While interacting with customers and selling vehicles, it can sometimes be challenging to maintain high energy and focus. As the hours go on, minds can wander and exhaustion can creep in. This can have a detrimental effect on performance, not only affecting individual salespeople but the dealership as a whole. Sales managers need to find ways to keep their teams motivated, focused, and full of energy, ways that go beyond monetary incentives. Some of these tips may seem a bit too simple, but the overall effect they have can be enormous and far-reaching.

1. Organized Work Area

One of the keys to maintaining proper focus throughout the work day is keeping your work area organized. Think about what your work desk is like right now. Is it cluttered? If so, chances are it will be easy for essential tasks and paperwork to quickly get lost in the mess. Organized workspaces ensure everything has its proper place and salespeople can focus on the things that really matter. It also makes a great impression on people seeing your office for the very first time.

2. Sufficient Exercise

One of the best ways to improve your energy levels is through exercise. Whether that means getting up and doing some jumping-jacks in the middle of the dealership, or getting some regular exercise outside of business hours. Above all, this can be nearly any type of activity: jogging, swimming, basketball, cycling, yoga, etc. Getting your heart pumping after you wake up helps people be more energetic throughout the day. In addition to more energy, exercise is merely a great way to stay healthy.

3. Healthy Meals

At the same time, you’re getting enough exercise, be sure you’re eating healthy foods as well. A balanced diet filled with fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and more is crucial to keeping your energy levels up. Sugary foods like candy may provide a momentary kick, but they’re certainly not a sustainable lifestyle and won’t lead to better performance. You should also make sure that you’re eating at the right times during the day. It is important to know your body, some people do intermittent fasting. While others don’t go more than 3 hours between meals.

4. Cognitive Boosters

Perhaps you need that extra boost to improve your focus and increase your energy, something that you normally don’t get with your current diet. Many people choose to go with things like energy drinks or coffee for that boost, but the energy is only temporary, and there’s usually a big crash that comes later. As a healthier alternative, you may choose to go with special cognitive boosters called nootropics. Nootropics are a type of supplement specially designed to enhance the brain. As the Neurohacker Collective nootropics page explains, “nootropics are substances which can enhance a person’s cognition, leading to better executive functions such as improved focus.” Nootropics feature more sustained benefits with supplements that are safer than the typical stimulants people use.

5. To-Do Lists and Goals

Every salesperson should have a goal in mind while at work. This provides motivation while also helping them focus on what they need to do. Many goals, however, are for longer term ideas, such as monthly sales goals. A monthly goal is certainly helpful, but to keep focused, short-term goals should be set, such as for the week and even the day. Salespeople can break down these goals even further, creating a to-do list that they can adhere to. Some people may even have an extensive list of what they should do for each hour they’re on the clock. Knowing what you need to do at all hours of the day will help everyone keep focused on what’s most important.

6. Regular Sleep

Sleep is how people get refreshed and replenish their energy reserves. Jeff Liff said in his 2014 TedMed talk, “So what this new research tells us, then, is that the one thing that all of you already knew about sleep, that even Galen understood about sleep, that it refreshes and clears the mind, may actually be a big part of what sleep is all about.” If someone isn’t getting enough sleep, they’re going to feel lethargic during the day. Optimizing the amount of time in bed to get the right amount of sleep may take some experimentation and may change depending on the amount of activity in your life. For that reason, make sure you’re getting plenty of sleep so you’re rested and ready for your job. Sleep is so important that some offices actually allow people to take naps during work hours. Chances are you won’t have that opportunity, but that just makes it all the more important for you to get a full night’s rest.

As you can see from this list, some of the ways to improve your focus and energy can be done while you’re on the job while others are done outside of work. Many require planning ahead of time, but the benefits you can get from them are certainly worth it. A focused salesperson who has a lot of energy is simply going to perform better. They’re qualities every employee should strive for and every sales manager shoulder encourage.

