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Christine K. Clifford , CSP is the author of nine books including  Let’s Close a Deal! Turn Contacts Into Paying Customers for Your Company, Product, Service or Cause  and   YOU, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself.  She is CEO/President of Christine Clifford Enterprises and  The Cancer Club , helping companies and individuals craft their story and designs “knock your socks off” Media Kits for companies, individuals and entertainers.  Let’s start with a basic question – what are the biggest negotiation mistakes that novices make?   The biggest mistake made by most sales people—both new and old—is thinking of a sale in terms of “What’s in it for you, and what’s in it for me?” I call this the typical “Win-Win” situation. Rather, a sale always has a third party beneficiary: your company, your family, a charitable organizations, etc. So instead, look at the sale as, “What’s in it for three?” I call this the Win-Win-Win. If you keep in mind all parties in...

Money is frequently the biggest issue for startups. You have to spend money to make money, but there isn’t much to begin with. Don’t despair with a little bit of common sense and a bootstrapping mindset, you can stretch your hard earned dollar a long way. Here are five tips to get you started. 1. Take advantage of the SaaS wars. Software as a service is a multibillion dollar industry with new companies trying to get a piece of the pie every month. In order to gain market share, some companies provide free plans which could easily compete with competitors’ paid versions. For example,  Bitrix24  offers a free CRM that’s better than 95% of paid CRMs.  Asana  (of ex-Facebook fame) is a terrific project management service that’s free for any company with 20 employees or fewer.  Wave Accounting  has an extremely generous free plan that can save you thousands. Any business tool you can think of (invoicing, conference calling, benefit management, time sheets)...

Being ready with a few prepared questions can make the sales process easier for you and more comfortable for your customers. Review these questions and have them ready so you can move those conversations forward to closing ground.  Question 1: Name Your Problem  What’s your biggest project right now?  What’s the biggest problem you face right now?  What’s causing you the most stress right now?  Phrasing your question in an open-ended way–one which doesn’t allow for Yes or No answers–helps your customers to share what’s really on their minds. And that’s exactly what you want.  Honest conversations build rapport and trust. They also help you to understand what your customers really need and which obstacles keep them up at night. When you can pinpoint their projects and their problems, you can start introducing the best solutions.  Question 2: Name Your Change  If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?  If you could change on...

PickyDomains -  World’s first risk free naming service   No one needs to be yelling from office to office, or sending unnecessary emails. It's simply a waste of time. That's why we asked 9 entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) what they rely on most for communication among team members. Their best answers are below. 1. Bitrix24 I have tried many different apps for internal team communication and  Bitrix24  is the best by far. Bitrix24 has group chat and video , document management , its own cloud , a calendar for planning , email , a CRM system , human resource capabilities and much, much more. There isn't anything that I wish Bitrix24 could do but doesn't. The best part is that you can pick and choose which parts you use (and it's totally free). – Robert De Los Santos, Sky High Party Rentals 2. Slack Our team switched from Hipchat to Slack in less than a day, and everyone loves it. It's really easy to learn, the integrations are fanta...

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. It’s one of the saddest facts in my life, right up there with my insane student debt and the realization that Taylor Swift will probably never talk to me. But there’s good news! I just saved a bunch of money by switching to… no, I’m kidding. The real good news is that, while lunch may not be free,  Customer Relationship Management software  can be! Free stuff is exciting! Free CRM comes in two categories – free, but limited (also known as freemium), and open source. So the free, but limited versions offset caps on the amount of free users, contacts, storage, extra features, or some combination thereof. Open source, on the other hand, offers an unlimited, fully functional CRM to users. The caveat is that your company needs a person (or team) who can install and configure the CRM. Of course, because of this, open source CRM is extremely customizable, which is nice. Most open source CRM companies also offer a preconfigured version and/or ins...