Mind Games and Money Making Tricks Used by Sales People When Influencing Customers to Buy

Mind games, money making tricks, and unethical selling techniques, are still used by many sales people despite being bad business practices. I've listed below some of the common tricks sales people use when influencing customers to buy from them. They are used by large and small business sales operations and can bring down or give a bad reputation to not just a company but a whole industry. Look at what happened with the vacation time share and holiday club marketplace. A whole industry tainted by a few companies using questionable sales techniques that were at best unethical and at worst illegal.

You can't build a long term large or small business sales enterprise based on money making scams. A successful sales operation should be built on relationships with your customers, repeat business, and customer referrals. Not one-off sales made with false claims and sales tricks to close the deal. So here are some examples of the sales mind games and influencing techniques that you should avoid.

Lying about who you work for

This is a common sales scam to gain a sales appointment with a prospect and to manipulate the buyer and close the sale. It was used by agency sales people trying to convert domestic power customers away from their existing supplier. In the UK they would start the conversation by saying they were from British Gas and were helping people find the best package for their gas and electric supply. This was to get them through the door and gave them some credibility. They felt it was more productive than saying they were from a competing company and were trying to get the customer to change.

There were cases reported in the media where elderly and vulnerable people were left totally confused. Some had signed contracts without reading them because the nice sales person said they needed a signature just to say they had called and completed the interview. Only when they received notification some time later that their power supply had been cancelled and was changing to a new supplier did they realize something was wrong. By that time the sales person had spent their commission and had moved on to the next money making scam. The power companies received bad publicity and lost trust and credibility.

False referrals

This sales scam is being used at the moment by off shore telesales and telemarketing companies offering to resolve all your outstanding debt problems. The reason they are giving for calling is that you have outstanding debts. This is a pure guess and in the current economic climate many people they phone will have debt problems. Some even claim to be calling you because your bank has contacted them. They ask who you bank with as a security question and then confirm that you answered correctly. Imagine a person receiving the call that has real debt problems. They think their bank has asked these people to call. All kind of thoughts will run through their mind, which is exactly the way this sales mind control trick works. They have a prospect at the end of the line that is now either panicking or thinks the sales caller has the credibility of their bank behind them. When the credit crunch eases and debt is no longer a hot prospect area, the off shore money making scams will move on to the next short term money maker.

My manager wants to know what I did wrong

Another bad business practice that some direct sales operations use is the manager feedback call. The sale person has presented their product and tried to close the sale, but the prospect has not agreed to buy from them. After several attempts to get the sale the sales person appears to have given up and the prospect relaxes and drops their guard. The seller then asks if they can use the phone and call their manager as he cares about customers and wants feedback on what the salesperson has done.

After a short conversation the sales person hands the phone to the prospect saying their manager would like a quick word and some feedback on how the sales person presented the product. The sales trick then used is for the manager to try and close the sale. One way is to ask what the seller would have needed to do to close the deal. The answer is then used to come back with another proposal. There are variations on this scam such as the sales person being reprimanded in earshot of the prospect in order to create sympathy from the prospect. Another way is for the manager to use his power to get the prospect a special deal, but only if they agree to the sales today.

These mind games and scams have been used in some industries for many years and the same ones are still around today. I often invite sales callers in just to see their strategies. I recently agreed to a sales appointment for double glazing. The presentation was very poor and objection handling came down to one stock answer, which was to offer a lower price with guaranteed credit if I signed today. After several attempts to close me the seller reached for his phone and called his manager. The manager asked how much I had been quoted and I answered. He said that was far too much and the sales person was new to the company and had given me the wrong price. That's strange I said, only a moment ago he was telling me what a great company you were and how he had worked for you for over twenty years so he knew all about the great products. There was a silence that I wasn't going to break. The salesman, sat in my living, room was going red with embarrassment. The manager at the end of the line couldn't come up with anything better than he was getting his staff mixed up.

Is it any wonder the double glazing market suffers from a reputation for poor sales ethics when these sales techniques are used? There are many very reputable companies in all direct sales markets, but many have to overcome the credibility issues created by a small minority that are more focused on money making scams than they are on providing a great service that will gain them repeat business and stacks of referrals.

I'm Stephen Craine a working sales manager and trainer. There are very effective and ethical ways to disguise your sales and appointment calls and make them appear more beneficial to the prospect. Using these techniques will increase your results while maintaining and even improving your credibility. You can see free sales training and ideas on how to put this into action at Telephone Sales Skills to make your call customer friendly. You can add these sales skills to the other training available on my website. There are free sales training courses and pages with sales tips and ideas on all aspects of the sales process. Start at the home page and have a click around the free sales workbook courses at http://www.Sales-Training-Sales-Tips.com.

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The Feel Felt Found Technique to Overcome Sales Objections and Make More Money From Sales

Feel Felt Found is a brilliant way to handle those fast little sales objections that come from the customer's feelings. Use it on the sales objections that start with, I think, or I feel. They often come as a first reaction to the product or some of its features. Feel Felt Found is a great way to overcome sales objections in retail or showroom sales. It is easy to learn, effective in many sales situations, and you can start using it today.

At first you may feel skeptical about such an easy way to approach sales objections. Many experienced sales people have felt the same way. Once they tried it they found it closed sales and earned them commission.

An additional benefit

If you're a sales manager you can try adapting this sales technique for coaching and influencing your sales team. There are a lot of similarities between selling and coaching. After all, you are trying to influence people's actions and behaviours.

You understand how they FEEL

Empathize with the customer. Tell them that you can understand how they feel as they raise their sales objection. When handling sale objections you want to work with your customer, not against them. Think of it as a sales martial art technique. You use their force and change the direction, not meet it head on with another force. The Feel Felt Found objection handling technique is a great way of doing that. You are letting them know that it is understandable that they have this objection to the sale. That it's normal, it's happened to other people, and they still bought the product.

Other people FELT the same way

Other customers, that went on to buy from me, felt the same way.

You are using social proof to show that this is also what others have said, and they went on to buy. Your customer wants to be like others, we all do. Do you enter an empty restaurant? If you see a crowd gathered at a market stall you go and take a look. If they find it interesting, so could you. Like it or not we still follow the crowd. Many sales markets rely upon this basic instinct.

With the Feel Felt Found technique you are emphasizing the message that, the feelings your customer has at the moment have been felt by others and it didn't not stop them buying. The reason it didn't stop others buying is because of what they Found.

Others have FOUND

I understand why you FEEL....

Others have FELT.....

What they FOUND was........

Tell the customer what other people found when they went on to buy from you. What they found that overcomes the sales objection. Spice it up and add some great sales benefits. When you tell the customer what others found you have the opportunity to sell your product. Tell them, others didn't just find the objection was no longer an issue. They found something great that surpassed their expectations and gave them something great.

Feel, Felt, Found, putting it into action

I understand why you might Feel the price is too high.

Other customers have Felt the same way.

When they saw the money they saved with it they realised it was a really good investment

I know how you feel. When I first saw it I felt the same. But when I tried it I found I looked at it in a different way.

It's understandable that you should feel that way. I felt the same when I thought about changing. Now I've found that it works much better than my old one.

Try it for yourself

I can understand how you might feel about trying a new way of handling sales objections. When I was first shown the Feel, Felt, Found, way of handling sales objections I felt the same. Now I've found in many situations it's a really effective way of overcoming sales objections.