Those who consider social media and email marketing to be separate entities are probably leaving a lot of money on the table. While it’s true that email has been with us since the dawn of the Internet Age and is viewed by some as a slow, ponderous, hopelessly anachronistic relic of the 1990’s, smart marketers realize that they are different sides of the same coin and can be a powerful business force when combined. The good news is that it probably won’t be difficult to tweak your current social media strategies to include good, old email. Here’s how.

The Miracle of Facebook Audiences

Okay, maybe miracle is too strong a term, but it’s pretty amazing how this Facebook feature can supercharge the amount of demographic data available for collection on a customer. Let’s say you sell a service or product online. Anytime a purchase is made using a credit or debit card, you likely end up with the email address of that customer. Most email marketing companies like Mailchimp or Aweber allow for the export of of these lists to a .csv file, which can then be uploaded into Facebook under the Audiences section of the Ad Manager dashboard.

Facebook’s software will fiddle around behind the scenes and spit out a new list with the raw emails you entered matched up to (with a hit rate of 20-70 percent) actual Facebook users. As you probably realize, Facebook is an insatiable collector and aggregator of demographic information and, once you can put a user profile together with an email address, you have struck gold when it comes to being able to more precisely target your marketing efforts.

Create a Lookalike Audience

Would you like more customers? That’s exactly what another Facebook feature - the lookalike audience - can provide you with. Using Audiences, you’ve gleaned a ton of demographic information about people who are already customers based on email addresses alone. When you ask Facebook to create a lookalike audience, the software goes to work again, searching its massive database to create a list of users who have similar interests and demographics. It’s a mirror audience of your customers with a crucial difference; they probably haven’t bought from you yet and might not even know you exist.

So what are you going to do with this lookalike audience? Put on the mantle to look at? Not hardly. You’re going to market the heck out of this new list because, since they share characteristics with people who have already bought from you, there’s a good chance at least some of them will respond favorably to marketing by buying your product or service.

Launch a Simultaneous Campaign

This next idea gets into the real nitty gritty of creating a two-pronged Facebook and email marketing approach that takes advantage of how people interact with each medium to gain maximum exposure for your next campaign. Most people check their email first thing in the morning. Use a drip email campaign that starts several days or even a week before the big sale starts. On launch day, that last drip email arrives promoting some sort spectacular deal you’re offering. For the rest of the day, take advantage of humanity’s tendency to frequently check their social media feed with follow-up reminders posted to Facebook several times. This is a synergistic way to use old (email) and new (Facebook) social media together for a bigger bang.

Use Facebook as a Funnel

An old sales adage tells us that it takes multiple exposures to a sales message to turn a potential customer into an actual customer. Trying to do this with Facebook alone is a hit or miss proposition because Mark Zuckerberg and his minions control the game. Even if you buy advertising through Facebook, there’s no guarantee your ad will show up in any particular person’s feed, which makes it hard to complete that whole ‘multiple exposure’ idea. What you need to do is post content to the social media giant that encourages people to click a link leading to your website. Once there, your primary goal is to get them to give you their email address. A common tactic is to give away some free digital information. This is how you build that all important email last that YOU control and can market to at your leisure.

The Bottom Line

The big idea here is to stop thinking of email and social media as cats and dogs that can’t get along without a big fight. Instead, concoct strategies to take advantage of the inherent power of each so you end up with marketing campaigns exponentially more robust than using either alone.

Much has been made of the drive towards automation in business. While these innovations come as no surprise to developers and IT professionals, it has taken quite some time for the concept of true automation to find its way into the casual workplace.

The key to understanding the field of marketing automation is to define the basic terms first. Marketing is one of the most misunderstood terms in all of business. At its core, the process of marketing is putting a product in front of people who are the most likely to buy it. This is why detergent is sold during soap operas and trucks are sold during football games.

Automation, on the other hand, is at least ostensibly a term most people claim to understand. Having a machine do the heavy lifting without human involvement is the key method by which human labor can be multiplied. The most obvious example is the construction industry where machines literally do the heavy lifting. It would take a long time to build a 40-story building if the workers had to rely on shovels and wheelbarrows. Either that or it would take ten times as many workers.

