Mobile Marketing has been getting a lot of publicity from QR codes, SMS (Text messaging) to Pay per call and rightfully so. I have felt for a while now that mobile marketing will be a very powerful tool for marketing.  From what I have noticed any business can benefit from it. I am not saying every business needs to use all methods of mobile marketing but at least one or two of them.  I will start with one for this post and post the others in following posts.

QR Codes

QR codes are great marketing tools and traffic drivers. They are only good with smart phones since the QR code must be scanned to see anything. The market for smart phones is blowing up and QR codes will only be more effective as time goes on.  I have actually seen QR codes on TV and really not sure if it’s effective or not. I really doubt it with the short amount of time for people to pull out a phone and scan. However it was probably just done to look cool.  Taco Bell is putting them on their cups too. So even the big corps are starting to jump on the band wagon. The cool thing is, even the small businesses can use them effectively! Below are some great methods on how to utilize this tool along with a FREE QR code generator to create them.

Below are methods that QR codes can be used for.

• Depending on what kind of business you can embed coupons in the QR code for your customer to scan and bring in to you.  
• You could advertise it on a newspaper or direct mail type of print media. 
• You could have it on a counter or in a check out area to entice people to impulse buy, by giving an offer.
• It can be put on product so consumers can scan to learn more about it. This saves room on the label instead a company trying to cram a bunch of information on the label.
• Can be used to send people to a landing page to collect emails.
• Great for Realtors to put on a flyer or on a sign in front of a house for people to learn more about the home.
• Can be used to send people to videos…For example a Realtor can put a QR code on a sign in front of the home to send people to a video they did in the home to give the consumer a nice visual of it.
• Reviews- You can use them to send consumers to a Google reviews page to give you a review instantly
• Send people to “Like” your Facebook page
• You can run scavenger hunts with them

The bottom line is you can get as creative as you choose. QR codes are great mobile tools and will only be getting more popular over the next couple years and as more smart phones hit the market.

If you would like to get creative with QR codes. Give me a call at 920-242-0087 or email adam@adamkomoroski.com for a free strategy session.

Adam Komoroski

What’s a presentation junkie you might be wondering? Well the biggest sign of a presentation junkie is someone who gives a lot of presentations, but goes home or back to the office with NO business or sales. Below are some serious signs of someone who has a presentation problem…If you are a friend, co worker or business owner, you better get them some help fast!  If this sounds like you, then you get the point…A presentation intervention is in need!

Signs of presentation junkie:

• Giving  a ton of presentations but bringing no bacon home or to the office
• All they talk about is presentations
• They start presenting before they even ask questions
• Never qualifies a prospect
• Gets used for information and tossed on the street. Getting Used and abused!
• Brags about how great they are at giving a presentation and can’t understand why no one buys from them.
• Their number one goal is to give presentations

I will stop there, you get the point! If you are someone like that or know someone who is, it’s time to take serious action!  This is a killer in confidence and the sales cycle. You are losing a sale before you even start the presentation.

Let me ask you this, why the hell would you give a presentation before you have answers to the below first?

1. What are they doing or using now?
2. Do they even need what you have?
3. What’s their pain? You need to dig the pain out of them so you can show them how you can solve their problem.
4. Do they have the funds to buy now and, if not, when will they have funds to buy from you?
5. Is the person you are speaking with the person who makes the ultimate decision?

If you don’t have the answers to the first three, how can you present? You are giving a blind presentation without those answers! Number four is a killer! If they can’t buy NOW because of budget or don’t have the funds, why give your valuable time and information?  Why be used so they can go beat up your competition and buy from them? Number 5! We all know how many times we have presented to some schmuck who pretends to be the decision maker and when it’s all said and done, they can’t even make the decision to go take a piss when they want or need to take one. Someone else makes that decision!  Screw that!!