Try it out and start using it today. You find after a while that it comes natural. What I like about it is how easy it fits into communication and normal conversation. I've used it twice within this article to sell the benefits of the Feel Felt Found technique. Did you spot where I used it?

This great sales objection technique works really well when combined with an effective sales objection handling process such as How to Handle Sales Objections

Stephen Craine is a working sales manager and trainer for a major UK company. He uses his experience of sales, motivation training, NLP, and personal development coaching to achieve results for himself through the achievements of others in a sales environment.

All the sales training presented here, and on the website, has been tested and proved by working sales people in real sales situations. There are no acronyms, buzz words, or complicated techniques to market training courses. The focus is on practical sales training that achieves results. For more free sales training and sales skills information visit the Sales Training website

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How to Motivate Sales People Without Money?

It is common knowledge that many sales people can calculate how much commission they have earned faster and more accurate than any super computer. Indeed, money is a key driving force that motivates most, and certainly for the more successful ones.

However, is money then the ONLY motivator, or are there anything else?

If you were to ask anyone why they want to be one, there will usually be 3 answers:

1. For the money (of course);

2. Being able to directly link their efforts to tangible results; and

3. Having the (relative) independence and flexibility in their jobs

As such, while money may be the key driver for most, it certainly is not the only one. They are also motivated by a sense of achievement, and the more successful ones usually have large egos as well.

If we were to look deep into what motivates people, here are 2 factors that we need to consider:

1. Are the rewards attractive (or punishment severe) enough?

2. Am I able to achieve it?

Avoiding Pain vs. Seeking Pleasure

While making money is a great pleasure for many people, including sales people, some are first motivated by avoiding the punishment of NOT achieving their monthly, quarterly or annual sales targets. Hence, it's a very common practice for sales people to "hide" potential contracts to "save them for the next financial period", rather than to risk NOT meeting the sales targets for that period.

Sales people are indeed masters of work flow optimization in this sense. However, this does not help you in getting results from your sales team, and sometimes deals may be lost due to the delays caused when sales people want to "save them for the next quarter".

When companies use money as the only motivator, it is also a riskier proposition. There's nothing to prevent competitors to use the same motivator to entice your best people (along with your best customers) to defect. While there may be some non-competitive clauses in employment contracts, these are seldom enforceable, especially in Asia.

As mentioned earlier, successful sales people usually have large (sometimes over-sized) egos. Nothing feeds the ego other than believing (correctly or otherwise) that you had singlehandedly contributed millions of dollars to your company's sales revenue. However, massaging the sales person's ego (either by making them superstars when they succeed, or "humiliating" them when they don't deliver the intended results) is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it will drive people to achieve super-human results. On the other hand, they may be so focused on their self-achievement that they become insensitive to issues such as:

Serving customer needs,

Maintaining healthy margins,

Ensuring cross department support and

other factors that will impact business results.

When the egos become over-sized, some people can have a false sense of "invincibility". Some live on past glories, even when current sales results are not as good or outstanding as before. To overcome this, Dell Computers have made sure that their egos are in check by just focusing on the present and future. Past performance mean nothing to Dell's sales managers, and a top performer is only as good as the next sale. They are as such motivated to maintain their "successful" status every single day.

Eventually, sales people get burnt out. Depending on the industry, they usually achieve their peak about 1 to 1.5 years after joining a company. How they perform beyond the peak period is a matter of how you motivate and nurture them.

Besides dishing out ever better incentives (usually money-related), many companies chose to promote their top sales to be sales managers. Unfortunately, both motivational strategies are not effective. When they feel burnt out, it's not an issue that can be resolved with money (or most incentives). In addition, only 15% of top sales people can be competent managers.

When they feel burnt out, it is usually they found that they are not further developing themselves or learning anything new anymore. Usually, they found they have reached some kind of plateau in getting better sales results, and the repetition of doing the same old thing is becoming boring to them as well.

This is also the phase when good people are the most vulnerable to defecting to your competitors. To overcome this, we will have to looking into other overlooked motivators.

Can I Do It?

As mentioned earlier, the other aspect of motivation is whether you feel you are able to do your job well.

In some industries where sales management practices tend to be Neanderthal (email me to find out which ones), the attrition of new sales hires are astonishingly high. These new hires are motivated by making more money, just like any successful sales person will be. However, due to the lack of proper training, coaching and guidance, as much as 90% of these new hires leave within 1 month. If they don't see brightness of the future, they'll just go.

While such companies do provide some level of sales training, as much as 87% of all sales training evaporates within 1 month of the training. And this statistic refer to companies with better sales management practices in place. For companies with weaker sales management, most of these training are outdated and don't really prepare the sales person to handle customers in the real world. Without a post-training supporting environment, the new hires feel overwhelmed and and helpless, and then they just leave.

When sales people find that they are not able to achieve better results, or net bigger deals, or improve margins, what they need now is support from management on how they can achieve breakthroughs. They know that if they can do better, the monetary incentives are all there waiting for them. What they really need is the right guidance and support them how they can do so.

Besides providing the usual training, here are other ways that managers can get their people proceed to the next level of performance:

Align sales strategies to market realities. Sometimes, due to rapid market changes, sales strategies mapped out 6 months ago may have already be outdated. A sales strategy re-alignment may help close more sales;

Provide recognition of improvements in sales process. While people are rewarded (or punished) based on results (sales targets), few sales managers actually recognize the improvements that sales people made in their sales process. If sales people made sales process improvements, it is very likely that this will lead to better results. Such improvements need to be recognized, reinforced and made as good examples for others to follow.

Motivating the Sales Force Without Using Money

In a nutshell, when people join the sales force, they may do so in the hopes of making more money. However, if you want to get them to perform to the next level of performance, you will need to improve their skills and abilities to achieve better results. In fact, management guru Ram Charan mentioned that if using incentives as the main means to get better performance from the sales team is an outdated approach

If you find isolated cases of poor performance from your team, then perhaps these few bad hats are just making excuses not to work hard. However, if you find that poor performance is widespread and pervasive in your sales force, then you, as manager, are making THE excuse for not providing the necessary support and guidance for your people.

Pls. see www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for explanation of some key concepts discussed here.

c.j. is an Affiliate with HR Chally Group in China. Founded in 1973 through a grant from the U.S. Justice Department, the HR Chally Group provides predictive and compliant assessment system for management, sales, technical, customer care, and administrative talents. Unlike other assessment tools that just conducts personality profiles, Chally profiles what is exactly required by specific job descriptions and responsibilities and predict if these talents can succeed in future. As such, you'll get:

* Up to 40% reduction in staff turnover

* Up to 30% increase in employee productivity

* 85%+ accuracy in identifying effective performers

Prior to this, c.j. was Asia Marketing Manager for a Fortune 500 logistics company, as well as Corporate Training Manager for Ringier AG, Switzerland's largest media group, in China, where he was responsible for sales team development, and helped increase the % of new hires to close their 1st sales within 2 months by 30%, as well as increase overall sales targets by more than 50%. Visit http://www.psycheselling.com for more info.

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How to Hold a Fundraising Yard Sale to Raise Money for Your Nonprofit Organization

Are you looking for fundraising ideas for your nonprofit club, organization, school, or team? How about holding a yard sale?