So how can marketing and automation be combined?

Automated Communications

The most obvious and practical channel for a customer pitch that can be automated is e-mail. There is no more effective marketing method at the moment, so having a mailing list and regularly communicating with its audience is often at the top of most businesses' priority lists. Most companies retain an email marketing agency for this purpose.

Delivery of a mailing list can be automated, and so can responses to questions from customers. What appears in a mailing list varies from time to time, but with sufficient lead time even that material can be prepared ahead of time and rotated into a regular publication schedule at need.

Segmented Targeting

The complete record of a company's customer list usually comprises interest in numerous product types and marketing programs. When that list can be broken down into smaller lists based on category, it produces "segmentation." Through the use of testing and response rates, even segmentation can be automated.

Email marketing is becoming a larger and larger business as these solutions become more resilient and less expensive. But even if segmentation works, how can a business know they are putting their product in front of an audience most likely to buy it?

Testing

Computers love to do two things: count and make lists. Fortunately for the marketing business, those are the two things that need to be done the most often. One of the key methods for determining if customers want to see a message and then want to buy the product being offered is to test two different pitches for the same product or pitch two different products to the same audience.

The one that performs best becomes the new baseline and then another comparison can be made. Computers can perform these operations on their own if they are set up properly. Ultimately they can be designed to present the top-selling product using its top-selling pitch. Every successful e-commerce company is built on this principle.

But even if you are able to determine the best pitch and you can communicate that information to your audience, how do you know what product to sell in the first place?

Data Mining

Once a marketplace has been measured for a long enough period of time, the "noise" in the data will start to dissipate and leave behind the true measure of what product sells, how fast it sells and what message made it sell. That information is golden to any future product designer or marketing business because they don't have to spend the time or the money guessing what will work. It's right in front of them. In fact, the top-selling product probably has a little flag next to it identifying it as such. Search engines have already automated this process.

Knowing the Competition

With this information, a marketing company can determine with specificity what sells and at what price. A computer can do so in a fraction of a second and further, can do so on a regular basis. The moment one product falls out of favor and a new product takes its place, an automated solution can measure and store all the necessary data and apply it to its own algorithms.

This level of automation will produce a mathematically proven model that can not only be communicated to customers, but tested relentlessly until it is fully optimized. Granted, this level of sophistication is rare, even among the best marketing programs, but at the same time the reward for getting it right is virtually unlimited profits.

Automation is poised to become more and more popular, and promises to put incredible power in the hands of even the smallest business. The results will be the same as all successful markets: higher quality and lower prices.

A business needs to study a range of performance indicators to stay healthy. Consolidation reports are growing in popularity since they help businesses operate more efficiently.

The Right Time to Consolidate for a Business

There's always a turning point for a businesses to purge their current financial practices in order to move forward. This is especially the case when a parent business has several subsidiaries. So the right time to consolidate is when:

• The business wants to study their performance from a streamlined report.

• It wants to convince stakeholders of its investment potential.

• There's a need to fine tune a budgeting strategy.

• The business is launching a new acquisition strategy.

• The business is preparing for an external audit or IPO.

Financial Close

Financial close is defined as the time when all project and financing contracts have been signed and all of their stated requirements have been accomplished. Funds can be released to launch a project once this happens. The biggest challenge facing corporate reporting organizations is handling rapidly changing reporting requirements and meeting the demand to deliver this information in a faster turnaround time! Consolidation narrows the time and cost gap of financial close and reporting cycles.

Benefits of Consolidation

The main goal of any business is to see how certain decisions will impact its overall function. When a business decides to consolidate, they can experience many benefits in the short and long term. For example, a parent business may notice that one of its subsidiary company's needs to improve its sales performance. A consolidation report will either influence the parent business to improve its subsidiary's operations or terminate their relationship. Other benefits of consolidation include:

• Real-time data of business gains, losses,and present and future spending in a simplified manner.

