3 Killer Ways to Get Your Prospect to Always Respond to You

Not all prospects are very responsive. Often an email get's ignored or a response is delayed. A call is answered but time is always of the essence. Trust me, it isn't your vigor or lack of it, it's an exception rather than a rule.

It's common for your prospect to go dark after being responsive after awhile. You need to find creative ways to reignite the interest in what you are offering before the deal sways to someone else.

Silence doesn't mean a bad reflection of how you've handled your sales process. It takes two hands to clap and yes this doesn't mean you stop improving, but sometimes it's them. For many reasons their interest in your product (sometimes their own job) has waned.

However, if this is often happening then it's time to brush up on your questioning and closing skills. If they turn cold for any reason whatsoever, come up with follow-up strategies to try to re-engage them and get a new deal rolling in the future.

Here's 3 killer ways to get your prospect to always respond to you!

1. Change your closes.

Closing is the final interaction, and often the most important one. It is when you, as the salesperson, is asking the reader / prospect to commit to doing something -- regardless of the size of the task.

Great example of closes include:

1. Asking a prospect to read a white paper,
2. Scheduling a call,
3. Making an introduction, or 
4. Providing an important resource or information.

Don't be tempted to repeat the last close repeatedly when the prospect goes quiet. Instead maybe setup with the contact or their boss.

Make your close specific instead of vague. For example:

I'm trying to get a better understanding of your organisation. Where can I learn more about [ project / team / announcement? ]

2. Find a way with another point of contact

A breakup email may get an answer from an unresponsive prospect, but you run the risk of burning a potential sales opportunity for good.

Here's an example we've used after a prospect has gone cold after a few months:

Hi [ name ]

I found this white paper recently, and I thought of your company while I read it -- I think a lot of the lessons would be very helpful to you. I've attached it here. Please give me a call once you've read it because I'd love to get your thoughts and ask some follow up questions.

If this doesn't receive any response you can close in a passive-aggressive manner:

Since I never heard back from you, I assumed you moved on. If there's any hosting related inquiries that you might have in future, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

3. Call your prospects back at different times.

Right under your nose, but not done: Call and email your prospect at different times. We often get into routine and this habit. We make it a point to call at 2:30pm every week on the same day.

Getting into routine isn't bad practice, however, it is good to consider that your prospect may have a commitment at that time and may face difficulties responding to your call.

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Secret Tip Inside: The Quick and Easy Guide to Setting up Your Google My Business (for Malaysia)

If you are a local business getting started on SEO, Google My Business listing is a great place to focus your early efforts.

Yes your intent is true, because you are trying to solve the problem of people searching for a specific product or a service near them - this means that they are very close to actually making a purchase. It's very common for a person to conduct a search to visit the store they found on the same day (or within the next few days). 

The best way to start is to ensure that your information which appears on Google is accurate and complete. Next is to ensure your listing is as strong as possible, and optimised to serve its function.

Learn how you can encourage more local searches to find your business. Read on...

1. Create your Google My Business Listing

You can do this by visiting  www.google.com/business 

A great tip to take into consideration is when defining your delivery options, make sure you select "deliver goods to your customers". This could be a game changer between you and your competition.

2. How to verify your business on Google My Business Listing?

In Malaysia the best way about is by postcard.

Make sure your business address is correct (Optional: Add a contact name - who the postcard should be addressed to).

When you've received your postcard, login to your Google My Business account and enter the 5-digit verification code on your postcard.

 Registering and getting verified is fun and all, but it's just the beginning from here on out, you'll be discovering the secret tips on your Google My Business Listing and how it'll help yourlocal business in Malaysia. 

3. How to Optimise Your GMB Listing

Here's where the secret lies. After verifying your business with Google My Business, go to the dashboard and select the listing that you would like to work on.

Select Info and choose a section to update.

The secret tip here is to add as much information and media as you can, including a business profile photo, the area you serve, your hours, facilities (eg. wheelchair accessible, or free wifi), your operating hours, public phone, website URL and year you started.

Make sure your submission is correct the first time round to avoid people from suggesting any edits in the future.