Garage Sales, tag sales, rummage sales, yard sales. Whatever you call them in your part of the country, we've all been to them, and we all know that people love to find a bargain at a garage sale. Some nonprofit organizations hold a yearly "spring cleaning" garage sale. Or, your club could also hold a sale twice a year, one in the spring and then again in the fall. Members of your organization can save things all year long and accumulate lots of items to donate to the cause. Most members are usually very happy to get rid of their unneeded items.

Anyone who has ever conducted a garage sale knows that they require a lot of planning and labor but the rewards can be substantial. Your club should plan for it well in advance and allow about a month to gather all the donations and prepare for the sale.

Tips for a successful Fundraising Garage Sale

Before the Sale

Check with your city to find out if you need to have a permit to hold a garage sale. Ask if there are regulations concerning when and where you can place signs to advertise your garage sale. For example, some cities forbid placing signs on light poles.Announce the sale to the group. Tell them when and where it will be held and when and where to drop off donations. Decide on whether items will be priced by the person donating them or by the organiizers. Designate a person in charge of receiving the donations and choose a place to store the donations

Advertising - Plan your advertising well in advance in order to put classified ads in your local newspapers. Send press releases to your local newspaper and radio stations. Place flyers in public places such as grocery stores, libraries, bookstores, schools, and churches. The night before the sale place posters and signs on the street advertising your sale. Make sure you take down your signs and posters after the sale.Contingency Plans - It's best to plan to hold the sale in any kind of weather. Try to hold the sale indoors or under tarps. You will have placed advertising and engaged the services of your volunteers for a specific day. If you have to cancel your sale because of weather you will have lost your advertising and your volunteers may not be available for a later date.

Pricing garage sale items - Pricing should be in round numbers. This will make pricing and selling much easier. You can buy pre-made pricing stickers at office supply stores or make your own on a printer. Generally speaking, items in good shape should be priced at one-third of their retail price. Of course there will be expections. For example, you might want to price hard cover books at $2.00 a piece no matter what the retail price was. Or, you may want to price CD's, DVD's, and tapes at $2.00 each. You should group like items together during the sale and sell them all for the same price unless otherwise marked.

Supplies needed - Tables, chairs, umbrellas, extension cords, clothes racks, boxes, plastic bags.

The Day of the Sale

Have as many volunteers on hand as possible. You will need people to help shoppers and keep things running smoothly. You'll need people to take the money and provide security. You may want to offer to deliver items if your group has access to a willing person with a truck. Be aware that you will have "early birds" show up so try to be ready to sell up to one hour ahead of your advertised start time. In order to bring in drive-by traffic you can have volunteers hold up signs on nearby streets

Have a check-out table with chairs so that your volunteers can sit. At the table have plastic bags, boxes, scissors, a yard stick, measuring tape, and wrapping supplies such as newspapers. and tape Make sure that you have access to electricity so shoppers can test items. Display valuable items such as jewelry at the check-out table in order keep them from being stolen. You can use a cash box or fanny pack to hold the money. A fanny pack is recommended for security purposes. Make sure your money is never left unguarded. Have plenty of change in small bills at the beginning and throughout the sale. You will no doubt be receiving lots of twenty dollar bills. Take cash only, unless you are willing to take a check from a person who is known to you.

If the sale is being held at a personal residence take precautions against theft from shoppers. Never allow shoppers into the home and make sure outside items that are not for sale do not get stolen. Pets should be locked up also. As your cash builds up throughout the day take it inside to keep it safe.

Selling Tips to Maximize Your Sales and Raise More Money

Let your shoppers know that your yard sale is a fundraiser. Make sure your signs say what you are raising money for. You may want to make a display board at your check-out table the gives information about your organization and cause. Have your volunteers wear your club's t-shirts or uniforms, if you have them, so shoppers will know who is working at the sale.

Decide in advance if you will bargain on prices. Expect that your shoppers will want to bargain. You may want to tell shoppers that you can't lower prices until the afternoon. Let your shoppers know that your yard sale is a fundraiser and tell them how the money that the sale brings in will be used.

Additional Ways to Make Money During a Yard sale

Have a donation jar at your check-out table to collect donations.

Hold a raffle for a special item. You can display the actual item or a picture of the item you are raffleing. Sell tickets throughout the sale and have the raffle drawing at the end of the sale. Or, sell raffle tickets to a raffle that is ending at a later date.

Sell baked goods, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, sodas, coffee, tea, bottled water, candy, etc.

Sell products your organization has produced such as cookbooks, calendars, CD's, shirts or other spirit items.

Sell fundraising products such as cookie dough, candy bars, wrapping paper and more. There is a wide variety of items available from fundraising companies that nonprofit clubs and organizations can sell to raise money.

In addition to raising money, yard sales are a good way to raise raising awareness for your cause and nonprofit organization. Who knows, you might even recruit some new members during your yard sale.

Article by Amy Passmore for DIYFundraising.com. DIYFundraising.com has do-it-yourself fundraising ideas for nonprofit organizations, clubs, schools and groups. Visit the the DIY Fundraising Blog and subscribe to our free RSS feeds.

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Handling Sales Objections With a Simple 4 Step Process That's Making Money For Salespeople Everyday

Sales objections can be handled with a simple 4 step process that smoothly turns objections into sales for any product, any type of sale, and in any market place. No longer fear objections and become an expert on handling them. A major benefit many sales people have gained from using this process, is to start really enjoying selling because they have the confidence to overcome sales objections.

I'm a working sales manager and sales trainer for a major company. The process that my sales teams use for handling objections has to work in real situations, and achieve real sales results. My job, and my income, depend upon the results my teams achieve using this objection handling sales training.

The sales objection process

Define the objection

Gain agreement

Present the answer

Close the sale

Use these simple 4 steps as the basic framework for handling objections, and closing more sales, and add all your other sales skills and sales training to the process.

1. Define the objection

The first step is to define the real objections from the buyer's viewpoint. The sales objections they perceive may not be real. They could be based upon false evidence or beliefs. You have to be able to see the sales objections from their viewpoint, even if they are not real or are based on false evidence. Then you can handle the objections. The key is to understand what the buyer believes, and views or hears in their internal pictures and self talk. This is where the real objection lies, and where it has to be dealt with.

Imagine a customer that thinks your product is too expensive because they have seen what they believe to be a similar item at a cheaper price. The customer is comparing what they believe are the benefits of your product with the cheaper one. Maybe the product they are comparing it with is inferior. Although untrue, this information is real to the buyer and must be challenged to get past the sales objection.

With good questioning skills you should define the real objection as seen by the customer. You should also define the beliefs and evidence that the customer has used to form their objection. It is their beliefs and evidence that you have to challenge if you are to handle objections based in the buyer's mind. Many objections, concerns, and questions, exist only in the buyer's mind, but to the buyer they are very real and will stop the sale if not defined and dealt with.

2. Gain agreement to the definition

Many less experienced sales people would now go rushing in with a fantastic sales presentation to handle the objection. They then find that they haven't answered the objection as viewed by the customer, or another concern arises that could stop the sale. They have used their best sales presentation to answer the objection, and now there are more to answer.

There are two really important actions that many new sales people miss out. One is to gain agreement to the sales objections they have defined. The second is to ask if there is anything else that could stop the sale. Before giving a great sales presentation to handle the objection, you want to make sure you are answering the real objection, and that there are no more objections. If there are more, then go back to step one and define them until you have all the questions, concerns, and obstacles that could prevent you closing the sale.