• Clear presentation of top-level activity and bottom line encourages potential for investors and stockholders to invest in a business.

• Valuable insights to improve lagging performance rates.

• More time spent for strategic planning.

• Consolidation helps operation managers interpret reports faster.

Reading a stack of reports is time-consuming and wastes resources. It's also makes assessing the level of financial success more difficult among various subsidiaries. Arranging business reports that places a focus on key elements minimizes confusion and engages the reader.

Readers know exactly what to look for and can keep track of data when white space, color coding, bullets, charts, and graphs are used. Charts and graphs are very helpful at tying together time periods, percentages, as well as like or opposite values.

Hurdles of Consolidation

Consolidating financial functions requires more than just tallying up figures. It can become more complex when a business expands globally or when it has to compile information from several ERP or GL systems. Financial reports that reflect converted currency transactions is another big hurdle to clear. A business can easily become overwhelmed analyzing operations in multiple regions, multiple countries, and multiple departments. There are a range of issues that might need to be addressed such as:

• Minority ownership

• Uncontrolled interest

• Multi-GAAP reporting

• Intercompany reconciliations

• Internal management reporting

• External board reporting

• Regulatory filings and reporting

Financial Consolidation Reporting Using Cloud Software

A number of businesses have benefited from automation and control cloud applications. Three key things can be accomplished using cloud software applications

• It manages and streamlines the complex process of financial close, financial consolidation, and financial reporting.

• It creates minimal effort and less paperwork when assessing a parent company’s financial health.

• It removes transactions made between subsidiaries and the parent company to give a more concise insight of business performance.

Successful organizations are highly dependent on timely and accurate reporting to its stakeholders and regulatory agencies. They must always consider how their financial health will be impacted by the delivery of financial, non-financial and regulatory information on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Consolidation is a useful reference tool that enhances communication. Readers of consolidated reports can translate key data faster and thus be more accountable when executing future budget plans and explaining their results.

There is a multitude of different types of classifications that can be used whenever a person wants to set up a business. But the main difference between them is the varying degree of liability that they each have. Some will defer any legal action or debt onto the main owner or shareholder. Others act as separate “beings” that can hold assets in their name without any fallback to another person.

The main reason that so many types of businesses are available is that it gives business owners flexibility to modify and create different structures that best fit their needs. Sometimes, this means separating everything out into different holding companies though. That way, if any problems arise with the main entity, most of the assets will not be affected because they are owned by a separate entity.

But while this creative business planning works very effectively, it also creates a unique set of challenges regarding how to manage all the entities. So to help, the following is a list of five tips to try out:

Multiple-Entity Cash-flow Sheets

Multiple-entity companies have the ability to transfer funds between each other through the use of loans. This is advantageous because if the funds in one of them get tight, they can simply borrow some from a more profitable entity. However, handling all of the transactions can be very confusing. So each entity should have its own separate cash-flow statement and another one that is tied together with all of the other entities. This will act as a checks and balances system to make sure that all of the transactions are accurately recorded.

Connective Accounting Software

By law, each entity must have its own separate set of books. This prevents fraud and the avoidance of paying taxes. But when a company has several sets of books to maintain, this complicates the process because most types of accounting software doesn't connect the various entities together. To solve this problem, it is best to invest in financial consolidation software.

Multiple Account Monitors

Most of the entities that a business sets up act as holding companies. That means, their main job is to hold on to a key set of assets. One might be used for all the buildings. And another one could hold all the vehicles. Then, the main company simply rents out the assets from the holding company. To keep everything straight, it is crucial that more than one set of eyes reviews everything regularly. So many companies assign some of the entities to different accountants that they employ. Still, they must collaborate on all their work regularly.

Regular Review Points

A multiple-entity business should perform regular self-audits to check over all their transactions. The timing of the audits should be based on a period that falls before the closing date though. For example, most businesses close their books on the last day of the month. So they may want to set up an audit of the entire month's transactions a day or two before this. The period prior to the closing date can't be too far in advance because some of the transactions will be left out of the review. And if there are any problems with them, they can't be changed after the closing date.

