7 Questions To Ask A
Marketing Consultant
BEFORE You Hire Them

By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker
 

· Word Count: 540

· Time To Read: 2.1 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]

· PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

A growing number of payroll services are recognizing that sending out a generic marketing campaign and placing an ad in the phone book no longer work.  The days of simple selling are truly over for the payroll service industry.

Because of this, many payroll services are thinking about hiring a marketing consulting firm to help them achieve their sales and marketing goals.  If you fall into this category too, and would like to avoid wasting tens of thousands of dollars on poor performing marketing campaigns, I have listed below seven questions to ask someone BEFORE you hire them:

7 Questions To Ask A Marketing Person BEFORE Hiring Them:

#1: Do you specialize in working with the payroll service industry? If they don’t have any experience in working within the payroll service industry, tread lightly as they could waste a lot of your money on non-performing marketing messages. 

#2: What are the top three to five buying triggers or hot buttons of a payroll prospect or a referral partner? If they cannot answer this question, or know what a buying trigger is, their marketing messaging could result in your payroll service being just another “me too” payroll service. 

#3: How much money have you helped make other payroll clients? If they cannot provide you with any dollar success stories, or if they cannot tell you they “can’t track their marketing campaigns,” it’s another red flag.

#4: Will you supply me with three references from other payroll service bureaus that hired you in the last three to four months?  If they cannot provide you with any references, or references who have engaged them in the last 90 to 120 days, consider this another red flag. The reason: It takes 90 to 120 days before an owner realizes that a consultant isn’t worthy of making a positive impact on the sales leads or client referrals.

#5: Do you have any staff to help you; or are you a one-person operation? It is better to hire someone who has a team behind them to ensure copy, content and design formats are correctly formatted, proofed and implemented. 

#6: How long will it take you to create and send out your first marketing campaign for us? If they tell you, “Before we send a marketing campaign out, we need to research your marketplace and customer base to determine their needs.” you might end up spending thousands of dollars on someone who isn’t competent on delivering immediate results.  Remember, you are paying a marketing consulting company for results, not to spend tens of thousands of dollars on research. 

#7: Can you go to my whiteboard right now and write out the marketing campaigns you recommend us to send in the next 30 days?  If the person cannot tell you what they recommend in the next 30 days, segmented by your prospects, your payroll clients and your referral partners, then they truly don’t know how to help grow your business. 

Executive Summary:  There are many marketing campaigns a payroll service can immediately (within 24-hours) send to their marketing databases to start generating a list of sales leads.  And if the person or company you are interviewing cannot tell you what they are, then think twice before hiring them. 

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002 and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577. 

10 Ways To Increase Your
Payroll Sales Starting Now

By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker
 

· Word Count: 623

· Time To Read: 2.5 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]

· PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

Attention All Payroll Professionals:

To help your payroll service become a sales and marketing powerhouse, I have listed below ten suggestions for you and your staff to discuss at your next sales meeting this week:

