By Rosalie Marcus, http://www.promobizwoman.com

I usually confine my blog posts to promotional products business success tips, but the epidemic of breast cancer in our society was too important not to write about, especially when all women can now do something to help eradicate it.

How would you like to be instrumental in finding a cure for breast cancer? You can. “That’s the goal of The Army of Women.

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Breast cancer has been around for decades, but it does not have to be our future. We can be the generation that eliminates breast cancer by identifying what causes this disease and stopping it before it starts. This is your chance to be part of the research that will end breast cancer. Sign up for your sister, mother, daughter, granddaughter, best friend, and the woman you met last week.

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By Rosalie Marcus

I love sticky notes(Post-it notes and generics) and use them all the time. They are my favorite self-promotion. I always have a large batch on hand with my company logo.

I use them in a variety of different ways, but here’s my favorite: When I send an invoice, I include a 10 sheet sticky note with ” thank you” written on the top sheet. (This is in addition to handwritten thank you notes that I send to my clients.)

That’s why I was excited to read in Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive,by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin and Robert Cialdini, that attaching a handwritten sticky note to a survey or direct mail  dramatically increased the response rate. This is just one of the 50 valuable persuasive ideas that are in this gem of a book.  I highly recommend reading it.

What does this mean to you, the promotional products sales professional? It means you’ll get a better response rate when you attach a sticky note with a personal message with your own direct mail and correspondence. How easy is that?

How can this help increase your promotional products sales? Share this information with your top clients. Helping them to be more successful is your primary goal.  Let them know that you can provide sticky notes with their logo, helping to make their message stick even more.

Looking for more ways to be persuasive and get more sales?  If you’re new to promotional products sales or stuck at a sales plateau (under 250,000) and want to kick-start your business fast, check out the FAST TRACK to Promotional Products Sales Success!  No other program is as easy to use, instantly accessible and has as many resources.

If you’re a woman in promotional products sales and you would enjoy learning, connecting and getting valuable sales-boosting tips every month, I have a coaching group just for you. Get a one month trial membership for less than the cost of a sandwich! Click on the link to get the exciting details:  Promotional Products Women Working Smarter Success Circle.

Have a great day and keep on selling.

Rosalie Marcus, promotional products industry speaker, author and educator, specializes in teaching women in promotional products sales how to get more business, better clients and a higher income. Get a FREE Promotional Products Women’s Success Kit  with sales and marketing tips, a free monthly ezine and supplier savings coupons at: http://www.promobizwoman.com: Reach Rosalie at Rosalie@promobizwoman.com or 877-570-6766.

Today’s guest expert blogger is Michelle Nichols 

Michelle will be my guest expert on the August 21st on The Women Working Smarter Teleconference.   

If it feels like you’re in a struggle to juggle being successful in both selling and motherhood, welcome to the club. When you try to make enough sales calls, keep up with your offerings, help your children learn their multiplication tables, and go to their soccer games, it can be a real challenge.

Juggling Lessons
As the profession of sales has grown over the last few generations, high-achieving women in sales who love their children have developed some strategies to deal with this challenge. Here’s a quick history of the evolution of their juggling strategies.

First, they…worked, but they wanted more sales. So then they tried… working harder. This grew their sales, but they also got tired. Then they turned to… work smarter, not harder. This strategy was their first try at prioritizing. It required making tough choices.

Meanwhile, many in our culture were clamoring, “I want it all.” As a compromise, this led to … “work-life balance.”

Although work-life balance sounds good, mothers in sales worldwide are realizing that it is the wrong goal, and an impossible one, to try to “balance” their livelihoods and their lives. There are two basic reasons it’s a bad idea - physical limits and relative value.

Physical Limits. No matter how many vitamins you take or assistants you bring on, you still have personal limits because there is only one you.

For example, let’s say your schedule is already full, and your boss asks you to take on an extra sales territory for the next few months, so you also agree to coach your child’s sports team two nights a week. In theory, you’re in balance, but in reality, you’re overbooked.

Relative Value.  Your sales job and your family can’t be balanced because they don’t have the same relative value to you. For example, if you lost your sales job today, you could get another one and you’d soon be back in the workforce. If you lost one of your children today…OK, I’ll wait while you get a tissue, but you get my point. You can’t balance the replaceable with the irreplaceable.

Solution
So what’s a busy, quota-busting, saleswoman who loves her kids do?
Instead of “balance,” it is wiser to prioritize “family first and work a close second.” I talk about this new way of thinking in my new book, Hug Your Kids Today! 5 Key Lessons for Every Working Parent (Good Friend Publishing, 2008.)

If you’ll put “hug (or show my love to) my kids” at the top of your Things to Do list every day, you’re guaranteed that at the end of the day, no matter how much or how little you sold, at least you got the most important task accomplished. That’s better than balance!

The truth is, no matter how much love you feel toward your children, your most loving feelings and intentions don’t really matter. It’s putting them into action that counts. Now, go hug your kids. And tomorrow, remember to hug them again. Hugs matter!

Michelle Nichols is a cutting-edge thinker on work-life balance, the creator of the Hug Your Kids Today project and the founder of National Hug Your Kids Day (3rd Monday in July.)  She was the Savvy Selling columnist and podcast host for BusinessWeek.com from 2001 - 2007. She is a wife, mother of three children and a chocolate chip cookie connoisseur. For more information: www.HugYourKidsToday.com

Michelle Nichols will be my guest expert  for The Promo Biz Women Working Smarter Teleconference on August 21st. Not a member of Women Working Smarter?  

Click here to learn more,  hear Michelle live and receive a free gift as soon as you join.

