Copyright (c) 2010 Adam Urbanski

It’s interesting where you can pick up marketing and sales ideas for your business. The three lessons I’m about to share with you are a result of conversation with the person flying next to me. Here is the full story.

On my way to Wilmington, North Carolina, to speak at one of my Platinum Mastermind Member’s seminar I happened to sit next to a woman who sells higher education training materials.

Basically she sells curriculum and text books to all the colleges and universities. I found what she was telling me fascinating and it reminded me of these three marketing and sales lessons every service professional, business owner, and information marketer should never forget.

1. Everything must be sold!

Somewhere, sometime, someone sold to somebody everything you currently own and made a profit on it! That’s a fact. I never knew that text books, curriculum, and entire courses where sold to colleges. I guess I was kind of naive thinking that stuff like school text books sells itself. Well, it doesn’t!

You see, it’s up to the dean or the individual professors what curriculum will be taught in the class and which text book the students will be required to use. And it’s up to the best sales person to make that sale. So if you are squeamish about selling, either get over it, get good at it, or get out of business. (Sorry to be blunt!)

2. It’s NOT the highest quality curriculum, but the best sales person that wins!

So ultimately, if you went to college, what you learned there was, at least partially, based not on the best available knowledge or materials out there, but on someone’s ability to make the sale! The best sales person got their materials to that school!

Listen, I’m NOT telling you to sell crap. I believe providing the best products and services is a must. But while it’s critical to always keep getting better at your core competencies, a course that improves your marketing and sales skills will often advance your business much faster than another professional designation or fancy title.

3. What you get paid isn’t based on how good you are at what you do. At least not entirely.

You see, many different schools purchase the same courses from the same publisher, but depending on what college a person goes to they may end up paying a totally different tuition to take that class. So it’s entirely possible that someone paying a small fortune to attend a private collage gets to study the same course as someone paying only a fraction of that fee and attending a local community college.

What dictates how much you can charge for what you do is the perceived value you can establish in your customer’s mind based on your brand, demand, and your marketing and sales ability. It’s sad that many great professionals don’t get, and they can hardly make ends meet because of it!

And one more final point. Many people don’t get started creating their own intellectual capital (information products) because they think they have nothing new to say. But if you realize that two professors can teach the same class but one of them will be more popular based on the professor’s ability to deliver the material, you’ll realize that some people simply want to learn from you. YOU, and who you are, is makes what you do unique and more valuable.

Give some thought to what new competencies you have to develop this year, and WHO you have to become, to stand out in the market place, transform what you do from a commodity to valuable resources, and charge – and get – that type of fees you want and deserve.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/three-marketing-lessons-any-service-professional-business-owner-and-info-marketer-should-know-2165530.html

About the Author

The author, Adam Urbanski, Founder and President of Marketing Mentors, teaches professionals and business owners proven strategies to leverage their know-how into low-cost, high-profit information products and programs. For more information go to his website at http://www.InfoProfitFastTrack.com

Adding Twitter to my social media mix was inspired by one of the team leaders I work with, and as a result I have actually gained clients thru Twitter.