If you want to make money, you have to spend money. It is one of the oldest adages out there when it comes to finance and business. While you could argue this could apply to anything valuable, it mostly applies to money as that is how we measure value.

However, with something truly valuable, like our time, you won’t get any more time back by investing time into something. In fact, the only thing you’ll get is money and the chance of perhaps getting some more free time, but that is never a guarantee. Thus, our time is absolutely precious and should be used wisely.

However, nobody can truly manage time, as it is not something we can control, it will keep going whether we’re ready or not. The only thing we have control over is ourselves and manage what we do in the time that is afforded to us. By developing a firm understanding of how much your time is worth and how to use that time, you can make wiser decisions and possibly become more successful in the long run. Read on to learn what your selling time is worth.

What Your Time Is Worth

There are 24 hours in a day or 1,440 minutes. One percent of that time is 14 minutes and 24 seconds. On average, we spend about a third of that time sleeping and another 33% of the day at work. While this may seem like an over-simplification of how time works, there is value in understanding how much time we spend on things.

With any job, even if you love it and would do it for free, there is going to be something about it you hate. Even if it is a minor detail and doing it would help your career in the long run, there is always going to be a strong temptation to procrastinate and delay doing it for as long as you possibly can. If this is the case for you, perhaps a change of perspective will make it easier for you to be enthusiastic about the offending task.

Say there’s a tedious chore you need to do that takes about half an hour a day to complete. Such an expenditure of time might seem like a lot until you realize that it’s only about 2% of your day. It is time that you will barely miss as you still have the other 98% of the day to spend on things you enjoy. It also doesn’t have to be done all at once, as you could split it into two or three separate sessions.

This perspective not only makes these kinds of tasks a lot more manageable but allows you to have a better understanding about how much time you spend on something. In this instance, while 2% of your day may not seem like a lot, that time is still worth something, and that time does add up.

If you look at how much money you earn a year and how much time you spend on earning that money, you will develop a keen understanding of the exact value of your time. If you refer to the graph below, you can clearly see the connection between how much time you spend on your job in total and how much money that time is giving you based on 40 hours a week.

Knowing this will help you understand that the task you hate doing has value. If you make $50,000 a year, 2% of your day is worth $12. It is important to understand that all of your time is valuable even if you are not actually being paid to complete that task.

Know How Not To Waste Time

On the flipside, knowing this shows how important it is not to waste time including that of others who may make a lot more money than you, for example, CEOs. If every hour of your time is worth $24, an hour of a CEO’s time could be worth four or five times as much. You do not want to be thought of as a time waster by those people!

If you are wasting their time, you are costing them money. And, as the old saying goes: “Time is money!” By using your new understanding of the value of every minute, you will stop procrastinating and save yourself – and others – a lot of money!

As sales evolves, new strategies and trends come and go sometimes as quickly as night and day. That said, there is one recent trend that has withstood the test of time (so far) and become a best practice … micromarketing.

An advertising strategy in which a specific demographic is targeted, this strategy allows businesses with obscure or niche products to focus their marketing efforts directly on the type of people they wish to reach.

If you have considered adding micromarketing to your box of selling tools, read on. This article is for you!

How Does Micromarketing Work?

Micromarketing is based on advertising and selling directly to what is often a small group of people or niche audience. While many fail to see the point of not trying to reach as many people as possible, these small markets can be extremely valuable, and they are now easier to identify and reach than ever before.

The types of markets you would use micromarketing on are often either highly dedicated, highly competitive, and/or highly profitable. This can be something as mundane as decorative tea cups that only a few people would have the money and desire to get. On a larger scale, it could be special chemicals or materials needed for a powerplant to function. These markets are niche because they are something that not everyone would want or need, but they are marketed to because they are incredibly profitable due to their niche needs.

There are multiple ways that micromarketing manifests, as there are multiple reasons a business would want to target a certain group. On a broader level, companies can directly target their gender or their age, and is likely the most common form of micromarketing. It can also be based on hobbies and customer loyalty, targeting those who have an obscure or expensive interest in what you have to offer and catering to your patrons. It can even be directed towards certain businesses and job positions, especially if you’re giving an invaluable service to them. Even if it seems like a small market, what you can provide them with and what they are willing to give back to you cannot be overstated.

Why Would You Want to Work with Micromarketing?

There are many reasons why you would want to enter the micromarketing field or would want to collaborate with a company with a more niche focus. Typically, micromarketing is a far more cost-effective alternative, only requiring the money needed to advertise to a certain group as opposed to spreading it across a wider group. While it still costs a decent amount of money for advertising, it will be more likely that you will get more bang for your buck. Those who need your service would be more likely to support you in a greater way.

Another reason micromarketing is so effective is because of its specified targeting. You know exactly what your clients want from you, thus you have a better edge in convincing them to invest in your service. Knowing your audience is a critical aspect for sales and marketing, and micromarketing helps you understand the needs of your audience. Being able to be this specific and focused allows you to invest more of your time in selling and marketing, while spending less time on research and analytics. You also get a better sense of customer loyalty and feedback, as you develop a stronger bond with the people that you’re selling to, thus they will want to support you and help you improve.