Google My Business Photos

According to Google, businesses with photos are 35% more likely to drive more traffic to them and 42% higher requests for directions on Google Maps.

Be sure to include at least a:

• Cover photo
• Profile photo
• Exterior photo
• Interior photo
• Product photos (if applicable)
• Employees at work (if applicable)
• Food and Drink (if applicable)
• Common areas
• Rooms
• Team

Google My Business Videos

You can also add videos. 

If you are considering videos, your videos must be: 

• 30 seconds or shorter
• 100 MB or smaller
• 720p resolution or higher

Google My Business Reviews

One of the best ways to encourage future customers is to have previous or existing customers to leave positive reviews. Respond to current ones. 

Great ideas for responding to both positive and negative comments:

• To a positive review -- We're so glad you enjoyed [ your product ] it's one of our favorites, as well. Hope to see you back at [ your business name ] soon!
• To a negative review -- We're now double-checking orders to make sure everyone gets exactly what they asked for. If you'd like to come back in, we'd be happy to give you [ product ] on the house. In any case, thanks for your business, and I hope we can do better next time.

Do you need a Google+ account? No -- Google+ has shutdown, follow the article here.

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6 Steps to Becoming an Influencer in Your Industry

The way purchasing decisions are being made has changed since the age of social media and Influencer Marketing has skyrocketed since it first made its mark. The behavior of today's customers have shifted from sales presentations to collective recommendations from honest and credible people who have had an experience with the product.

"These qualities represent more of a trust in peers as compared with industry experts. And today, these are being transpired by influencers on social media."

Now with technology being easily accessible by every modern consumer, the landscape for sales and marketing is evolving.

Influencer marketing is important, however being an influencer in your own field is pure gold. Do not confuse being an influencer to being a celebrity. Influencers are not celebrities, they represent a group of ordinary people who have earned a loyal following because of either their expertise and/or transparency. While celebrities actively endorse products or services, influencers share valuable information with their followers.

The shorter strategy would be to advertise through influencers, however being your own social media influencer has great upside potential for you.

In this post, we will explore the necessary steps for you to become a social media influencer.

What are the steps you should take to become an influencer on social media in your industry?

Step 1: Find your niche

First, decide on a specific niche where you want to be known. This can be challenging as there are many topics that can be covered, but it is important to only focus on a specific niche. Normally, what sets different influencers apart is the tendency for an influencer to be known on a particular niche within the industry that they are truly passionate about.

To narrow down your topic of influence you can ask yourself what are the challenges your ideal reader faces and how you can help by sharing more on the topic to help solve and address this.

Step 2: Break the status quo

Commonly most people reason based on what happened in the past, what was successfully done, or what something no one else is doing. The evidence for this is everywhere. All you have to do is take notice of any particular industry, they are doing nearly the same thing, talking about the same topics, and even using similar formats when it comes to publishing and promoting their content.

Alternatively, you could break the status quo by following Elon Musk's thinking process instead. This forcefully makes you disregard the status quo, the main objective of doing this. As mentioned you want to set yourself apart from other celebrities and especially influencers in your niche.

Stand out with new and fresh information for your target audience.

Step 3: Choose your channel

Social media comes in different forms and delivery. For example, YouTube allows you to share video, Instagram is a great place to share photos, LinkedIn keeps you connected professionally, and more.

Although every channel has varying statistics on performance, (click-through-rates, reach, engagement, etc.) having the best statistically performing social channel may not be right for your target audience.

Your ideal audience may spend most of their time researching through blogs (learn how you can start online with web hosting here), learning about latest trends and events through Instagram, and following a walkthrough on YouTube. Knowing where your ideal audience is in the stages of their consumer behavior will help you position your valuable information.

Step 4: Develop your content strategy

As you know influencers may not be celebrities, and what sets them apart is their intent to share valuable information with their followers.

There are many effective suggestions on content strategy, however what we've found is giving a balance of informative and personal content is effective in developing a successful content strategy.

Here is a great read on how to become a great content creator.

Step 5: Distribute your content

Your content is only as good as how many people it has helped. If you are not getting people to see it and engage with it, it is not exactly useful.