Minimization of Transactions

Whenever possible, a business should avoid overusing their holding companies. This will reduce the amount of paperwork that they each have. It can also prevent the likeliness of an audit from the tax department because a holding company isn't supposed to be very profitable. If there are too many loans and payments going through it, it will appear to have a higher cash-flow than what is supposed to be reported.

In conclusion, a multiple-entity business is a unique way to protect assets and reduce liability. But it also increases the workload of the accounting staff that has to monitor all of the transactions between the entities. So it is helpful to use special software and cash-flow statements to monitor them all as separate entities while still being able to see how they tie together as a whole. Whenever possible, the transactions of holding companies should be limited too. And lastly, don't forget to do regular reviews of all the accounting work to make sure that it stays accurate.

The current business world focuses mostly on making profits. Indeed, a survey shows that any running business without average profit can strive not for long. Knowing that profit is one of the fundamental factors in any business, here are two questions for you: how can you tell your business is generating profit or achieving its set target? What is revenue recognition? Well, revenue is one of the scales used to measure whether you have achieved your business goal or not. Revenue mainly energies the accomplishment of most businesses, as it is a means of creating profits and increasing fairness. For this purpose, managing proper revenue recognition is paramount.

Revenue recognition in various cases can be simple. Consider a producer that vends a non-warranty merchandise to a client. In this case, revenue recognition process ends when all four of the common revenue recognition measures are in place. For example, the value determined, the assemblage is apparent, there is convincing proof of an arrangement, and delivery has happened.

However, revenue recognition can get complicated once the above principles do not apply; which, is usually due to the kind of business that enterprises operate. For example, some of the more complicated businesses include technology, real estate, media and entertainment, construction and healthcare.

Here are several tips to consider to recognize your revenue better.

Tip 1: Apply and follow the matching policies and recognition rules.

Matching policies and recognition rules are a fundamental tip to set as your starting point. Frequently, many businesses will either spend money on manufacturing goods before selling or get paid for goods not yet delivered. This might create a problem in the absence of matching principles and recognition rules as the income statement will be affected. To avoid this error, you are advised to follow matching policies and recognition rules set for your business. By tying earnings and expenditures to the end of transactions and other cash producing errands, the income statement will summarize all that took place during the accounting process.

Also, the matching principle, together with revenue recognition, purposes to collect revenues and expenditures in the precise accounting retro. It permits an enhanced calculation of the income statement, which displays the revenues and expenses for an accounting epoch or how much was consumed to receive the period's revenue.

Tip 2: Check the shipping terms

Shipping terms come in when the customer ask for delivery of goods; but possession of merchandise delivered is not instant. In this case, two shipping term usually applies: "FOB Destination" and "FOB Shipping Point." In FOB destination the revenue is earned when the goods reach the customer while in FOB shipping point the revenue is made when the producer releases the goods to the client.

Tip 3: Follow-up

Schnurr one day stated that inspection teams should question whether there are different opinions on the business on how to devise the average revenue recognition, and if so, how an organization and the accountant decided that the firm's approach was suitable. You should follow up and ask your business team management for answers in case of any changes in revenue earned. You should ask the management whether they have different views on how to standardize revenue earned in your company. They should apply appropriate measures that will lead to a proper revenue recognition method that is friendly to your business.

Tip 4: final challenge results

Challenging doubtful results is very crucial as it can reveal many hidden mistakes in an income statement. Schnurr suggested that assessment committees question accountants on conclusions that do not seem to redirect the core business of the firm. Consequently, the accountants should be able to account for all revenue recorded in the income statement sheet. Challenging final results will lead to official revenue recognition of your business.

Tip 5: board information calculation

If a business cannot practically evaluate the sum of impending returns and has enormously high rates of returns on trades, they should recognize revenues only when the right of return terminates. Those businesses that can evaluate some impending returns and have a moderately small return frequency can recognize revenues at the point of sale but must subtract projected future returns.