Your freakin’ CRAZY if you are doing any of the above and it is time for a change, TODAY! From now on you will have those answers first, so when you present, you know how to solve their pain, you will know they can buy TODAY before you spew hard earned information to them. You will not present unless you have a commitment first! Why present if they aren’t willing to make a decision now! If they can’t commit to something, then leave or hang up, YOU DON”T NEED THEM! They are not worth your time. Let them know you will be more than willing to help them when they are ready to work with you. You don’t need them sucking up your time when you can be working with people that won’t! So let’s take different actions and kick some butt!

There are certain strategies to what I am speaking about and this article can only go on for so long. If you would like to learn more and get a free Sales and Marketing Authority Strategy session, call me at 920-242-0087. I will answer and if I don’t, leave a message and I will call you back!

Marketing Maniac

Selling with Steath!

Adam Komoroski

I have been involved in Marketing and Sales for long enough to know that it is not like anything else. It has a good size learning curve to it and it takes a lot of your time to implement! Technology has helped things in marketing and sales but it has also slowed the learning curve with all the extra gadgets it has brought along with it.  One example is the Internet where sales people and business owners are still trying to figure it out!

There are plenty of resources to try to learn this stuff but let’s face it, most sales people and business owners have everyday duties to keep their businesses up and running strong. So trying to learn this stuff and then on top of that, implement it is a very tough task. Plenty of resources on the Internet can be nice, but at the same time it can make things very confusing.  You have many different opinions to weed through and if you buy products that promise the world to teach you how to do it, you have tons of material to review.  Then you come to find out that after a lot of wasted time, the product is mostly fluff and really had no implementation strategies to it. The majority of the time when I go through these products it’s about the product maker and how great they were and what THEY did. You know what? I don’t give a crap about that and half the time it’s completely exaggerated!! Or, their magic sauce they have been using is wearing off and the best way to make money with the idea or strategy is to sell it as a product. Meaning if these “product creators” would go use these same strategies by the time the product hits the market, it wouldn’t work half as good anymore.  Or, since they have sold a large amount of product and all the product buyers start implementing that one strategy, the market is flooded with people doing it, so it doesn’t have the results that you were looking for or were sold on. That’s a bunch of BS!!!

There are a lot of strategies that need to be implemented and there is no “one special sauce” that will work. You need to use multiple strategies in-sync. The biggest problem is the learning curve necessary in order to learn and implement strategies that can help you dominate your market.  So where are you in your business?

METHOD ONE: Buy Products 

Positives to this method:

• Usually Cheaper from $29 to $99 – However I have seen them in the thousands which is an amount I would avoid.
• You can always go back and review the product information.
• Sometimes you get weekly or bi-weekly training with the product developer.

Negatives on this method:

• If you spent $500 or more it’s usually a lot of material just to make it look like it’s worth $500 or more but it has no substance or the same amount of substance that a $99 product would offer.
• Over-hyped
• If you get weekly or bi-weekly training with the product developer, it’s with a large number of people and you most likely don’t get your questions answered. (No personal attention at all)
• If it’s centered around one or two strategies, they are not as strong as it was when the product developer was using it or everyone starts using those strategies and the market is flooded with it, therefore weakening that one strategy.
• Not very good service if there is any at all.
• You are not held accountable.
• Very time consuming.

METHOD TWO: Get a Personal coach, trainer or whatever you want to call it. 

Positives on this one:

• 1 on 1 attention- You have someone to work with 1 on 1 and full access to the product developer.
• Time Saver- instead of going though endless jargon, you have someone to help you implement instantly.
• The rate of success is going to be higher.
• You, and the product seller/developer, are held accountable to get things done.
• Someone with whom to brainstorm ideas.

Negative on this method:

• Cost – To get the kind of help and service will be costly. You can expect $500 and up for this type of service. Then again, in some cases it still could be less than some of these over priced products that are on the market.

METHOD THREE: Hire out the work to a service provider. 

Positives on this one:

• Another time saver with having someone else doing the busy work for you.
• Always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Negative in this:

• Cost again- Hiring out a service will be pretty costly if you want it done right and effectively.