1. Invest In Your Sales And Marketing Departments: I have seen many payroll services invest tons of time and money refining and detailing their internal processes and procedures.  From converting a new payroll client, paying their clients’ payroll taxes, to even becoming SAS 70 or SSAE 16 compliant.  So tell me, why are you not investing in your sales and marketing departments?
2. Start TODAY For New January Payroll Starts: If you want more year-end payroll sales, start improving your sales and marketing efforts today.  Successful payroll services don’t wait until October or November to take action.  
3. Work Continuously On Building (And Updating) Your Database Of Payroll Clients, Prospects And Referral Partners:  To leverage your time and marketing dollars, make it a priority to continuously build and update your payroll service’s e-mail and direct mail databases, as well as a database of businesses that use a third-party payroll service.  If you do not make it a requirement for your salespeople to constantly build and update their prospect and referral partner databases, they will not make it a priority either - inspect what you expect.  
4. Become A More Proactive Sales Leader: To maximize your sales team’s performance, spend more time in the field with your sales team. If you are managing your sales team on a part-time basis, or from sitting at your desk, expect to get part-time sales results from the majority of your salespeople. 
5. Have Your Salespeople Pick Up The Phone More Often:  One of the top ways to increase your sales is to get your sales team to make more phone calls.  I like to call these “oh by the way calls.” It’s amazing what can happen when a salesperson picks up the phone and says the right things to the right people at the right time.   
6. Keep Your Salespeople Accountable: Help your salespeople become more successful by helping them quantify their sales activities.  Keep track of their proposals, close rate of proposals, number of NEW appointments each week with decision makers and the status of identified top prospects and referral partners. 
7. Hire Sales Hunters: When hiring a salesperson, make sure they know they are being hired for a sales position and not a marketing or PR position. The small independent payroll services are plagued with high turnover as 66% of all salespeople hired will quit or be fired within the first 2 to 12 months of employment.
8. Send More Than An Electronic Newsletter To Market Your Payroll Service:  If you are only blasting out an electronic newsletter to market your payroll service, you are committing marketing suicide. 
9. Don’t Let Your Salespeople Write Your Payroll Service’s Marketing Messages: Salespeople are hired to do one thing: Sell.  If you want a marketing message written, hire a marketing pro who can write motivating marketing messages.  You will thank me for this advice after reviewing the last few e-mail campaigns your salespeople sent. 
10. Blue Print Your Top Salesperson’s Sales Success: If you are committed to creating a defined sales process for your sales team, blue print what your top salespeople do, what they say and whom they say it to.  Once this is done, share it with the rest of your sales team.  They will love you for it.

Executive Summary: Luckily, sales reps aren't the only ones that can have a real impact on new payroll client acquisition and top-line revenue. Discover how you can create lasting growth opportunities with effective lead nurturing in our FREE e-Book Supercharge Your Payroll Sales NOW!  Click here to access it. 

How To Create A Marketing Budget

For Your Payroll Service

By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker
 

· Word Count: 560

· Time To Read: 2.1 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]

· PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

Attention All Payroll Professionals:

Most owners, sales leaders and marketing people in the payroll industry don’t have a formal marketing budget.  If you’re in the same camp and would like to formalize your marketing efforts, I have listed below the most common ways to create a marketing budget.

Step 1: Determine Your Sales Goals.

Before you go down the path of creating a marketing budget, you should first establish your sales goals.  Doing so will go a long way in helping you define the needed tactical marketing campaigns.  

Most owners/sales leaders want to generate:

1. More sales leads from their database of prospects.
2. More referrals from their database of clients.
3. More referrals from their database of referral partners.

If these are also your goals, I highly suggest defining the tactical plans that you want to implement. 

Some Key Components To A Sales/Marketing Strategy:

1. A Sales Follow-Up Plan - A sales follow-up plan (that is monitored by a sales leader) is your best bet on capturing a lead  post a marketing campaign. 
2. How You Will Build A Database Of Your Clients, Prospects And Referral Partners – If you don’t have a strategy in place that dictates and monitors the building of your databases, your marketing campaigns will yield little to no results. 
3. The Buying Triggers Of Prospects And Referral Partners – Does the person doing your marketing know what the top buying triggers are for a prospect or referral partner?  If not, your marketing messages will not resonate with a reader. If you want to greatly improve your marketing results, hire a professional copywriter. 

By the way, all experts agree that a written plan of action is vital component to hitting a goal(s). 

FREE Marketing Strategy Template.

If you want a shortcut to creating a marketing and sales plan, click here to request our 11-page payroll service strategy template. 

Step 2. How To Create A Marketing Budget.

If you want a more formal approach to creating a marketing budget, I have listed below some of the more common methods used:

• Percentage Of Gross (Or Net) Revenue – Many owners talk about a percentage of revenue but few allocate an exact number.  Should you choose this approach; expect to spend 2.5% to 15% of your gross sales. Net is another story altogether. Again, a lot will depend on your objectives. 
• Percentage Of A Client’s Life-Time-Value – This method requires a tad more information, but results in a more realistic expenditure because the budget is based on the profit/sales of a new payroll client being acquired. 
• Whatever You Can Afford To Spend – This is a favorite in the payroll industry as most owners look at their cash flow and say, “I have X dollars in the bank so I can spend that on a few marketing campaigns.”  Unless you factor more information into a budgeting decision, this is just a high-stakes gamble. 