3. Present the answer

You have defined the objection, and gained agreement to the definition, and to there being no more sale objections stopping the sale. Now you present your solution and answer the sales objections. If you have used effective questioning skills to define the objection the buyer has told you exactly what they need to see and hear to get past their objection.

As with the above stages, remember you are presenting to overcome sales objections that exist in the buyer's map of reality, not yours. Only present the benefits that will handle the objection, not a general presentation of all the features and benefits of the product. Answer the sales objections the buyer sees, and challenge any false evidence or beliefs they are based upon. Understand what they are thinking, and what they need to see and hear to change their beliefs and agree to a sale.

4. Close the sale

Now you can close the sale, or gain agreement to the next stage of the sale. There is no need for trick closes or clever manipulation techniques. You earlier gained agreement that you had defined their objections, and that there were no more preventing a sale. That is where the main closing of the sale took place. You have presented an answer to the objection that shows the buyer the benefits that will turn the objection into a sale.

Now all you need to do is ask two gentle questions to gain their agreement to the sale. The first question is to ask if the benefits you have presented have answered their concerns, their objection to the sale. If it hasn't go back to step one and re-define their concerns, and start the process again.

Once they have agreed that you have answered their objection, the second action is to use a simple direct question to close the deal. You can relate the question to what happens next. For example, you could ask, shall we complete the paperwork? Or, can we agree a delivery date? You have done all the major closing earlier when you gained agreement to there being nothing else stopping the sale. A gentle question to ask for the order is all that is now required to gain you the sale, and the commission payment.

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of this sales objection process. It is the easy to use sales training that gets results, and that sales people are able to use in real sales situations. This sales technique is proven everyday by the sales teams I manage and train.

To see how you could put this objection handling process into action today, open http://www.sales-training-sales-tips.com/sales-objections.html and then see if it's an objection handling technique you could use. Consider how easy it is to learn and put into action, and then decide if it will be of benefit to you in your sales, or sales manager, role.

Stephen Craine is a working sales manager and trainer for a major UK company. He uses his experience of sales, motivation training, NLP, and personal development coaching to achieve results for himself through the achievements of others in a sales environment.

All the sales training presented here, and on the website, has been tested and proved by working sales people in real sales situations. There are no acronyms, buzz words, or complicated techniques to market training courses. The focus is on practical sales training that achieves results. The aim is to help anyone looking to increase sales results, develop their career, and make more money.

For more free sales training or to contact Stephen Craine, visit the website at http://www.sales-training-sales-tips.com

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Why Sales Training Doesn't Work - Is Your Training Program a Waste of Time and Money?

Is your training program a waste of time and money?

Quick Quiz

Which of the following statements best describes your feelings about the training programs you have taken or have put your Sales Team through?

1 = Completely satisfied - training always yields visible and measurable results 2 = Fairly satisfied - training seems to be beneficial, but does not always yield the required results 3 = Unsure - The Sales Team is generally happy and business is moving in the right direction, but I'm unsure whether training is a contributing factor 4 = Fairly dissatisfied - training is something "nice to have" that my Sales Team could probably do without 5 = Completely dissatisfied - training is an expensive waste of time and resources

Common comments from Sales Managers

If you're like most managers who arrange sales training for your Sales Team, you're unlikely to report being "completely satisfied" with its worth.

We regularly survey senior Sales Managers in medium-to-large sized organisations and the following comments are, unfortunately, very common.

"They seemed to enjoy themselves, but two weeks later we saw very little change." (Regional Sales Manager, Automotive Manufacturer)

"Overall the training was good, but the problem is in getting the guys to implement the new skills. Nothing really seems to have changed much."(National Sales Manager, Building Industry)

"My people go on these courses and get pumped up for a day or two and then their performance slips back to what it was before the training - and in some cases even worse because they're confused" (State Sales Manager, Retail)

If you've ever attended a training course yourself, it's not hard to see the reasons why.

You enjoy the course and leave energised, with great intentions and a list of things you want to do differently once you're back at work. But, by the time you get back to two days' worth of unanswered emails, calls to return and proposal deadlines to meet, it's another ten days before you even stop and think about the training. The moment for change has passed you by.

Training impact studies confirm that the knowledge gained at a seminar or workshop falls off significantly within just a few days of finishing the course.

And given the way people actually learn, this isn't at all surprising. Even so, we continue to expect that the sales training event itself will make a measurable difference in light of strong evidence that this is unlikely to happen.

Let's think about this logically. Would you send your child to a two-day course to learn to play the piano, and expect them to good enough to compete or pass exams with their new skill? Of course you wouldn't.

Yet isn't that the expectation we have when we send our salespeople on a two-day training program, our Sales Manager on a course to "Improve People, Productivity and Motivation", or our Call Centre Manager on a two-day "Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers" course?

Why most sales training just doesn't work

Whilst the right sales training course is a key ingredient in changing behaviour, the sales training event on its own is and can never ever be the "magic bullet."

Change is a process; it's not an event

Achieving a sustainable and real change in sales behavior requires much more than sending your salespeople off to be trained. To get salespeople to measurably improve and begin to do things differently requires a different approach. If we want to see "real" behavioral change and get a return on our investment, we need to use proven adult learning strategies and behavioural change tactics to boost their knowledge and enhance their capabilities. This means making a departure from the traditional way we approach sales training.

Historically, very little thought or effort was made in terms of preparing the participant to get ready to learn prior to the training event taking place. In most cases, when the participant returned to work, only "lip service" was given to the follow up process to make sure they integrated the things they learned during the training.

Generally, most of the learning is expected to occur during the sales training event itself. This is where the participant is exposed to new information, tools and tactics. Most Sales Managers live in the hopes that the sales training event will be engaging; the participant will emerge with a new vision of what is possible and pick up a few key tools that they will make a part of their sales routine.

Through its many studies and reports, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has shown that after a typical training event, the participant's performance actually tends to drop as they attempt to apply and integrate their new knowledge and behaviours back in their work environment.

The problem is that most sales environments are not set up to support the participant and it isn't long before workplace pressure, and the individual's natural resistance to change, pulls them back into familiar territory and habitual ways of working and selling. The new knowledge is quickly forgotten and it is not long before performance returns to former levels.

Is it possible to actually guarantee a return on investment from training?

For sales training to deliver on its promises, the "sales training event" must be seen as only one element of the learning process.

Here are the elements of a proven and results-oriented sales training system that guarantees ROI from sales training by blending five key pieces of the learning puzzle.

1. Relevance - Prior to any training being delivered, the content, case studies and exercises need to be vetted to ensure its relevance to workplace outcomes.

2. Pre-workshop preparation - Prepare the participant prior to their attendance at the sales training event to accelerate the traction of the new tools and learning.

3. Event Engagement - The sales training event must engage the participant, delivering both insight and inspiration to transform behaviour.

4. Post-sales training execution - The individual learning outcomes must be followed up on and coached to ensure integration of desired behaviors into the workplace.

5. Accountability and measurement - Fine-tune the learning effort, tweaking until complete behavioral change has been achieved.

1. Relevance

Relevance checking is the first step.

Adult learning theory tells us that adults want reality and that adults are motivated to learn and apply only that which is relevant to them.

Malcolm Knowles, one of the most respected names in adult learning and author of The Modern Practice of Adult Education, reports "adults are most interested in subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life".

