Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

Improve Customer Retention Get Customers To Pay on Time

Building relationships with customers and closing deals is critical for sales success. In business, customer acquisition and customer retention are crucial to generating revenue. It is cheaper to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones.

Once a sale is made, it is tempting for sales reps to move on to the next customer.

However, the sale is not complete when the customer signs the contract. Customers should pay their invoices on time to ensure the business has enough cash to operate and potentially turn a profit.

What on time means is dependent on a company payment policy. Customers can have payment terms raining from C.O.D, net 30, net 60, net 90, net 120, or longer. Some cycles can run for a year or longer. Certain companies offer financing options. Payment structures are structured based on the length of the sales cycle.

How can we make sure customers pay their invoices on time?

Here are six ways to keep customers and get them to pay their invoices on time.

Build and nurture customer relationships.
When the sale is complete, put all details in writing.
Follow through with the implementation product or service post-sale.
Check-in with your customer to make sure they are happy with their purchase. This can present an opportunity for upselling, cross-selling, repeat business, referrals, and testimonials.
If the customer voices concerns or has an issue with a product or service, address it immediately.
Make sure to honor any promises and warranties extended during the sales cycle.

If you follow these steps, you will get most customers to pay their invoices on time.

What do I do if a customer will not pay their invoice?

In large organizations, the accounts receivable manager will handle the customer by sending past-due notices and charging penalties. However, if Sales Reps work for a small company as I did, this will be the Sales Rep’s responsibility. Ideally, the Sales Rep should be able to handle customer issues because they have a relationship with the customer.

Sales Reps should call and visit the customer. During the visit, Sales Reps need to try to solve the issue. Be polite. Never raise your voice or swear at a customer. The goal is to get paid while keeping the customer whenever.

As a result of implementing the strategies above, my receivables (open invoices) were the lowest in the company! This allowed me to earn more commissions, make more sales and develop great relationships with my customers.

It is important to note that Sales and Service across acquisition and retention are subdivided in larger organizations.

How have you improved customer retention and gotten your customers to pay on time?

Please share your thoughts with me.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, and SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; a blog that covers industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing,

Sales Enablement, Enablement, Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, and Recruitment Marketing.

Open on the title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

Posted 67 weeks ago

Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

What Does Brand Safety Mean for Advertising?

2018 continues to be the year of Brand Safety for Brands, Advertisers and Agencies as the industry status quo was disrupted in 2017.

Many advertisers pulled or suspended their ad campaigns from YouTube and Google’s display network because the company put brands at risk by serving up inappropriate ads that conflicted with the value of advertisers.

Google has taken steps to address the issue and updated the YouTube Partnership Program in efforts to reduce the chance of ads being served up against inappropriate content. This is a great first step but where does the industry go from here?

For the industry to be successful, it is important that Brands feel that their Brand Safety will be protected. Brands need to deliver a consistent message to customers and prospects. When advertisers are showing messages that conflict with Brand values; consumer trust erodes. This can destroy a Brand.

Ultimately, a Brand is responsible for its safety.

· According to independent sources 70% of programmatic money in the UK is being used for various agency commissions leaving media platforms with 30%

· Brands are not sure how their media money is being used

However, for the industry to function successfully, Brands, Advertisers and Agencies need to collaborate; taking ownership of their respective role in the ecosystem. This collaboration, can take the form of: allowing Third party monitors from data science firms to examine data i.e. audit ad inventory, conduct site analysis, pre-bid targeting, keyword exclusion against Brand Guidelines and Standards.

How will these changes affect the digital landscape?

As Brands, Advertisers, and agencies collaborate more closely, allowing third parties to audit their work; campaign development and execution will take longer. More content moderators will be need to implement these changes. Google has announced that it will hire 10,000 Content Moderators this year to honor its commitment to Brand Safety. The fee structure of Advertising will need to be changed. Either the cost of advertising will increase or margins of Advertisers and Agencies will need to be cut.

Agencies will need to support the industry to overcome the issue of Brand Safety by: offering the above services to clients, providing clients with points of contact with partners that support client work, holding discussions/events on Brand Safety and offering guides on the topic.

Brands and Agencies, how do you address the issue of Brand Safety? Comment and share.

Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today

I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.

What’s the Future of AI? Insights from The AI Summit.

I covered The AI Summit in New York last week because I wanted to learn more about AI and Machine Learning.

According to Tractica, AI is being implemented globally.

AI and Machine Learning used in many verticals and processes. For example, when I compose an email using GMAIL, I received suggestions on how to finish a sentence. To use the GMAIL suggestion, I can tap the right arrow button on my keyboard.

Think about your routine and your processes, I bet that AI influencers your decisions from where to eat to what to watch.

It is important not to fear AI; use it as a tool to be more productive and live better.

Data Privacy

There are many issues on Data privacy with legislation such as GDPR, CCPA among others. Right now we’re are at the level where AI can understand customer behavior and make suggestions.

AI In the Home

I attended an LG Labs event on AI in the home where it was suggested that companies need to collect more customer data to make better products. To convince customers to provide more data, companies need to provide customers with a ROD analysis or Return on Data. The return on Data should measure customer benefits against the amount of data they are providing. For example, in exchange for providing X amount of Data, we improved our product By Y i.e. increased functionality and better user experience. Think of an ROI or ROAS analysis.

The next evolution for AI is to go from predicting current user intent to future user intent based on user actions. Eventually, AI devices will be consolidated and work cross-functionally.

How AI will impact Sales, Marketing and the Customer Experience

Mark Beccue of Tractica opened up the Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience part of the Summit.

Matthew Quinn of Columbia University shares his insights on AI’s impact on Sales and Marketing.

Companies will not have just Salespeople or Machine Learning in the sales process. Instead, to increase Profits companies will have a hybrid model.

A business’s reason for using Machine Learning and AI is to become more efficient, get better insights and better ROI and profits.

Businesses need to think globally by applying cultural diffusion to their business through localization and language translation.

Marketing

AI will improve Marketing KPIs by allowing brands to measure improve linguistic effectiveness.

Shared by Smith Yewell of Welocalize

Customer Segmentation

Shared by Ranjit Jangam of Comcast

How ML can improve Customer Segmentation Data

AI will improve the customer experience by allowing customers to control their buyer journey with less interaction from the seller.

Shared by Priyanka Tiwari of Interactions.

Conversational AI will help power a self-service model according to Gartner.

What is Conversational AI?

Where AI needs to improve

I want to thank The AI Summit for having me as their guest. If you want to use AI to improve business outcomes, sign up for the AI summit in your city.

What do you think is next for AI?

Comment and share below.

Posted 238 weeks ago