It can also give you another avenue to bring in new customers through your perceived authority. Focusing on a specific niche and growing a loyal clientele will draw the attention of those who are just getting into your niche. When they look at you and see how much you cater to your audience, they will see you as an authority on your chosen niche. This, however, does depend on the trust you build with your current clientele. This means treating them fairly and properly, and not trying to swindle them with a poor product and confusing customer service.

It should be noted however that this form of marketing and the style of selling micromarketing requires a lot more dedication to your craft. It requires you to know the field that you are entering with extreme detail and that you stay up to date with current trends in that field. Additionally, if a larger company focusing on multiple products is trying to get into micromarketing, it can become extremely difficult to keep track of every niche you’re trying to sell to. It is also possible that you completely miss your target audience as well.

But even if you aren’t into micromarketing, these ideas can still be of great use in your sales career. Micromarketing is about focusing on who you want to sell to and having that level of dedication to your clients can give them a reason to come back. It shows that you care about their needs, and they can trust that you’ll be able to cater to them in the same way. Even if you don’t get into micromarketing directly, it may be a good thing to study further to become a better overall salesperson.

Two professions that are intrinsically intertwined are sales and marketing. They both require their practitioners to convince people to spend their hard-earned money on particular products or services.

The main difference between the two professions is that salespeople try to directly influence their customers while marketers use more indirect means of persuasion. As such, many of the skills that go into the making of a good marketer are also useful to sales professionals.

Become a good marketer is a great way to become a better salesperson and vice versa. Whether you take classes, get coaching or do as much personal research as you can, the benefits of being familiar with both ends of the operation are substantial. Read on to learn how understanding marketing can help your sales career:

Techniques and Strategies

The main thing you’ll develop is the myriad of marketing strategies and techniques you can use to convince prospects to invest in your goods or services. The bread and butter of marketing is to peak people’s interest through a variety of means. While cold calling and sales pitches can be effective, there are many other little ways developing marketing knowledge can help boost your sales.

One of the most common ways is to understand the main benefit of what you’re selling in a succinct way. Over-explaining why someone would want something often bores potential clients and makes you seem like you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Advertisements only have a short amount of time or space to convince people to buy their product, so they need to be concise. Approaching sales in this way can save time and make the client more interested more quickly. Additionally, you can also focus on what’s unique about your product, like if it does something better than other products of its kind.

It’s never a bad idea to keep an eye on how your products and services are being advertised. Knowing your company’s ads will help you understand your prospects better and it might give you some ways to make your sales pitch punchier.

Consumer Psychology

Jill Rowley, a social sales evangelist who has worked with companies like Hubspot and Salesforce said: “The new reality is that sales and marketing are continuously and increasingly integrated. Marketing needs to know more about sales, sales needs to know more about marketing, and we all need to know more about our customers.”

Understanding the needs of customers is one of the most important aspects of either discipline, one that is absolutely essential for the success of each.

In sales, the main approach to this understanding is through concrete knowledge of the needs and problems of a client, along with strong intercommunication skills.

For marketing, the main focus tends to be on consumer psychology, predicting an audience’s thought patterns and coming up with ways to influence their decisions.

Salespeople already do this, in a way, through their interpersonal skills and the way they present themselves. However, having the depth of understanding that marketers have on consumer psychology can give you an edge in your sales pitches.

There are many things that can influence customer psychology, some as seemingly insignificant as a color or a choice of words. On a big picture level, approaching a meeting with an heir of authority on the topic and being able to
show social proof of your product or service’s effectiveness can get clients more interested in your pitch.

However, trying to manipulate the client into investing in a subpar good or service will lead to a diminished reputation and long-term failure.

Industry Insights

Finally, learning more about marketing for the sake of your sales career can provide you with greater industry insights as well as a better understanding of cause and effect. It will also help you appreciate how sales and marketing intertwine.

The more you know about not only your area pf expertise but other – such as marketing – can only help make you more powerful as a sales professional.

There are many professions where it helps to be highly creative such as musician, graphic
designer, chef or architect. Sales is rarely mentioned – or even thought of – when the topic of
creative careers comes up.
However, talk to any hyper-successful sales professional and you’will soon realize that their
plays a huge role in their achievements. In fact, there are many ways a salesperson must think
outside the box if they are to rise to the top of their organization.
Here are some ways you can channel your inner Picasso into your sales career:

Create a Creative Sales Plan

One area where you can really engage your creativity is your sales plan. Depending on how
much power you have over your sales plan, there are a lot of variables you can alter to create
something that is suited to your strengths that perhaps others wouldn’t consider.
If you’re a team leader, start at the top and think about how your team is structured, how goals
are met, and who your target audience is. Look at the big picture and pay attention to where
the team as a whole is succeeding and falling short.

Maybe the team needs to be restructured for better workflow and communication. Perhaps
you’re marketing to the wrong audience or customers that doesn’t fit your product as well as
you thought they would.