Tip 6: Assess resources

You should be able to assess and evaluate resources that incurred in the production of goods and delivery of goods. Schnurr advised assessment teams to contemplate whether sufficient resources are devoted to scrutinizing the effect of the new average revenue because the significant change could alter income statement.

Build A Quality List

Once you begin collecting emails from potential customers and people who are interested in your products or services, you can't just rely on sending them sporadic emails whenever the mood strikes. Maintaining a quality email list includes making sure that the email addresses are current and that you are following CAN SPAM laws. Often, email addresses become obsolete in a short period of time or people give you fake addresses so that they'll stay off of your list. Apache Kafka has real-time data processing that can help with large sets of data. Make sure that you are following up on any spam complaints and work on keeping your email list healthy.

Mobile Responsive Emails

With the explosive use of smartphones and tablets, you must make sure that your emails will correctly open on mobile browsers. When people using mobile devices have a problem reading your emails, they will simply tap the delete icon and make your email disappear. It's surprising, but statistics indicate that 89 percent of individuals who use email marketing lose leads by not having their emails optimized for mobile browsers. Don't become one of those statistics.

Re-engage Old Subscribers

It's always a good idea to see how many subscribers are actually active readers of your emails. Research indicates that 63 percent of subscribers to lists are inactive and unlikely to read the follow-up emails that you send. When this occurs, the best way to handle the situation is to employ a re-engagement campaign. Experiment with a catchy title and see if you can grab the attention of people who subscribe to your list but never read your emails.

It's Worth It

Social media marketing has emerged as a hot new area that businesses should definitely pursue. However, when it comes to email marketing, engaging with a list is twice as effective as engaging with customers on Facebook or Twitter. An 18 month study was conducted by SocialTwist that showed how important email marketing is to someone who wants to sell more products or services.

Offer Valuable Incentives To Sign Up

People love getting free stuff. However, this does not mean that you should offer a potential subscriber a free incentive that has no real value in exchange for their email address. You'll find that offering free content that is packed with useful information will actually prime subscribers to purchase your premium products. The philosophy is that if a subscriber sees how valuable your free stuff is, they'll be willing to pull out their pocketbooks to unmask even better content.

Use Automation

If you haven't already, you really should be automating your email marketing by using email drip campaigns. This allows you to create a bundle of emails and have them automatically sent at periodic intervals so that you can take customers through an optimized funnel. This process could include an introduction to your company that's followed by a quick discount on a premium offer that is followed by a call to action for a less expensive product. Automate your email marketing efforts to save time and focus on other marketing strategies.

The Little Things Count

Your emails will be opened on a more consistent basis and more sales will occur if you focus on the smaller, important details. This includes:

- Sending emails when they are more likely to get opened -- do some research with your list

- Use strong headlines that grab a reader's attention

- Give a clear message on what you want a reader to do -- click a link for more information or to buy a product

- Be sure to get straight to the point and relay the message that you want to tell

Continue To Grow

It's inconsequential if you have a list of 1000 people or 250,000 subscribers on your email list. There is always room for more people that can engage with. The internet is an amazing tool that gives us so many advantages as marketers. Grow your list as big as possible so that you can offer the solutions to people who are in need of your products or services.

By following these tips, you'll find that your email marketing campaigns will increase your sales. Always be refining and working on this important segment of your overall marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Helps Build a Strong Audience

Through the use of squeeze pages, landing pages, or even a pad and pencil at a local trade show, you can start amassing a huge audience for your product or brand message by simply capturing email addresses and consistently marketing to your target audience.

Keeping your brand in the forefront of people's minds is key to developing and retaining the interest of your readers. This is why it is so important to keep up the momentum and let your name (or your company's name) become a regular part of your list's email experience.

For even better results, consider responsive email templates that cater to a mobile audience. More than half of all emails today are read on phones or tablets and that number will increase to close to two-thirds within the next year or two.