Research by the Huthwaite Research Group reports that, "Learners remembered more than four times as much from sales training sessions that were perceived as highly relevant to their jobs than they did from sessions that were seen as low in relevance."

Relevance significantly accelerates learning, increases retention and makes learning more fun and interesting.

Questions to ask when investigating relevance include:

o Can the sales training be customised?

o Does it validate learners' current knowledge?

o Will it reflect learners' on-the-job experience?

o Does it include relevant case studies?

o Does it allow learners to benefit from the knowledge of other group members?

o Will it reflect and reinforce your preferred business processes?

2. Pre-Workshop Preparation

Pre-workshop preparation begins the change process by helping participants to "buy in" to the learning experience up front, before the learning event.

It sets the stage for the sales training event by creating a context for the sales training and matching it with the participant's performance objectives and selling skills gaps.

During pre-workshop preparation, the learner should be asked to gather data about their current challenges and successes, and any examples that can be used during the sales training session. When a salesperson is cognisant of their skill gaps and how those gaps impact their ability to write revenue, it helps to speed up the learning process.

Our experience shows that by completing pre-workshop preparation the learner is more likely to become an active participant in the training.

Pre-workshop activities may include:

o Research

o Reading background material

o Completing practical or written exercises

o Completing assessments, profiling or diagnostic tests

o Connecting the salesperson's learning objectives with those of the course content and their job performance

o Identifying internal support and resources

o Formal activities designed for recognition of prior learning (RPL)

o Creating a "learning agreement"

3. Event Engagement

The sales training event itself is where most sales training organisations expend most their time and energy.

A training event will have most impact when:

o The topic is relevant to the learner's needs and builds on their previous experience

o The training offers a new perspective that expands the learner's concept of what is possible

o Participants can easily see how mastering the content will improve their workplace performance

o Participants are able to experiment and practice new behaviours in a safe environment

o Participants expand their network and develop learning relationships with other attendees

o Participants are inspired and motivated to change their behaviour

o Participants develop an action plan moving forward to begin to change their below par behaviours

On its own, the sales training event will not increase performance, but a powerful "learning event" can be the catalyst for organisational learning where individuals are inspired to share their knowledge and teach others.

4. Post-sales training execution

Organisations that are serious about achieving a return on their sales training investment make sure that the training content is integrated into the workplace. To help do that they make sure they provide individual follow-up and support.

This phase ensures that measurable results can be achieved. By providing follow up coaching and support to assist individual salespeople to implement and apply their new knowledge and skills, Sales Managers ensure that the time, effort and resources invested in the development and running of the sales training bears measurable" fruit".

Post-sales training execution and follow-up tools may include:

o High-Performance Coaching

o Post-Sales training Execution Plan & Learning agreements follow up

o Post-Sales training accreditation, assessment and/or diagnostics

o Follow up, self-paced learning modules

o Follow up workshops

o Mentoring program

o "Teach others" program

o "Buddy-coaching" Program

High-Performance Coaching

Studies by Neil Rackham, the renowned sales effectiveness researcher and author of SPIN Selling, show that 87% of the learning from a workshop will be lost within thirty days if there isn't a coaching intervention by the participants' Sales Manager or workplace coach.

High Performance Coaching is one of the most significant post-sales training interventions supporting the learner to integrate their learning into the workplace.

A High Performance Coach works with the learner to provide them with instruction, guidance, positive reinforcement, and accountability in the achievement of their sales goals. Typically the coach is the learner's supervisor or Sales Manager.

High Performance Coaching is an important business skill for those in sales leadership roles, with responsibility for writing top line revenue.

High Performance Coaching helps the newly trained salespeople to "buy into" the change effort and to develop the skills to effect meaningful workplace change.

What are learning agreements?

Learning Agreements are essential to achieve a return on sales training investment and to ensure that learning is integrated into the workplace

A Learning Agreement clarifies work performance expectations and spells out how learning will be integrated on the job. A Learning Agreement will list the following:

Competency Expectations
Results and Accountabilities
Resource Requirements
Signposts/milestones
Consequences (e.g. sales training payback)

Prior to attending the sales training event, the participant meets with their Sales Manager or trainer to document the desired results from the learning experience. They will also discuss consequences for successful or unsuccessful implementation of the learning.

The actual sales training event becomes more meaningful because the participant is being directed by the Learning Agreement and is focused on attaining the knowledge and skills required to fulfil it

Having attended the sales training, the learner meets again with their Sales Manager or coach to review the Learning Agreement in light of the information, skills and knowledge gained from the training.

The coach then reviews and redefines the post-sales training action plan with the learner in order to make sure the Sales Person will accomplish the desired performance objective/s

For an example of a Learning Agreement, please download this article from our website

5. Accountability and Measurement

There is a saying in management that "what gets measured gets done; what gets recognised gets done even better."

The primary purpose of sales training is to improve an individual's sales performance and ultimately the performance of the organisation. Therefore, sales training and development efforts must be tracked, measured and rewarded to ensure a positive impact.

To achieve ROI on sales training, we must first measure an individual's competencies2 for their sales role and determine the gaps. Following the sales training we conduct a further "on the job" sales performance assessment following the sales training event.

Specific individual performance measures (KPIs) should be written into the Learning Agreement. For example, increased sales production, a reduction in time waste, improved customer retention, increased sales margin, improved teamwork or motivation etc.

The Learning Agreement then maps the competency improvement required to achieve a specific KPI, for example:

KPI = Improved sales conversion rate from 1 in 7 to 1 in 4 Competency required = Customer needs diagnosis (listening and questioning) Training requirement = Focus on customer needs diagnosis

Conclusion

It is an unfortunate fact that the majority of sales training conducted fails to deliver the expected increase in productivity or performance. Very few sales training programs actually change behaviour. Many sales programs are run as an exercise in "ticking the box" - Yes, I have officially trained my salespeople!

The simple truth is that if you are going to end your salespeople to a sales training event you are only likely to see a measurable return on your investment if you ensure that the material is:

o relevant and customised to suit your sales operation and market; and o each individual has been well primed and prepared prior to their attendance; o the sales training event engages and inspires; o you are prepared to follow up and coach the salesperson to ensure integration; o keep holding them accountable, measuring and tracking their behavioural changes as a result of the sales training.

As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.

Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team - The 5 Keys To Turbo-Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."

Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?"

He can be reached via http://www.iansegail.com

Read Ian's latest free report - "The 7 Most Costly Mistakes Sales Managers Make" here http://www.bulletproofyoursalesteam.com [http://bulletproofyoursalesteam.com/free-report/7costlymistakes.html]

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Making Money From Art & Literature - Online

Is it possible to make money from art & literature online?

If you're an artist, do you know who's developing and presenting contemporary art & literature?

If you're a online cultural organisation, do you know who your key competitors are?

By looking at Alexa, Best of the Web, and other sites - as well as from our own perspective - we've picked out five key sites bridging the gap between capitalism and contemporary art & design.

These are sites that use socialised internet tools like tagging, comments, and blogging; sites that are wholly or predominantly based around the development and publication of contemporary art and literature; and sites that are developing and presenting new work. Above all these are sites that are making a living either directly or tangentially through their activities.