It's just as critical to know how to distribute your content, as developing great content. Here's a great way to learn how you can make your social sharing explode.

Post snippets of your content on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. and customise your message depending on the social media channel you are interacting with.

A great place to share this is through LinkedIn as you continue to be a thought leader.

Step 6: Be consistent

This doesn't just apply to when your followers leave a question or comment on your posts, take the time to acknowledge and respond to them.

A major factor on most platforms is consistency. Quality does matter but you need to ensure that you deliver quality on a consistent basis. If you don't online platforms will assume your low engagement is a sign of a lack of relevance.

What are you doing to be an influencer in your industry?

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5 Ways to Make Your Sales Email Convert Like Crazy

Writing effective sales and marketing emails can be difficult and a struggle. But consider, a single email could make or break a deal.

It's just as important to know what to include in your emails, it's equally important to be persuade as much as stand out.

There's no catch and you definitely do not need to be a professional copywriter to know how to write a sales email which converts more dollars.

" It's not what you write in your email, it's how you write it. "

To help you start, here are 5 ways you can make your sales emails convert like crazy. 

This is so easy you can start in under 5 minutes.

1. Humanize

It's often easy to forget that the email you're pouring time and effort into is meant for another person. An example which is common in the Malaysian workplace is the use of "Dear" to start an email.

The salutation of "Dear" isn't wrong, but it creates a sense of formality. This means distance. In certain situations you might not want the distance, but rather a more casual relationship to engage better.

A great way to put this in a nutshell is to create a perception that your reader is actually talking to you, and your email is just a means of transport to communicate your message to him/her. 

Remember, being overly casual does not always mean "closing the gap" it could be a practice that might not be well received. You want to measure how casual or formal you can be, depending on the industry you are in and to whom you are writing this email to.

I prefer to start my emails with "Hi" and to end the email on a more personal tone with "Catch up on WhatsApp."

2. Be clear with your intent

Obvious but often not done. State the purpose of your email right at the beginning. 

I work for a business web hosting company, so my value proposition when opening any email I would write could be: "We offer affordable packages while ensuring your website is almost always turned-on (99.99% uptime) and for you to save your hair when it comes to technical jargon (great 24/7 customer support)."

3. Write email based on your reader's objectives

This is difficult even for me, as it's only natural to write an email based on what you want to achieve and very rarely about the reader's objectives.

A good way to implement this is to always keep in mind; 

• What does your reader want to know? 
• What does your reader care about?
• What is your reader's expectations?

 This would be more convincing, 

" Even if your children are 8-hours away studying in University, ask how they are this instant without worrying about the connection. " 

 compared to, 

" The best International Calling rates in the country with the widest country network. "

Although this may perceive to be a more compelling message, this may not be true for every audience.

If you are selling a complex product to technical experts, granular details could be key in your communication strategy. 

4. Repeat the key sales message

It can often be difficult to keep an email short, and in most situations there's often a lot to cover.

A good practice to follow is to repeat what you've written at the start. This may mean a repetition of the same message, but the intention here is to be deliberate. You want to emphasize the importance of this message you've mentioned.

5. State an obvious next step

Rather than ending your email with thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon, take advantage of this space to direct your reader to take an action you desire them to take.

For example:

Call or Email me now

In my enthusiasm to help, I may have provided a lot of information above to digest. If you have further questions or if you'd like to go through this together, please connect with me by replying to this email or by dropping me a quick WhatsApp at +6x-xx-xxx-xxxx.

Consider these tips in your next email, and share with us your results. For more tips on sales, marketing, or the web stay tuned for future posts.

If you'd like to learn about how we keep other businesses online all-day and everyday reach out to our sales team here.

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6 Steps To Transform Your Sales Organization to be Best-in-Class

Best-in-class sales organizations use a consultative sales process. A sales process is consultative when the stages and actions align with the customer’s buying experience and customer relationship.

A typical consultative sales process is made up of 6 steps. Each stage maps out winning behaviors and strategies.

In this article we will discover the key 6 Steps of the consultative sales process.