It really depends on where you are in your business. I think all methods can be used at some point and the end goal is to usually use methods two & three because they will be the most effective and bring the best results.  Three will be the biggest time saver with number two right behind it. If you are a sales person or business owner who won’t be able to spend the big bucks, then start with method two and work yourself into method three. Method one is attractive from a cost perspective but the likelihood of it working is low because without someone to help push you in the right direction, not much will likely come out of it. The majority of people who implement this method will get quickly overwhelmed and quit.  It’s just the bottom line on what happens in the world of sales and marketing, especially in the digital world.

If you would like a free sales and marketing training strategy and see which method you should choose, give me a call at,                     920-242-0087. I will answer my phone and if I don’t, leave me a message. I will call you back!!

Business owners, you have probably done this and I am sure you have heard many times from the sales reps selling advertising that you shouldn’t cut marketing when business is slow or down. I would agree that you shouldn’t stop marketing or advertising because sales are slow or down. That’s what keeps business new and old coming and if you stop doing it it could turn out bad.

Instead of hitting the “panic button” maybe it’s time to go through all of the marketing you have been putting money into and  see if you are capitalizing on your dollar. Also see what else is out there that you could be more effective with.  Sometimes as a busy business owner you may just set things on cruise and walk away without monitoring results. So advertising methods that you are using, may not be producing and slipping under the radar. If so, a  marketing intervention may be in order!

Start figuring out what’s really working well and put more money towards that instead and cut the dead weight marketing methods that you have been using. Start looking into new methods that can bring better results. For instance, have you tapped into the power of mobile marketing? Mobile can be tied into all of your other marketing. If you are not using probably the most effective form of marketing with what you are already doing, you are missing out big time!

So instead of getting crazy and panicking like a lot of business owners do, start monitoring what you are doing and see if it can be bringing better results using methods like mobile marketing. There is a lot of garbage marketing in the market and a lot of it can’t be tracked. Using methods like mobile can give you more accurate results to see if the advertising you are using really works or not.

I prefer to have as many tracking methods as possible when it comes to marketing. With the digital world now you can do a lot of tracking unlike years past.  With the digital marketing world even your newspaper ads can be tracked if you still use it.

So the bottom line is to not always just stop cutting marketing because business is slow and maybe start tweaking it to make it stronger. Marketing brings the business to you and do you really want to cut back on the major resource bringing in the business?

If you still intend to cut back, make sure you have a system tracking everything possible so when you do cut back, you know where to cut.

If you would like to learn more marketing methods on tracking or overall marketing methods that can drive more sales, call me at 920-242-0087 for a free training session.

Adam Komoroski

Marketing Maniac

Selling with Stealth!

Are you sales person who has heard this or are you a business owner who has given this excuse?

If so, then I have a little true story that I need to tell…

I am at a local shop and on the counter I see a blender or something like it for people to sign up and win.  On the slip people need to fill out to enter, but it doesn’t have an email section on it for people to give.  Blown away by that, I ask the owner, why don’t you have an email option so you can build a list to market too? He said,

(Role Play on)

HIM: Because that doesn’t work

ME: Really? You have tried it?

HIM: Yes I did and I barely got a response.

ME: Hmmm, why do you think that is?

HIM: I don’t know, just didn’t work!

ME: Ok, how many times have you tried it?

HIM: One time

ME: Oh, you only tried once. Sometimes you need to try multiple messages to get the response you want. Kind of like the rest of your marketing.  ( email marketing wasn’t costing him anything either, especially the way he was doing it which is coming soon)

HIM: Yeah I guess but I just didn’t think email marketing really works.

ME: Well it can work but must be done right with the right message.

ME: Let me ask you something, how were you doing the email marketing?

HIM: I would get the email and put it in my contact list, in my email account.

ME: (Right here I start screaming, on the inside of course) Well, Mr. Owner I think I know why you were having a very low response.

HIM: Really? Why?