We Make Money Not Art

The name says it all - headed by Régine Debatty, this blog started in 2004 to investigate 'how often companies that develop and manufacture technologies actually meet the hackers and artists who have a more playful or activist approach to them. Do these two different worlds collide? If yes, how does it happen? If no, why not? Would it make any sense to try to change that non-communicative situation?'.

One of the most linked-to blogs, with an Alexa rating of 34,431, over 30% of its audience in the US and a regularly updated list of contributors, the site doesn't actually generate revenues as a direct result of its advertising but rather via Debatty's fees from writing and speaking.

Ad!dict

Based in Belgium, members collaborate on themed projects & share work via online profiles. Divided into a number of different areas - the addictlab, for example, allowing more experimental interaction - there is tremendous potential here to get involved in a wide range of new projects, either based on the themes or through interaction with other users.

This is one site that has spread its net wide in terms of a business model, supplementing revenue from retail of books and magazines with cultural funding, contextual advertising and business partnerships. However, with a net presence that seems to have been around since before the first bubble, there's no question that this is a powerful force.

Stereo Publication

This is one organisation that falls down more on the design side than the pure art side - an on and offline magazine, they make their money through retail sales and luxury editions of their high-quality magazine.

A little like We Make Money ..., Stereo claim not to be making money out of this activity - they say they are a non-profit organisation who are setting out to design new ways of developing magazines that are more creative. By including an online work-in-progress section for developing new projects, the processes are more visible - a low Alexa score does nothing to harm the fortunes of the group, who continue to turn out new work on a timely basis.

Born Magazine

Born have been around forever, and provide consistently high-quality content as well as some offline events. Their focus is art and literature, leaning towards new media.

This is where we see a quite different model - Born is financed through sponsors and through donations. This is a more organic, cultural model - and again, shows that with low overheads it's possible to have a long-running art and literature magazine.

Magwerk

Finally, having moved right to the other end of the spectrum from We Make Money ..., Magwerk are as close as you can get to a traditional publisher. Publishing a suite of lifestyle magazines including art and design, fashion, and music, these magazines are published as if they were physical, employing the kind of page-turning design you can now get for free on Formatpixel.

It may no longer be innovative - but it's certainly making money. With full-page adverts from high-quality luxury goods companies, solid business partnerships and sponsorship, Magwerk are definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Summary

We asked if it was possible to make money from art and literature online. These five organisations show that not only is it possible - they make it look easy!

Oliver Luker is the chief editor of Dispatx Art Collective, the online curatorial platform providing the tools of a socialised internet for the development and presentation of contemporary art and literature.

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Facebook Payday - Making Money on Facebook - An Honest Review

Do you know one guy made over 1 million in one week on Facebook? It's true.

The purpose of this article is to give a honest review of the new product "Facebook Payday" by Peter Koning. I have had the opportunity to take a look at the material in the pre-launch, and because of that, I want to give you my impressions.

There are so many ways and angles to make money online today....everything from gambling online to selling items on eBay or Amazon.

If you are into making money online, one of the areas that is often over looked are the social networking communities. There has been a lot written on MySpace and other social communities, and how to connect with people and promote your business, however, there has been little mention of Facebook...the monster of all social network communities...until now.

The numbers are staggering:


More than 63 active users
An average of 250,000 new registrations per day since Jan. 2007
An average of 3% weekly growth since Jan. 2007
Active users doubling every 6 months


These numbers are phenomenal, and for opportunists there is gold in those numbers. In fact, if you reach only 0.1% of their active members, you'll be reaching 100,000 people. That's almost an entire city of new people for you to meet. Not only that, these people are interconnected because of the relationships they've established on Facebook.

Peter Koning in Facebook Payday provides you with all the techniques that he has used to build up an enormous online business. For those who are open to social networking online, making money on Facebook can be very profitable to you. The Facebook Payday gives you all the monetizing application tools, relationship building strategies, as well as a full template and flowchart on different methods to promote your online or offline business.

What You Get With "Facebook Payday" -

1. Three Bonuses:


Facebook Primer eBook with all the applications needed to monetize your Facebook profiles
Facebook Social Ads eBook. Peter Koning bought the resale rights to this product and adds this as a bonus.
8 Interviews with Facebook pro's - Fahad Maniar, Mari Smith, Mike Geary, Paul Renner, Ron Reed, Rhoberta Shaler, Steve Iser, and Beverly Trca-Kitchen.
A Reed Floren lost interview.


** Interviews are available in audio or transcript format for you to download.

2. The Main Facebook Payday eBook itself, which is 101 pages in length, and comes with an additional Facebook Payday Action Worksheet pdf.

This is not one of those shallow info. products that is a waste of time and money. Peter Koning leaves no stone unturned as he reveals all of his secrets and gems in making money on Facebook. Facebook Payday goes over:


Selling Products on Facebook
Marketing on Facebook
Online Advertising on Facebook
Selling Services on Facebook
Build Your Own or Monetize Existing Applications
Investing


I found that the greatest benefit in Facebook Payday are the social networking strategies that lead to a "call to action" and making money. As well, there is an extensive discussion on driving traffic to your profile and then ultimately to your product sites. Using private messaging, walls, virtual gifts, discussion threads, joining networks, and more, are all ways to social network with people to build your business.

I can't tell you here, as I'm sure Peter K. would send his lawyers on me, but he reveals a special application that will allow you to sell affiliate products and get paid on your Facebook profile and sites. Not only that, but Facebook Payday advises you on what type of services or products to promote and sell on Facebook.

If you have an existing online business (or offline), and your looking for ways to promote your business, Facebook can give you an endless stream of customers knocking on your door with credit card ready in hand. With over 63 million active members, do you think you can find a few business partners?

Of course you can...and if you want to get a "piece of the pie," and want the best Facebook strategies, then I highly recommend Facebook Payday.

Discover how to generate an easy $20,000 per month with Facebook Payday

Click here to find out the precise details

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Make Money While Social Networking - New Facebook Marketplace Guide

Facebook first introduced the Marketplace application in mid 2007 as a way for people to post classified listings on the site. Now Facebook has launched its new, updated Marketplace. This time the Marketplace is powered by a company with a funny name, Oodle. Despite the name they are a big online classifieds company founded by former Excite and eBay executives. Oodle has built a completely new version of the Marketplace focused on giving people a place to buy, sell or give things away to the people they know.

This Facebook Marketplace Guide is a practical Step-By-Step Guide for all of you who want to learn how to sell your items effectively on the new Facebook Marketplace. Using the Facebook Marketplace you can sell, give away, buy, ask or search for anything you want. You can also use the Marketplace to support your favourite charities by selling your unwanted goods for a good cause. Additionally, you can see what your friends are buying and/or selling.

Facebook users can post their Marketplace listings free of charge. Your listings will be viewable to millions of Facebook Marketplace users worldwide. If you have previously used the old Facebook Marketplace, you should see it bookmarked in the lower left hand corner of your monitor. And, if you had active listings in the old Marketplace, you should be given the option to transfer them to the new Facebook Marketplace. If you have not used the Facebook Marketplace application before, you can find it here: Facebook.com/marketplace.

Ok, let's get down to business. As I mentioned, this is a

Step-By-Step Guide how to sell in the Facebook Marketplace effectively

So, here we go:

Step 1 - Take a Photo

Grab your digital camera and take a nice close-up picture of the item that you wish to sell. It is best to shoot against a light, solid background. Transfer your photo to your computer as a JPG-file. If your item is something that can't be presented with a photo, don't worry, you can still get it listed.