Posted By Rosalie Marcus, http://www.promobizwoman.com

I travel frequently for work and leisure, that’s why I was so excited to find this great new web site which has tips for traveling with just one bag!  

With airlines charging for additional bags and all the new regulations, we’re all going to have to pack differently.   

If you’re traveling this summer you’re going to love this, it’s got everything you need to pack and travel light.

Here’s a link to this neat site.  http://www.onebag.com

Do you have a favorite web site, that has great information? Share it with our readers.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the SAAGNY Business Women’s Breakfast where attendees got to share their favorite promotional products, both old and new. You know, the product that always get you orders. The product that’s easy to sell and everyone seems to like.

I thought it would be fun for us to share our favorites on this blog.

Here’s my all time favorite promotional product and best seller: Post-it notes. These can be the real deal or a generic copy. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of them. I’ve used 10sheet pads as invoice stuffers with a thank you for the order on the top sheet. I’ve used cube pads as a self-promotion to leave with clients.

These may not be the most exciting product out there, but everyone uses them and I’ve found them easy to sell.

So what’s your all time favorite product? I would love to hear from you.

All thoughtful replies are welcome!

The other day I met with executives from two very different businesses. One firm sold products that cost a couple thousand dollars; the other sold services costing hundreds of thousands annually.

Yet both had one thing in common - in today’s marketplace, their clients view them as commodities. Differentiation is difficult because truthfully everyone is offering pretty much the same thing.

So what can you do in this situation? It’s a question most every organization is wrestling mightily with in today’s rapidly changing sales paradigm.

Some tell their reps to stress the company’s great service. Unfortunately, since that what everyone says these days, it’s pretty ineffective. Others tout their technological superiority. But customers don’t believe they’ll be the industry leader for long. Product/service bundling is another option, but ultimately it drives prices down so much that only low-cost providers survive.

“Added value” is another strategy companies are using in their misguided attempts to keep ahead of competitors. They have free analysis, free delivery, free testing, free advertising or free anything. But pretty soon the “freebies” become the norm and profitability declines even further. You can only give away so much.

If you’re like most sellers today, you’re looking behind every little nook and cranny to find that one single area of competitive differentiation that will set you or your company apart.

You may be begging your product development for something that can’t be immediately replicated by other firms. You may be screaming at your marketing for help in getting qualified leads in who are ready to buy your products.

Unfortunately, you’re looking for salvation in all the wrong places.

You see, there is a way to consistently stand out from the crowd … to become irresistible to prospective customers … to command premium pricing.

And you don’t have to wait for marketing or product development or anyone else to save you! Nor do you have to pray for the untimely demise of your biggest competitors.

* * *

You see, the answer isn’t “out there” somewhere. You can stop looking for the “missing link” that will eliminate the ongoing Battle of Commoditization.

Instead, go look in the mirror. The answer is YOU, the seller.

Absolutely no one can replicate you - your knowledge, your expertise, your problem-solving capability, your ability to create new options and solutions that didn’t exist before.

Don’t give me this baloney that you’re really selling software or services or some sort of trinkets. That’s old stuff! People can get that from anyone. They can go to e-lance and get a brochure or website designer for peanuts. They can go to e-bay to buy just about anything.

But they can’t buy your brain!

Just ask Mark from a storage equipment firm in New Jersey. He recently emailed me to tell me that he was using my suggested approach to get into big companies - and it was working like a charm. He was setting up appointments like crazy.

Curious to learn what he was doing, I contacted Mark - and met a real pro! His company sells all sorts of different types of filing systems. Everything he selles is available hundreds of places online. But Mark’s brain isn’t!

Several years back he was selling into the flavor and fragrance industry. They have thousands of teeny containers that need to be kept track of at all times. Rather than just selling these customers “storage stuff” he worked with them to develop software and laser pointers to keep tabs of these tiny samples. He figured out a way for these clients to process their orders that literally revolutionized their industry.

You see, he doesn’t think he’s selling storage equipment. He sees himself helping customers run their operation better. He throws his brain into their business challenges to come up with unique solutions that are unreplicable.

He doesn’t just add value - he creates it!

Another person who “gets it” is Tim from an experiential marketing firm in Austin, Texas. He realizes that it’s all too easy for his services to become a commodity. So he focuses on the “experience” of working with him and his firm. And what does this entail?

A laser-focus on who he wants to work with.
An immersion in their business which may extend for months.
An immersion in their competitors, marketplace trends and more.

Using what he’s learned, he noodles over what his company can do to really make a difference. He thinks about it and plays with different concepts in his mind. When he finally meets with decision makers, he has an in-depth understanding of their problems and pains related to his offering. He has invaluable insights and ideas to offer which totally set him apart from his competitors.

Your personal expertise is what sets you apart today. Your ability to think for your customer is what makes you irresistible. Your creative genius in finding new solutions makes you indispensable.

Instead, focus on YOURSELF! Become the person that everyone wants to work with because you know so much that can help their business grow.

Become a “value creator.” When you do that, you’ll never fight the Battle of Commoditization again. End of story!

****

Have a comment about this post? What do you do to not be viewed as another commodity vendor?

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies and founder of the Sales Shebang, is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and industry events. For more articles like this, visit http://www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com. Sign up for the newsletter and get a BONUS Sales Call Planning Guide.

Ever wonder how women who sell a million dollars in promotional products sales or more do it? Click on the audio player below to listen to my interview with Mary Jo Tomasini.
Mary Jo built her company, Competitive Edge Communications , from the ground up. Click below to listen to this inspiring interview with one of the top women in our industry.

Any Ah-ha moments from Mary Jo’s interview? All thoughtful replies are welcome.