While nobody thinks of data analysis as a creative art form, by doing a deep dive and gaining a
true understanding of everything that is going on, it will allow you to become far more creative
with your approach and solutions.

Identifying weaknesses and coming up with creative ways to lessen their impact requires
creativity and a willingness to experiment and try new things.

As an individual sales professional, you need to start by being honest with yourself about
whether you’re achieving at the level you should be or not. If your sales strategies are not
yielding strong results, it’s time to get creative and come up with more unique and interesting
ways to present to existing customers or to find new prospects from previously untried areas of
the market.

Get creative and come with catchy ways or deals to turn a prospect into a long-term customer.
Find a way to make yourself stand out from the crowd and be interesting to the people you are
trying to sell to.

Be creative and pitch ideas to your marketing department that you think will bring in sales
leads. This can anything from a funny local TV commercial to a well-placed billboard to an eye-
catching online advertisement.

You have more face-to-face interactions with your customers than the marketers do so show
them you can help develop creative ideas that will help take the company to new heights of
success.

Create a Creative Sales Pitch

In an ideal world, the follow-the-script sales pitch handed to you by your manager, or the
marketing department works every time you use it. In the real world however, this is not always
the case.

Again, sales professionals know a company’s customers better than anyone. And any
salesperson worth their salt knows that they have to stay light on their feet and make creative
adjustments to their pitch based on the response they’re getting from the customer.

Of course, it is best to be prepared and to know the “company line” pitch inside and out but
don’t be afraid to let your creative flag fly and improvise if you can tell it’s not hitting the target.

Do your research of your prospect, including their history and their needs, and know what
resources that you’re able to draw upon, including what deals and opportunities you can give
them. This allows you to have a better idea of what you can and should do based on a variety of
situations your pitch may present you. Further, this allows you to implement the creative sales
strategy you worked so hard on.

Being able to think quickly and creatively will allow you to come up with answers to questions
you hadn’t considered. It can also grant you the opportunity to present your service in a
perspective they may not have considered. The most important thing is this step though, is not
to let your creativity overtake the conversation. A sales pitch is supposed to be a back and
forth, allowing both parties to get what they want. Trying to be too clever and eclectic may be a
turn off for some. Just remember to have a cool head and be ready to get creative.

Did you know that every 24 hours, enough sunlight touches the Earth to provide energy for the entire planet for 24 years? No wonder solar energy has grown into a behemoth of an industry!

A greener alternative to the standard methods of energy generation, solar has become extremely popular in more environmentally conscious (and sunnier) parts of the world like California.

While once considered a fad by many, solar has become an established part of our energy production and one of the fastest growing industries of this decade.

There are many reasons for a salesperson to get into selling solar. In this blog, we will explore why you should lose your skepticism and provide you with the two best reasons for becoming a sales professional in the solar industry:

1. It makes business sense

Solar energy is one of the fastest growing and most lucrative industries in the world, especially within the energy sector. Within the past 10 years, it has grown in size multiple times and – at its current growth rate of 20% – it will double in size again within the next three-and-a-half years.

One of the main reasons for this exponential growth is it is becoming a lot cheaper to produce. It has become less expensive due to the inherent feedback loop caused by the growth of an industry (i.e. a product is first produced and sold, the demand for the product increases and supply increases with it).

Eventually, the economics of scale goes into effect and the revenue of production becomes greater than the cost, especially when they are able to afford ways to streamline the process, ultimately decreasing the price of production. This has also allowed it to become a lot more affordable, while also encouraging developers to innovate and improve their products, both of which contribute to its growth.

One of the other main reasons for its growth is financial and political support. Due to it becoming a more profitable industry, financiers have become more willing to invest. Furthermore, due to growing environmental concerns and the debate around renewable energy, many governments have opted to support solar energy. Bills have been passed to reduce the cost and encourage the growth of renewable energy. Even the housing market supports it as homes with solar panels installed on them are considered more valuable.

Due to its near-unprecedented level of growth – and the promise of continuous growth – it has become a hot industry for sales professionals to get into. It is an industry that is constantly looking for new talent with high-paying positions regularly available. Selling right now in the solar energy sector allows you to be at the forefront of the industry’s expansion and paves the way for your future success. It is also a rewarding business for sales professionals with positions consistently paying up to $120,000 a year and sometimes higher based on performance.

2. It makes environmental sense

The other big reason for becoming a solar energy salesperson is because it is good for the planet. Unlike coal and petroleum, it is a far cleaner option, producing zero carbon or any other greenhouse gasses. In fact, it does not use any other resource aside from the materials needed to build the panels.

Solar is also one of the safest forms of energy collection, unlike other forms which require large facilities with potentially dangerous moving parts, solar only requires the panels and installation. It is even safer than wind energy!

Most importantly, it is a renewable energy source as the sun is practically an infinite source of energy. By gathering this energy and using it to power our modern world, the problem of energy scarcity could become a thing of the past. Working as a salesperson in the solar industry can allow you to make a difference and be part of something greater than yourself.