Step 2 - Log On

Log on to your Facebook account and fire up the Marketplace application. Just click the Applications menu in the lower left hand corner of your screen and choose Marketplace. You are greeted with the Marketplace welcome screen.

You have four main options at your disposal:

Sell It
Sell for a Cause
Give It Away and
Ask for It

In this guide we are concentrating on the Selling-for-Money side of things, so you may leave the screen as it is and write a short description of your item in the box where it says "Sell something to make extra cash." When you click the box it will change into "Yourname" is selling. Write your main headline for the listing here. After writing your headline description, click the blue Post-button.

Step 3 - Write Your Advertisement

After you have written your headline for the listing you are presented with a new screen with more options related to your listing. Write a punch line type of a description in the box "Why are you selling it". You could write "I need money to buy more stuff." but, even though it might be the case, I don't think it would get your listing noticed. Consider this space as your sub headline for the ad. Write this description like you were working in an advertising company. Or, if you feel more conservative, just describe your item as funky as possible. You have two lines to hit the point.

Next, state your asking price in the Price-box. You know what its worth.

Write your location. This is a must. Just write in your city.

Choose a category for your item. At the time of writing this book, there are only the following 13 categories available:

Baby & Kid Stuff
Books & Magazines
Cars & Vehicles
Clothes & Accessories
Collectibles
Computers & Accessories
Electronics
Furniture
Home and Garden
Musical Instruments
Sporting Goods, Bicycles & Equipment
Tickets
Everything Else

If you can't find a suitable category for your item, you can always choose Everything Else, however it is not a very good category to be listed under.

In the next box you can provide a wider description of your item. Here you have more room than just two lines. Describe your item with as much detail as you can. You know, size, colour, condition,.. those sort of things. But, don't stress yourself too much with this; you can always change it later. Once you have created the best advertising text ever, hit the Browse-button to locate your photo from your computer, USB stick or where ever you think you saved it in Step 1. Yes, I know, I can never find my images either. Don't panic though, you have time to locate it; the screen isn't going anywhere.

You found it? Good! Actually, you can upload two photos if you wish. For instance if you are selling a book, it is a good idea to upload both front and back covers. You can upload even more images later on, but for the sake of this exercise, one is enough.

Tick the Terms of Use-box and click the Submit-button.

Step 4 - Rather Unnecessary Step

The next screen has your details on it and your only option is to click the Continue-button. I really don't know why this screen exists, but since it does all we can do is click the button.

Step 5 - Publishing

Next you will get a screen asking if you want to publish this listing in your own Facebook profile. This is a good idea. You will get a choice for a Full, Short or a One Line description. I would recommend you'd choose the Short-option. You may tick the Always do this for Marketplace-box if you wish to use this same option every time you list something. So, if you wish to publish this listing on your profile, click the Publish-button, but if you only want it to appear in the Facebook Marketplace, choose the No, Thanks-button.

Step 6 - Promotion

This step is your first chance to advertise your new listing. This is also a good idea. You can Recruit Friends to Promote your Listing in their News Feed. You can add up to 5 of your friends by clicking on their pictures. You can also choose them by writing their names in the Find Friends-box. Once you have chosen your friends who might be interested in promoting your listing, click the Send Request-button; or if you don't want to bother your friends this time, choose Skip.

Step 7 - Personal Marketing Message

You will be presented a confirmation screen with your details. You can add a personal message to this post by clicking the blue Add Personal Message-hotlink. If you don't want to add your personal message, just click the Send-button. You also can cancel this message altogether by clicking Cancel.

Step 8 - Done!

Congratulations! You have listed your first item on the Facebook Marketplace. Listings take approximately 30 minutes to be included in the search index.

You will be presented with the screen titled "Manage My Listing: Active". Here you can review your listing and, if you wish to make any changes click the Edit Details-hotlink in the light green bar. You can also delete your listing as well as promote your listing with a Facebook Ad. I will not get into details how to produce Facebook Ads in this book. That topic, among many other good ones, will be fully covered in my Facebook Advertising Guide.

That's it, you've done it! Good work! Thank you for reading so far.

Additional, Good to Know Stuff:

Editing Your Listing

You can easily edit your listings after you have published them. Just click the Edit Details-hotlink on the screen mentioned in the Manage My Listing -page, and you will get pretty much the same screen as when you were writing the listing in the first place. You can change every detail of your listing here as well as upload more images if you wish. It is a good idea to show as many images as you can.

After you have made your changes in this panel click the Submit-button to get your listing updated. You will again be presented with a useless confirmation screen as seen. Just ignore it, and click the Continue-button.

Next, you will be asked if you wish to publish this updated listing on your Facebook profile as in Step 6. You may choose to publish again, or you may just click the No, Thanks-button.

Finally, you will see your updated listing on the "Manage My Listing"- screen.

Managing Your Facebook Marketplace Listings

You can easily manage all of your Facebook Marketplace listings in one convenient location. If you click the My Listings-hotlink in the Marketplace menu, you will see your current listings. This is your place to manage all your listings. You can add more listings, edit them and after you have sold your items you can delete them.

As I mentioned earlier, you can also sell your items for a cause or you can give them away for free (don't know why, but you can). You can also find something you need for yourself. These functions are not covered in this book, but I'm sure you'll manage them with the principles covered here.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed this Facebook Marketplace Guide. I wish you luck in selling your stuff through Facebook. I sold my first item, an awesome Jimi Hendrix Wah-Wah guitar pedal in just 3 days.

Best regards,

Kris Olin, MscBa, marketing

This Facebook Marketplace Guide is also available as a fully illustrated PDF-version

You can download it FREE: http://www.facebook-advertising-marketing.com

Kris Olin is a Web Designer from Brisbane, Australia specialised in Web 2.0, SEO, Digital Publishing, Social Media Marketing and Internet Promotion Strategies. Kris also does company consultations, training and provides website hosting solutions. Website: http://www.krisolin.com

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Make Money on Facebook With These 12 Free Applications

Making money with Facebook! If you are a Facebook user or have been around social networking sites for a while, you probably have heard that. But, is it really possible to make money with Facebook? How would you go about making money on Facebook?

Well, thanks to some very useful and user friendly applications, today almost anyone who has a Facebook page, can make money in verity of ways. With one simple installation, you can be on your way to make money on Facebook. Of course like any other methods of making money, specifically making money online, it takes hard work and persistence to be able to make a decent amount of money on Facebook. Although these applications make it very easy to get on the path of making money with face book, its the strategy and a well thought out plan, combined with persistence and hard work, that ultimately factors in your success or failure in making money with Facebook. Here are 12 applications you can use to make money on Facebook.

1. RadicalBuy This is almost like a Facebook made eBay. You can sell anything on your Facebook page using this unique app. List an item and have it visible to all Facebook users instantly. Now, the cool think is that you can offer commission to others who will sell your items on their Facebook page, allowing you to reach more potential buyers. Of course that means, even if you don't have any item for sale, you can show other peoples item on your Facebook page and make money with the commission you get for selling there stuff.

2. MyMerchStore Zazzel allows you to create and design any product on their site(which is free), and sell them on your face book. Think about the potential buyer base for customized t-shirts and hats and etc, specially if you have a lot of Facebook friends. You can also sell product created by other artists and earn a commission on those. So, even if you don't want to deal with designing, you have a way to make money on face book using Zazzle.