Each stage should define the objective, best practice activities, tools, models, and customer actions that signal readiness to advance to the next stage (for example, the customer agrees to a meeting in stage one or provides access to the executive buyer in stage two).

"Hidden tip: Make sure there is a list of coaching questions related to each stage."

Step 1: Target + Qualify

The customer becomes aware of a business problem. Alternatively, the salesperson creates a pre-stage one opportunity by introducing an idea or challenge that is not yet on a customer’s agenda, or raises the visibility of an issue the customer has underestimated.

Step 2: Explore + Assess

Customers assess how much of a priority the issue is, determine their options, and develop decision criteria and decision process. Salespeople can help their prospects by sending them how-to blog posts, offering to run a consultative call, and sending them relevant content resources.

Step 3: Develop Solution

Customers research, compare solutions, narrow down choices, and refine decision criteria. The salesperson must differentiate, focus on business outcomes, and prove value.

Step 4: Present + Follow up

Knowledgeable customers make their selection and negotiate. Skilled salespeople will have already involved procurement prior to this stage. You should already know what steps need to be taken for your prospect's organization to buy a new product or service. That knowledge is crucial for presenting a solution with a realistic timeline.

Step 5: Negotiate + Close

Customers make the purchase. Salespeople support implementation and follow-up. When a close is imminent, it's more important than ever to make sure your prospect feels supported.

Step 6: Implement

Customers are in an evaluation mode. In the post-purchase stage, customers implement, measure outcomes, and evaluate performance against the sales promise. They decide on the future of the relationship. Salespeople must discuss results, prove value, and build on the rapport they previously created.

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5 Easy Tactics to Solve the 502 Bad Gateway Error

There are 5 common and effective solutions for analyzing and fixing most of the causes of 502 Bad Gateway Errors. The tactics discussed below provide general fixes for 502 Bad Gateway Errors.

To guide you through the hassle of fixing the dreaded 502 Bad Gateway Error, let's go over what it is, the common causes and best ways to solve it.

What is a 502 Bad Gateway Error?

A 502 Bad Gateway Error is a general indicator that there's something wrong with a website's server communication. Since it's just a generic error, it doesn't actually tell you the website's exact issue. When this happens, your website will serve an error web page to your site's visitors.

We'll cover below the 5 common and effective solutions for analyzing and fixing most of the causes of 502 Bad Gateway Errors.

1. Clear your browser cache

Sometimes server connectivity issues are resolved relatively quickly. Before you dive deep into what's causing the problem, take steps to insure that this is actually a major error and not just a blip.

Wait a minute or two. Then reload the page. If the page loads with no error, this might've been a temporary connection problem.

If the page is still giving you an error, clear your browser cache and then try refreshing it once more.

2. Look for connectivity issues

Most websites live on multiple servers or third-party hosting providers. If your server is down for maintenance or any other reason, your website could serve visitors a 502 Bad Gateway Error page.

The only way to troubleshoot this issue is to wait for your server to finish maintenance or fix the problem causing the error.

If you don't want to contact your hosting service, one quick way to make this determination could involve running a ping test to see if messages are reaching your IP. If that doesn't work, move on to investigating the error.

3. Contact your hosting provider

If you can't figure out the problem on your own, or if you think your host company is the culprit, give them a call. They may be able to look deeper into what's going on and shed some light on the situation.

If the issue is on their end, they might be able to easily fix it. If the problem is something related to your website specifically, they might also be able to walk you through the solution.

4. Check your DNS changes

If you've recently changed host servers or moved your website to a different IP address, it'll make changes to your website's DNS server. This could cause your website to serve its visitors a 502 Bad Gateway Error page.

Your website won't run until these DNS changes take full effect, which commonly can take up to a few hours.

5. Go through your server logs

Server logs will provide details about your server's health and status. Sift through them to uncover and respond to any alarming information.