Email Marketing Helps You Establish Trust

A consistent flow of relevant, high-quality content into your customers' and prospects' inboxes is a sure-fire way to position yourself as friendly, knowledgeable, and – most importantly – trustworthy. You want to develop a sense of not just relatability with your audience, but one that emphasizes your readers' need to pay attention to and follow your lead. That only happens when people trust you.

Email Marketing Positions You As An Authority

On the heels of establishing trust, your next job is to consistently communicate your authority within your niche. People should do business with you because you understand both your business and the customer's need better than anyone else. You establish this by delivering information-rich content that anticipates questions and objections and deals with them before they arise.

If your readers feel like you're already inside their heads, they will look to you as an authority and that kind of reputation positions you well to steer people toward any kind of conversion you wish to facilitate, including making a purchase.

Email Marketing Reinforces Lead Nurturing

While it can take a bit of time and effort, good email marketing practices can help those of your readers who are on the fence make confident buying decisions. The process of getting them through the consideration phase of the Buyer's Journey is called Lead Nurturing and it is a vital element to increasing conversions.

Start by inching the reader toward the purchasing stage by including calls to action to simply click through to an article or video. You can then segment your list to target those who both open the message and respond to the call to action within. If you can get them to do that, you have established trust and positioned yourself as an authority. It is at that stage, where people are apt to start considering making a purchase.

Email Marketing Increases Conversions

The final stage of the Buyer's Journey is where email can prove most effective. Once the reader has gotten into the habit of opening your emails and responding positively to your lesser calls to action, it is time to take the all-important step and ask for the sale.

If you are patient with your readers and have been tracking the segments of your list that are most likely to convert, your attention should now be on making the sale. Don't come across as pushy or desperate; keep the conversation light but keep the focus on the goal: providing a product or service that meets the buyer at his or her point of need.

Final Takeaway

Consistency is key in any successful email marketing initiative. Let your readers know that you are the best source of knowledge and information in your niche. Keep your brand in front of them with a steady stream of targeted content, and they will choose you when the time comes to make a purchase.

If you feel you could use help getting started, seek the assistance of an established email marketing agency or copywriter who understands the ins and outs of successful email campaigns.

Email Campaigns and Dealerships

In today's day and age, nearly everyone has an email account. There is great potential in reaching out to email users, and some industries have an easier time in doing so than others. The automotive industry is one such industry that is ideal for communicating with potential clients through email. Not only is it convenient, but for car dealerships, it is a requirement in order to receive the desired sales volume and fight back against the competition.

Platform Matters

As people go about their busy days, over half check email on their cell phones. It is vital to create emails that are appealing and effective when seen on a computer as well as on a mobile device. Once the email is opened on a phone or tablet, and it is not engaging on the smaller device, a person is highly unlikely to reopen the same email on a computer, where it would be more visually appealing. Before engaging in sending email to customers, be sure to test it on a mobile device or tablet first to ensure its accessibility.

In regards to what type of email to use, try avoiding popular providers such as Gmail. Invest in an email service provider that will be able to gauge how effective the emails are. Such a provider will be able to report the percentage that opened the email, the amount of people who shared it, and what links were clicked on by the consumer within the email. Email data such as this is a powerful tool to wield in building a strong consumer base.

Surprising Statistics

Only 22 percent of dealerships are currently utilizing email campaign management services. For an industry that would find great success in emailing customers, this is a major loss. In regards to gathering the people for the email lists, the majority of people were collected through leads exchanged for money. The least productive way to gain access to email addresses was through advertising campaigns at occasions such as concerts or sporting events.

The most alarming statistic found that 73 percent of car dealerships do not categorize their email lists among buyers. The automobile industry has one of the most recognizable group of buyers. It would not be ideal to email an advertisement of a gas-guzzling truck to someone who advocates for the environmental benefits of a hybrid vehicle.