ME: In order to market with email, you need an email system to send it out of. Otherwise you are spamming people.

(Role Play Off)

His major problem was that he was doing it with the wrong tools.  Most of the time, marketing is not the business owners expertise. It’s the product or service that they are offering that they are experts in. So we need to investigate by asking the RIGHT questions to get to the problem.  This person had the perfect situation for email marketing but didn’t know how to do it right. I also found out that the website was bringing in orders but on the site there was nothing to grab peoples email info from those who weren’t buying right away. Another mistake!

If you would like a free training session call me to set an appointment 920-242-0087 or if you would like a great sales book at no cost to you look to the right and sign up to get it.

“Sell with Stealth!”

Adam Komoroski

Is your company teaching you out of date sales?

Something I hear and see on a regular basis when speaking with sales people is the old school sales  techniques. When I dig deeper I find out it’s the company training people this way.  So when I came across a newer Franchise that sells Franchises based on selling opportunities, I had to write something about what companies are doing wrong.

This particular Franchisor fulfills the services so the Franchisee can focus on selling.  The model can work well especially with the quality services they offer, but when I went into the sales training portion, it was old school selling.  As I got back up off the ground, all I could think of was how many Franchisees are using these methods and getting crapped on by prospects. They were not training Franchisees to be  sales professionals, yet that’s what the Franchise is based around and that blew my mind! They were using old school techniques and shouldn’t be since it will hurt sales and after a Franchisee gets rejected over and over they will quit.

They were teaching the typical “build rapport” and suck up to prospects. That is so fake and people know what’s going on. If you are doing that, STOP! This is one reason why people in sales get no respect. A lot of companies have not really updated the sales techniques and are training this way. When you do this, you are not looked at as an equal, thus putting the odds of getting a sale against you.

What I have learned from communicating with people is to be up front and honest. I use a no B.S. approach and people respect that and respect me for it.  You first must believe 100% in your product  or service because if you don’t it shows. Second, you must ask questions like the other professionals do to get down to the main issues and then see if you have a solution to fix it. It’s like going to a doctor or attorney, they ask questions, you give answers and you respect what they have to say.

We as sales professionals are mostly on our own when it gets down to selling. We can’t depend on the company to train us right and give us modern methods of selling.

To talk more about this, give me your 2 cents or learn more about selling with Stealth, then give me a call 920-242-0087. I will actually talk to you!

“Sell With Stealth!”

Adam Komoroski

Sales is GREEEAAATT!!!

Let’s face it, we all have been in sales our entire lives if you look at it. In one form or another we have had to sell ourselves to make friends,get that significant other,get that job or get into a school.  What bothers me the most is the negative outlook on sales or sales people. However, I can understand the outlook from all the crooks and greedy pricks in the world that have suckered people into things and screwing them over for a lousy buck! This leads people to think sales people should be ashamed to be in sales.

A lot of quality sales people tend to feel ashamed to be in the business of sales just because of that  negative outlook on sales people. I would say if you are someone feeling like that, it’s time to seek some help! Sales is the best career if you develop the “right skills” to become a sales professional.

Sales can create a lot of  positive things:

• Helping the consumer solve a pain or problem.
• Sales can create the freedom to do what you please.
• A skill to pass to generations
• and much more

So the bottom line here is don’t feel ashamed to be in sales, change your way of selling to create what you want  and change what others think of you by becoming a “sales professional” and not just another “sales person”. What’s this mean you ask? Look here: http://adamkomoroski.com/sales-articles/sales-professional-vs-sales-person/

If you would like to talk more about this or about your sales struggles call me 920-242-0087.

“Sell With Stealth”

Adam Komoroski

I like to say “become a sales professional not a sales person”

I am always asked what I mean by that so I am doing this quick post about it.  There are few differences that stick out right away as you see below.

SALES PROFESSIONAL:

• Respected
• In control
• Has a sales system
• Ask the right questions
• Qualifies Quickly
• Doesn’t waste time
• Markets themselves