Here’s A Simple Budgeting Formula.

Let’s assume your average payroll client generates $1,750 a year in payroll processing revenue and stays on as a client for 7 years. That said, one client would generate $12,250 in life-time revenue.  If your 12 month goal is 100 new payroll clients, your life-time revenue from them would be $1,225,000.  That said, how much are you willing to spend to acquire $1,225,000 in added revenue.   

Executive Summary:  Your optimum marketing budget should be based on the number of new payroll clients needed to achieve your sales goal x a client’s life-time value.  Once you know the “potential” revenue from this goal, you can reverse engineer an estimated marketing budget. 

When developing a marketing budget there is a lot to consider.  That being said, if you want to tap into my 25,000+ hours of industry experience, click here to schedule a FREE 20-minute consultation with me. 

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002 and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577. 

Quick Test For All Payroll
Sales And Marketing Pros

By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker
 

· Word Count: 362

· Time To Read: 1.5 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]

· PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

Attention All Payroll Professionals:

Let's assume for a minute that you are riding in an elevator with the CEO of your best payroll prospect.  So tell me, what will you say and do in the next 60-seconds that will motivate him or her to learn more about your payroll service?  Oh by the way, your toughest competitor will be giving their best "elevator pitch" during the CEO’s ride down. 
 

Whether you like it or not, this is what every prospect and referral partner is thinking when you first talk with them.  And this is why you need a well prepared pitch.  Do you really think an attorney "wings it" when presenting a closing argument to a jury?  Of course not and nor should you. 

Why You Need To Have A Short, Crisp And MOTIVATING Elevator Pitch.

If you are in sales or marketing, it is important to have a memorized elevator pitch; a pitch that’s supported by a number of sales tools and that you can adjust on the fly.  However, and this is a big however, you need to ensure that you don’t come off sounding like every other payroll service out there. 

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Will Dramatically Improve Your Elevator Pitch; And Your Sales.

Your USP is one of the top components a sales and marketing pro can use to drive prospects and referral partners to learn more about your business.  Ultimately, this will bring in more leads and sales to your company.  By the way, the best USP in the world wil not do any good if your sales and marketing people are NOT using it; therefore, test your salespeople on using one. 

Here’s A Test For Your Sales And Marketing Team: 

Sometime today, walk up to each person on your sales and marketing team and ask them this one question: "If I were a real prospect that you were talking to right now, how would you answer this question? What makes your payroll service any better or different from everyone else?" 

Click here to read what most payroll salespeople say.

Executive Summary: One of your goals as a sales leader is to train your sales/marketing staff to use an elevator pitch, whether verbally or in print.  And if you do, your staff will find more prospects and referral partners saying, "Wow, you are different."  By the way, that's a beautiful thing too.
 

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002, and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577. 

3 Simple Ways To Instantly
Stand Out From Other Payroll Services

By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker

• Word Count: 420
• Time To Read: 1.7 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]
• PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

Attention All Payroll Professionals:

If a prospect cannot determine what makes a payroll service any better or different from everyone else, more often than not they will base their decision to switch to your payroll service solely on price. 

If you want to avoid looking like a me-too payroll service, and avoid the dreaded "quote and hope" proposal process, I have listed below three suggestions to help your payroll service and sales team become better at winning more sales. 

3 Simple Ways To Give Your Payroll Service A Competitive Advantage.

1. Narrow Your Sales Focus For Your Sales Team.  By having a more specific market focus, your payroll service will have an immediate competitive advantage. Why? When you service a specific market, it becomes easier to stand out from the competition that only focuses on the masses.

By focusing on a specific industry, you will become the expert in that space. To help you accomplish this, I have listed below a number of suggestions. 