3. CafePress It's the same idea as Zazzle, but with a much bigger and well known online store. Cafepress lets you easily sell any product from anti Obama Shirts to pro Obama Shirts, on your Facebook and make money, whether it was created by you or someone else.

4. Ether Ether is a website that you can make money on by giving advice to people over the phone or by chatting. But now, you can use their new application on Facebook to make money while giving advice to people over the phone. If you're good at giving advice, this may be the way for you to make some extra money on Facebook. Also if you know a second language, this app makes it easy to teach others and make money. You set the rates and Ether provides a number that individuals can call. The call will then be forwarded to your personal telephone number.

5. MusicBlaster With MusicBlaster you can put a simple little music store on your Facebook, and sell music from BlastMyMusic.com. You earn 5% for each song sold. The cool think about this app is the fact that you can help your favorite band or singer to sell their music while you make money, as well as helping them to gain more exposure.

6. GarageSale The name says it all, its the good old Garage Sale, but a "Facebooky" Garage Sale. Simply add Garage Sale to your profile page and list every thing you want to sell. When someone buys something, Garage Sale automatically bills the buyer's credit card and lets you when to ship the item. Your money is deposited directly into your Pay Pal account, or you can request payment by check. However they charge a 5% commission on the total sales price, but that's all. No other fee for setup or anything like that.

7. Shopit Shopit is a free Social Commerce Network that gives users the ability to buy, sell or trade any product or service. Simply add a free store to your Facebook and sell anything you like. Another easy way to make money on Facebook.

8. FlameTunes FT was founded in 2007 by an Iranian-American named Nima Khakpour. This app is more for the artists to sell their music. So, if you are an artist, FlameTunes enables you to sell your music on your Facebook. You can also use it to sell music on myspace.

9. Lemonade Remember when you setup your first lemonade stand in your community? Well, this app allows you to use the same concept, combining commerce and community, and have a lemonade stand in a digital (Facebook) neighborhood. Basically you add what you want to sell to a lemonade stand, and put it on your Facebook. It's free and easy.

10. eBay Who knew that was coming? Yep, you guessed it. Now you can have your ebay on Facebook. This application allows you to add eBay auction listings to your Profile. Sell things to your Facebook friends from crafts, jewelry to diary pages, undies and dinner dates or just whatever you're selling on eBay! You also have the option to add a charity auction that you support, on your Facebook profile. I think it's a very smart way to combine eBay and Facebook, and you don't even need an eBay Account!

11. Lending Club It's almost like prosper, where you land money to others and make money with the interest you make from the loan. Not to worry though, lending club has all the detail covered. So, it's completely safe, and the whole legal and trust issues are taking cared by lending club. If you can use it safley, it can be a good way to make money with your Facebook.

12. e3buy Auction Buy, sell or trade anything. Auction your used or new stuff. With e3buy you can open a customizes store, upload your logo and start selling things. Unlike ebay, there is no commission or fee to be paid. it's completely free to use. It is also fully integrated with paypal, so you can get paid fast.

These are just some of the great Facebook money making ideas. But, I am sure as the social networking sites become more popular, there will be more and more of such ideas and applications, not only for Facebook, but for many other social networking sites as well. There you have it, 12 Free applications that you can take advantage of to make money on Facebook.

Struggling to make money with this or any other method? Tired of wasting time and money and not making a dime? Want to learn the secrets of making money online? Visit my blog to learn this and many other ways to make money online in a matter of hours.

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5 Ideas For Making Money With Facebook

How to make money with Facebook? Is it really possible to make money with Facebook? It seems like making money with Facebook is on everybody's mind these days. If you are one of those people who want to know how to make money with Facebook, here are some ideas to help you get started in making money on Facebook.

These methods don't require you to buy anything or pay someone to tell you the "secrets". As a matter of fact you can start making money with your Facebook right now without having to spend any money at all. These are no "secrets" for making money on Facebook. Simply some very basic methods that people use to make money elsewhere, but with a little work and patience you can apply the same methods to make money on Facebook.

Of course, like any other method to make money, you need a market for it. In this case the market would be Facebook friends. The more Facebook friends you have, the more chance you have of making (more) money. What if you don't have much Facebook friends? Fortunately it's very easy to create a massive market (friends for Facebook) simply by searching and inviting others to be your friend. But, if you want to take it to the next level and automate the finding and adding friends process, there are some software that can do just that.

Ok, lets get to the point and see how you can make money on Facebook. Here are some proven ways you can use to make money on Facebook.

Showing ads on Facebook

With all the Facebook applications that make it easy and a snap to start showing ads on your Facebook, there is no excuse for not taking advantage of this method, specially if you are popular amongst your Facebook friends, and have a big audience to show your ads to. Using AdSense, chitika and other PPC advertising companies you can easily setup your ads and customize it to your liking. Make sure to set it somehow that it serves ads related to product and services that you know your Facebook audience is interested in.

Writing a Facebook book (How To...)

Facebook is attracting more and more members everyday. And lets face it, not all of these people are Facebook savvy. And even though getting started with Facebook for you and I might be simple and quick, many people have problem with the basic things. Write a small and to the point e-book about Facebook and how to use it. Maybe a simple step by step instruction for getting started with Facebook. Or an e-book about how to use different application to make Facebook experience a better one. There are many possibilities. With the huge amount of Facebook apps and all the new ones that are added daily, this can be quite big. You don't even have to pay to promote your e-book, simply use your own Facebook or better yet create one for your e-book and start promoting it.

Affiliate marketing on Facebook

It's the same idea as showing ads, but in a more direct way. Register for free with affiliate networking sites such as ClickBank, Maxbounty and etc, and pick a product relevant to your Facebook audience interest to promote. You will be provided a simple code which is a link with your affiliate id embedded in it. Whenever someone clicks on that link and buys the product or service, you make money by getting a commission.

You can create an entirely new Facebook for that product and start promoting it there. A friend of mine is actually doing it for 4/5 different weight loss product. He created a Facebook page for each product and started adding friends to his Facebook. He writes short posts about the product and posts it on his Facebook with his affiliate link in it. Hi is making a couple of hundred dollars a month doing this. I know it's not much, but for something that doesn't cost you a dime and takes about 30 minuets to setup, and takes about 20 minutes or so a day to run, I don't think it's a bad deal.

Blogging about Facebook

There are already some people doing it. But there is always room for new voices. Get a free blog over at blogger and use Google AdSense (which is already integrated in blogger, so even if you don't know how to show ads on your blog, you can set it up with couple clicks) to show ads on your blog and make money that way.

When you established yourself as an authority and a trusted person for anything related to Facebook, you can get some sponsor and maybe use affiliate networking sites to find and promote Facebook related product.

Create and sell a Facebook application

If you are savvy enough and know your way around, why not use your skills to make a Facebook app of your own and sell it to Facebook users? Again, once you made it, you can use the same strategies mentioned above (blog or a Facebook page for the app) to promote your app.

There you have it, 5 ideas you can use to make money not only on Facebook, but you can also apply the same ideas to MySpace, Twitter and other social networking platforms to make money.

Satrap is the founder and author of controversial blog, blogstash.com. A blog full of great how-tos and information about making money online. Visit blogstash today to get your share of this valuable information and learn how to make money online.

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