of the term, ‘board of directors,’ and we sometimes confuse that with the board of advisers.  Let's explore the real difference between the two. 

            Directors are elected to an office and they’re appointed to serve for a particular term.  They get compensated for their time which means they have a legal responsibility as well as a moral duty to do the best job they possibly can do.  Directors usually have a stake in the company so there may be legal consequences for their actions.

            A board of advisers is different.  Advisory board members are unpaid.  They don’t have any legal responsibility.  They still have moral obligations to give the best advice possible.  This simple difference, that they don’t have a legal liability, means that they’re not going to be sued for the advice and the counsel they give you.  That difference alone makes these two boards extraordinarily different. 

            A mastermind group is another term that you might be familiar with.  A board of advisers is different than a mastermind group because your board of advisers has come together for the sole purpose of helping your business.  A mastermind group is a group of people coming together to help each other; each member expects to get something in return. 

            Again, with a board of advisers, they’re all coming together to help you so you can imagine the tremendous power you’re going to be able to exert by having all of these people focused on your business. 

The People You Want

            Here are some items to consider as you get ready to put together your first board of advisers.  I would suggest you leave it fairly small.  I tell my clients not to have more than 5-7 members.  As your experience and comfort grows, so can your board of advisers.  By keeping the board small, it becomes a nice unified group.  It becomes a group that you get to know and quite candidly, they get to know you.  And so all of you can focus your effort and energy on the one thing that’s most important . . .  your business. 

            I also want you to choose members who are not "yes"men.  You want people who will challenge you.  This is tricky for some of us; we want people who will agree with us.  You may want to surround ourselves with people who will say "yes" all the time.  A good board of advisers will challenge you from time to time.  I’m not telling you to go find some butthead who doesn’t agree with anything you’re doing. Far from it.  However you want people who are not afraid of you and are professional, who will tell you their opinion.  You don’t always have to take their advice but I do want you to listen to it.  And if you surround yourself with a bunch of yes people, that may not happen and then what is the point of your board of advisers?

            You want these people to be supportive of your objectives.  You want people who have your best interest in mind.  One last thought. You want to find the best people for your business, not the easiest ones, not the ones that’ll say yes the first time you ask them, but the ones who could make the biggest difference in your business.  If you constitute a good board of advisers, you are halfway home.  A good board of advisers will literally transform your capacity as a business owner. 

            When you surround yourself with people who have credentials, people who know more about business than you, imagine how much credibility that lends your business and credibility is power.  When we borrow money, create new relationships, do almost anything in business, people are always looking to see if we you are credible. 

Problems 

            A good board of advisers will help you avoid problems and some of the pitfalls of business management and growth.  They will also help you solve existing problems.

            Now, when you face a problem, you can benefit from the wisdom of a trusted group of advisers.  They aren't there for you to vent or to listen to you brag. But, they do represent a group of peers who are every bit as successful as you are and who have seen some of the very problems  you face.   So get people who will complement your weaknesses; not play to your strengths.

Questions

Questions - If you have questions leave me a comment or send me an email.

Until next time -  You Were Created to Succeed!

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