Dan Galante

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please share your thoughts with me.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

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

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

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

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

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

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

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

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

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

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

I’m seeking a full-time role in

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

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

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

Last week, I covered the Search Marketing Expo in New York City. Search Marketing Expo has is a great event for SEO, SEM, and Digital Marketing professionals. SMX provides attendees with an opportunity to learn actionable techniques in conference sessions and training workshops. Google and Microsoft provided seminars on various SEM topics.

Here is a video of the event.

I enjoyed Moz founder Rand Fishkin’s keynote.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. Organic traffic has reached its peak and will decline.
2. To keep traffic coming to their sites, Marketers will need to find ways to nudge consumers as Zero click queries continue to grow.
3. Organizations need to shift their investments in product, content, and brand. Decisions on how to redeploy these resources need to be a company-wide effort. 

Here is the link to the presentation.

Google in 2020: From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor | SparkToro
I’ve written a lot this year about the shifts we’re seeing from Google — moving from search engine to answer to engine…sparktoro.com

At the end of the keynote, I met Rand and received a signed copy of his new book entitled Lost and Found.

In Google’s Keynote, I learned how businesses can get an edge during the holidays. I also learned of Google’s plan to use Google Images and YouTube for eCommerce. Google is also allowing businesses to use location-based Ads in Google Maps.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. According to Google most shopping visits start online.

2.When diners search for a great place to eat the searches are probably happening on a smartphone.

3.  When people are online in cars, more than half of them are searching for information on a mobile device making localization and targeting important.

4. . 2/3′s of shoppers say that online video has given them insight and inspiration to make purchases.

5. Shoppers use at least 3 channels or more when shopping.

6. Brands need to provide an omnichannel channel experience all year, especially during the holidays.

7. Sales are happening online and offline. As a result of this shift, Brands need to serve customers on the channels of their choice.

I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing function merged and run by Sales, What would be your main focus? Why?

As you can see, 68% of those surveyed said that increase lead generation and demand generation was a top priority. What this means is that people see Marketing as a vehicle to increase Sales and Revenue.

Marketing also serves as an Enablement for Sales Teams, Customer Success, support, and even employer branding. Many companies have created a dedicated enablement function. Companies sit employer branding and Recruitment Marketing in HR. However, there are still a lot of companies without dedicated enablment and employer branding functions.

Everyone looks to the marketing department. The lines between product, marketing, sales, and customer success are blurring.

Marketers do traditional work of branding, advertising, market research, content creation, and enablement, but these tasks support the larger goal of increased Sales and Revenue. Marketers impact Sales and by filing up the Sales pipeline, pre and post-sale. In the end, Marketers need to make a business case to justify their existence.

Sales reps can only be as good as the product and message they represent. Before companies can hire Sales reps, they need a great product with messaging that conveys the benefits to customers. Sales reps need support from marketing in the cross-functional organization of today. The messaging should be able to prevent customer objections. Unfortunately, this is where many Marketing departments fall short.

According to Salesforce.com, “studies show that 82 % of Sellers are out of sync with buyers.”

Many marketing hires lack sales experience; they do not know how to handle and anticipate customer objections. As a result, Sales and Marketing collateral designed to enable front-line teams like Sales are not helpful enough.

Research conducted by CEB Gartner found “80% of Marketing Collateral is trashed and 30% of Sales time is wasted creating the collateral just trashed.”

In addition, many people in Marketing lack the background and understanding of how people learn. Teachers and psychologists have this training. Understanding how people learn can make product messaging more effective because it can be presented in multiple formats. Many people in marketing lack practitioner experience and as a result, marketing is not as effective.

How can Marketing be improved?

Hire Sales Reps, Teachers, and Industry practitioners in marketing roles.

Now I will make a case for hiring Sales Reps, Teachers, and Industry practitioners in marketing.

Case for hiring ex Sales Reps

• Knows how to handle objections which can be applied to message
• Experience dealing with customers knows customer pain points
• Sees how end-user uses the product
• Can increase sales using Sales expertise to make messaging customer-centric
• Can assist with Sales and Marketing Alignment as companies need to work cross-functionally
• Understands the issues Sales Reps face and has the credibility of being a Rep when collaborating with Sales Teams

Experienced obtaining, qualifying, and converting leads to Sales ie Lead gen/demand gen

Hiring Industry practice experts

• They are the customers and understand the pain points better than any market research -should be in leadership roles

Case For hiring Ex Teachers

• understands how people learned
• skilled at tailoring content for understanding based on learning needs
• Today’s marketing is about educating customers and earning the right to market to them as they can educate customers

Why it is not Good enough to only place Industry practice experts and ex Teachers in the Sales Org

People in Sales are not involved in the creative process and cannot change their cards and company messaging.

They cannot address weaknesses in messaging and products.

The Marketer of Tomorrow

1. Understands Marketing as a Service or MAAS
2. Thrives in Data-Driven and Metric Driven Environments
3. Has Writing Ability
4 Has Sales Experience understanding Pain Points of Customer Facing Staff and Customers

My background

I have Marketing experience along with all of the above in my background.

Are you ready to increase Sales by improving Marketing?

Your sales and service teams deserve better!

Change today!

How have you increased Sales by improving messaging?

Comment and share below.

About Me

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

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

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

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

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

Articles and insights have been featured, mentioned and, referenced in:

Tractica in the News
The Future of AI
https://medium.com/@DanGalante/the-future-of-ai-insights-from-the-ai-summit-ab6267eca70b

Digital Marketing World Forum
https://www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/key-insights-from-digital-marketing-world-forum-north-america/

Voice Summit
Compilation: Our Favorite Post-VOICE Coverage So Far
https://www.voicesummit.ai/blog/compilation-our-favorite-post-voice-coverage

Engage Bay
7 Steps to Align your Marketing Automation Strategy
https://www.engagebay.com/blog/marketing-automation-strategy/

Relay 42
The Role of Technology in Customer-Centricity
https://relay42.com/resources/blog/the-role-of-technology-in-customer-centricity

Databox
How to Improve Marketing and Sales Alignment (Gave background)
https://databox.com/how-to-improve-sales-marketing-alignment

Onalytica
Named as a Top STEM Influencer for EdTech and Education Industry Insights.
http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/stem-top-influencers-brands-publications/

The Arizona Republic
http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/handle-top-10-sme-sales-objections-24845.html

Twitter Ads Blog
https://blog.twitter.com/2014/how-smartphone-users-engage-on-twitter-three-key-findings

Paper.li’s Wall Of Fame via Scoop.it
http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-paper-li/?tag=Dan+Galante

I’ve been honored for my Social Profiles
•LinkedIn SSI Score in the Top 1%
•SlideShare for being in the top 5% of profiles viewed in 2014
•LinkedIn Profile was in the top 1% of profiles viewed out of 200 million members in 2012

I’m seeking a full-time role in:
Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.
Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.