• Look at the markets that your payroll service is currently servicing and then ask yourself, "Which markets have unique needs that we're good at helping solve their payroll, HR and timekeeping problems?
• Determine the profile of your niche by asking yourself these questions: What size companies are they? How many employees do they have? Are they in multiple locations that are in various states? Continue to ask this line of questioning.
• Look into buying a database that is based on the profiles listed above.
• Once you determine that this type of focus makes sense, develop a website landing page, printed collateral, sales scripts, etc. that focus on this niche.
• Get your clients (that you serve in this focus) to write testimonials for you. Use them often and early in the sales cycle.
• Start contacting this industry hard and fast. Send a preliminary e-mail and direct mail piece and then make your "oh by the way calls" to follow-up. Use the testimonials you gathered.
• After 14- and 30-days, regroup with your sales team for a debriefing.

2. Become A Problem Solver For Your Clients. When you focus on a specific issue/challenge in a market, with time and the right marketing strategy, you will become a true partner for your clients. Here are some steps to take:

• Isolate on the top three core problems/pain points that your payroll service solves in your industry focus.
• Train your salespeople on the pain points and how to position this information in the marketplace.
• Develop marketing messaging and collateral for these problems.  

3. Become Results-Driven For Your Clients. The ability to deliver specific results is a compelling proposition in the marketplace. If you can factually say that your company can help deliver and/or achieve specific results, you will be noticed.

Executive Summary: When you position your payroll service with these strategies in place, you will have a more compelling story to tell. This in itself is a huge competitive advantage for any payroll service willing to take these extra steps.

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002, and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and chief strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577. 

How To Land A Meeting With Your Top Payroll Prospects
By Glenn Fallavollita - CEO of SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Speaker

• Word Count: 420
• Time To Read: 1.7 Minutes [based on reading 250 words per minute]
• PRINT AND USE AT YOUR NEXT SALES MEETING

Attention All Payroll Professionals:

Although you may have a great payroll service, getting an appointment with a top decision maker can be challenging - especially if there is a "gatekeeper" in front of you. What's a gatekeeper? It's the person that insulates a decision maker, oftentimes his or her administrative assistant, from unwanted salespeople.

5 Winning Strategies To Help You Get Past A Gatekeeper.

• #1: If you get the gatekeeper on the phone, respectfully ask for their help on the best way(s) to get on the decision maker's calendar for a brief 15-minute conversation.
• #2: Ask the gatekeeper for help in delivering a special lumpy-mail or overnight package to the decision maker. High-level people love these packages. Gatekeepers are helpful people by nature so they will like helping you if you don't come off as a "used car salesperson."
• #3: Get an introduction from a decision maker's trusted advisor. By the way, if you get the gatekeeper on the phone, use the trusted advisor's name when calling, i.e., "John Smith of ABC CPA Firm recommended that I speak with Sharon (try not to use the decision maker's last name) today. Will you be kind enough to transfer me to Sharon please - thank you."   
• #4: Call the decision maker's office early in the morning or after 5:00 p.m. - typically before or after the gatekeeper arrives.
• #5: Don't try to sell the gatekeeper on your payroll service as it will only irritate them. Remember, your job is only to get on the decision maker's calendar.    

Click here to request "How To Create A Money-Making Lumpy Mail Campaign".
 

There are many tips and techniques on getting past the gatekeeper. The key to your success will be based on the following elements:

• Your creativity on sending a unique marketing campaign that breaks through the clutter (and gets you noticed).
• Your confidence and politeness when talking with the gatekeeper.
• Getting a third party to provide you with an introduction with the decision maker.

Executive Summary:

If you are trying to connect with a decision maker, it's best to get a third party (trusted advisor) to help you with that initial introduction. If you don't have a third party to leverage that initial introduction, send the person a creative marketing campaign that's inserted into a lumpy mail or overnight package. Don't forget to include a call to action, i.e., free download, video link, etc. that would trigger their curiosity so they actually take action.

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002, and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577.