SALES AND MARKETING: 5 Tools to Boost Your Sales

While sales success is largely dependent on the person doing the selling, it doesn’t mean you can’t employ a few tools to make your job easier. Here are five I couldn’t get by without:

1. Contact Management Software

Marty Grunder

Sales success begins and ends with the client and prospect database, for which you need a good contact management software system. I’ve found the best is GoldMine because it enables you to cull vast amounts of information about your clients and prospects and then analyze it to make better marketing decisions. At my company, we record all of our contacts with clients and prospects, as well as employees and vendors, in GoldMine so all of this information is readily accessible in one central electronic database. In addition to the organization and targeted marketing, GoldMine helps us to save the planet by using less paper. So explore the market and find a system that serves your particular needs best.

2. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
If you aren’t already using a PDA to make your day more productive, I recommend you purchase one right away. Then either read the owner’s manual carefully or take a class on how to use it properly. I’ve come across many business owners who haven’t realized their PDA’s full potential and, as a result, they waste a lot of time. Now, this might surprise you, but I’m not a big fan of having e-mails forwarded to my PDA. Receiving 40 or so e-mails a day, a few of which require immediate response, is very distracting.
 
3. CompanionLink Software

This application enables your contact management software to synchronize with your PDA. No one wants to do twice the work for the same result and this way you don’t have to. With CompanionLink, you enter appointments, phone numbers, notes and the like into either your computer or your PDA and the other will automatically be placed in sync. And should you ever suffer the unfortunate fate of losing your PDA, you won’t have to endure the added misery of losing all of the information you had stored. Once you replace your PDA, sync the new one with your computer and you’re back in business.
 
4. CardScan
This valuable little gizmo converts a business card into an electronic record in your contact management database with a touch of the hand. You’ve collected countless business cards over the years that, at best, have landed in a pile at the bottom of a desk drawer or, at worst, in the trash can. Consider each business card an open invitation to a future sale. CardScan captures any information you might need down the road. Just be careful to not write on the cards, which can cause CardScan to malfunction.
 
5. Pocket Briefcase
I never leave home without my Levenger pocket briefcase, a small leather note card holder that comes with a holder for 3-by-5 cards to jot down notes and two pockets to store your cards and other small paper items. This way I always have notepaper to scribble my thoughts and ideas, whether I’m walking around a jobsite, waiting in line at the grocery or stuck in traffic. I also have all of my notes in one easily accessed place. Anyone who’s ever retrieved their pants from the dryer only to find the laundered bits of a very important and now totally illegible note in the pocket can appreciate the importance of this simple device.

Marty Grunder is a speaker, consultant and author, as well as owner of Grunder Landscaping Co., Miamisburg, Ohio. Reach him at 866/478-6337, landscapesales@gie.net or via www.martygrunder.com.