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EVERWORKS™ Solutions have successfully assisted, implemented and provided excellent service to prominent clients such as Ministry of Health, Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), Media Prima Berhad (included TV3, 8TV, HotFM and FlyFM), OSK Berhad, CIMB Bank, AMBank, Hong Leong Bank Berhad, Institute Jantung Negara (IJN), PriceWaterhouse Coopers Malaysia, LIMKOKWING University, GAC Shipping, KLIA Express, AP Land Berhad, City & Guilds, Noritsu and many others.

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5 Ideas to Help Deliver Better Customer Service in Malaysia

AI is replacing processing jobs and is a bleak future for those who are not embracing technology in their business. However, there is a key differentiation that can be implemented in business which is, through customer service. Customer service is a key differentiating factor for any business as it is essentially the act of helping customers, both reactively and proactively.

In this article, we'll be discussing about 10 things to implement to blow your customer service out of the park.

The customer service team ensures a customer's needs is fulfilled. The key here is not just to must troubleshoot support calls, answer customer inquiries, and perform a variety of tasks to keep customers engaged and satisfied, but also to ensure that these tasks are carried out with a personal touch.

For small business owners this can be overwhelming. With all of these functions performing at once, it can be difficult to stay in touch with everything your customer service team does.

This can be worrying to, because Customer Service is a vital component to your company's success. It represents your front facing "first impression" to the world.

There is a key challenge: it's difficult to outline everything you should be doing for your customers. However if solved, could unearth a hidden gem that could make your business explode.

To help small businesses, we cover below the 10 things you could implement for your customer service team to ensure that you are delivering the best possible service.

1. Build a customer success program

To capitalize on customer success, you need an organized program. Customer success programs identify customer goals and develop roadmaps to help customers achieve them. It's more likely for a customer to return your business when they succeed with your product or service.

2. Build customer loyalty programs

It costs five to 25 times more to acquire a new customer. Do more to retain your existing customers it's cheaper.

One way to do this is through customer loyalty programs. It's known that customer loyalty programs improve customer retention and increase referrals.

This is common and popular practice because your loyal customers usually spend the most at your business, and already represent the group of people that have already converted.

Getting them to convert again would cause less friction compared to someone who has just started the customer journey with your business. Here's a great read on 10 excellent innovative customer loyalty programs for your inspiration.

3. Collect customer feedback

Do not underestimate the power of collecting customer feedback. Collecting customer feedback is an important step in helping customers.

After all, it's hard to assist people if you don't know what their problems are. And, if you make changes based solely on the business's perspective, you can end up frustrating your customers and increasing your churn rate. Instead, look for timely opportunities to obtain customer feedback, and apply that information to your decision-making going forward.

4. Incorporate live chat

Live chat is a powerful tool that should be added to every customer service team's arsenal. Live chat is a hybrid, allowing reps to efficiently handle a higher case volume. Link customers directly to your knowledge base for quicker solutions.

This creates a better customer experience and reduces the wait stress for customers. Consider this option with caution, as high volume businesses need manpower to carry this out successfully.

5. Add a knowledge base to your website

A knowledge base is used to educate customers on your products and services. It contains support and service articles outlining steps to solve common customer roadblocks. A common way how most companies are approaching their customer service is to provide their customers with an instant location to solve their problems quickly by themselves.

This is especially useful when customers have an inquiry. Customers have the ability to search through the knowledge base to find a solution to their problem. This saves them time and in turn helps to ease the burden for your customer support team. Your customer support team would be focused on solving more complex problems, or to attend to customers which require more attention.

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Discover how we maintain a unique position in our industry that only focus its resources and technical expertises in making the complex internet and messaging platforms are unified, managed, and monitored by a team of 24/7 messaging specialists.

EVERWORKS™ Solutions have successfully assisted, implemented and provided excellent service to prominent clients such as Ministry of Health, Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), Media Prima Berhad (included TV3, 8TV, HotFM and FlyFM), OSK Berhad, CIMB Bank, AMBank, Hong Leong Bank Berhad, Institute Jantung Negara (IJN), PriceWaterhouse Coopers Malaysia, LIMKOKWING University, GAC Shipping, KLIA Express, AP Land Berhad, City & Guilds, Noritsu and many others.

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What's your business currently doing to ensure the best service is being delivered to your customers?

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