Online Shopping

When looking to purchase a car, most people will now browse online for their ideal vehicle. It is highly accessible to search multiple dealership websites in order to compare makes, models, colors, and most importantly, prices. Whereas, browsing at a physical dealership location, the choices are more limited. With that fact in mind, it is imperative to assume that the customer has already browsed, gathered a reasonable amount of information, and is aware of the car he or she is willing to buy. Online services are obviously more important to the consumer than sales conversations at dealerships.

Since shopping online has a greater impact on consumers, emailing platforms would be ideal to target the audience. It would be the perfect scenario for an individual who was browsing online for a car to conveniently receive an email advertising great offers on the buyer's specific choice in vehicle.

Staying Ahead

Emailing customers is prominent for advancement in sales. Focusing on the necessitates, of email, consumers will noticeably respond in a positive manner. As the world is moving towards a digital era, it becomes mandatory to keep up with online demand. Email campaigns are not just ideal marketing techniques, they are a requirement for the automobile industry to stay ahead and to rise above the competition.

Crafting a well motivated sales team can be of paramount importance for businesses and organizations seeking to improve sales figures or to optimize the efficiency of their operation. From improving internal communication to providing all sales personnel with the tools and resources they need in order to get the job done, effective leadership can make a critical difference in improving overall performance. The following five secrets can all make a measurable difference in the effort to better motivate and fully actualize a sales force.

One: Enhanced Communication

Poor and ineffective communication can do far more than impede efficiency, it may actually blunt motivation and rob professionals of the edge they need in order to capitalize on future opportunities. Enhancing and streamlining internal communication ensures that a salesforce will be better able to utilize available resources, address and resolve potential issues and contribute to larger tasks and projects. Allowing ineffective communication to sap morale or impede efficiency is a common problem that may end up costing many business owners, department heads and team leaders far more than they might imagine.

Two: Removing Obstacles Quickly and Efficiently

Situations that are unable to be resolved in an efficient manner can easily result in high levels of frustration and wasted effort. Whether you are a developer designing and deploying kafka on aws or a sales manager at a small used car lot, efficiency is crucial to your success.  Devising and implementing policies and operational processes that will ensure potential bottlenecks and professional obstacles can be more quickly identified, readily addressed and successfully resolved helps to ensure that employees are able to spend their efforts in a more efficient and productive manner. Getting stuck on the same problem over and over or being unable to resolve an issue that may be chronic and ongoing can quickly lower morale and drain motivation.

Three: Providing Incentives

While there is no real substitute for hiring ambitious and self-motivated professionals, providing incentives or implementing a rewards program can help even the most dedicated sales team to reach their full potential. While the chance to compete for prizes or earn rewards can result in a noticeable difference in performance, just having the chance to be recognized for their efforts, hard work and past success can spur many employees to go the extra mile. Ensuring that a salesforce is able to be properly recognized, commended or rewarded for their efforts is a proven way to ensure sales professionals are able to stay focused and well motivated.

Four: Utilizing the Right Tools and Resources

Motivation can be difficult to sustain, especially in situations where fatigue may become an issue. Access to the right tools, services and solutions can provide workers with the means to streamline their working process and optimize the effectiveness of their efforts. From automated phone dialers to external logistical support services, finding ways to lighten the workload a little is a great way for leaders to improve the motivation and efficiency of their team. Sales professionals who may be wasting their efforts on minor tasks and support work are rarely able to direct their full efforts, focus and concentration on the situations and opportunities that will make the most difference.

Five: Creating and Maintaining a Superior Working Environment

The social landscape and atmosphere of the workplace is an important concern, one which often goes overlooked in the quest to improve worker motivation. A working environment that is more lively and engaging can be a powerful motivational tool, one that may be used to inspire workers to greater success. Expecting a sales team to do their best while depriving them of an environment that may afford greater stimulation or more rewarding social and professional interactions is an approach that is rarely effective. Employers and team leaders who are struggling to find new ways to motivate their staff and associates would do well to consider the type of environment and atmosphere they are providing.