No matter what it is that you offer, no matter how good it is, no matter how affordable it may be, if you keep it to yourself, you’ll never sell anything! Yet, so many businesses miss this rather simple concept and end up going out of business even before they can get started!

You know the people I am talking about because you see them in every town. They spend all kinds of money to open their business. The business opens, but for some reason you never see a single ad, or hear a single commercial, or even get a simple flyer from them in the newspaper. You know what happens next, right? They close without even a whimper.

But there’s one more thing to keep in mind. If you advertise to make a sale, you’re probably not going to be as successful as if you advertised to get a lead. Let me explain.

Advertising works best, fastest, and is most effective when your outcome is only to get a person to respond. I typically use items such as free reports, or a free trial, or even free coaching sessions in my advertising to get people to respond.

This is the only way to make your advertising dollars really work for you and it’s why I created the Unlimited Leads Program, which you can find on the web at http://www.unlimitedleads.com.

The next thing that will help you increase your sales is accepting many forms of payment. I know from my own experience that most people prefer to pay using a credit card than by any other form of payment. By incorporating credit card acceptance into your business, you will see an average increase in sales of 30% and more!

If you make the mistake of being focused on the very small percentage that it will cost you on each credit card transaction, you’ve totally missed the boat! This is not about counting pennies, it’s about increasing sales!!

The way I see it, it’s a very small price to pay for a 30% increase in sales! And today, most any business can be set up to accept credit cards in as little as 7 to 10 working days, regardless of your personal credit history!

Keep in mind that when you offer credit card acceptance make certain that you put it in every single bit of literature you send out, on every page of your web site, and mention it to every client you speak to!

It never ceases to amaze me how often a client will decide to buy on impulse when they know that they can have your product or service now and pay for it in 30 days! Forget a mere 30% increase in sales, that’s conservative!

I sell more books, seminars, and coachings by credit card than by any other form of payment. Credit cards are great for everybody because not only will they help you increase your sales, but they allow you to collect your cash in about 48 hours!

In business, cash flow is critical, and whenever you can do something to get cash fast, I jump at the opportunity! And so should you!

You can find out about setting up your merchant account on the web at http://www.elitecardservice.com/js0021.htm. These are the people I use and who I recommend to my clients.

The next thing you can do to increase sales is get yourself a toll-free telephone number. In my experience, this one little charm increased my call volume by more than 25%!

Yes, it will cost you a little bit of money because now you are paying for the long distance call, but you can shop around and get a really low price per minute from your long distance carrier. Many carriers will not charge you a monthly fee to have your toll- free number.

Again, make sure that your toll-free number is printed on every piece of literature you send out, on every web page you design, and that every single one of your past clients also know your toll-free number.

So here’s the summary of what you need to do. First you need fresh leads. The leads must get to you in minutes, not days, weeks, or months( yes this does happen in many businesses!)

Your leads will come from your advertising and will represent people who have shown interest in your offer. This interest will not last forever!! Be sure that you follow up on these leads immediately!

As part of the Unlimited Leads Program, I include information on how to make this possible. In fact, using the technology now available on the Internet, there is no reason at all that your leads should have to wait even 1 hour to hear from you!

Remember, the quicker you can respond to a request, the higher the odds that this person will buy from you! The more leads you have coming in, the more sales you will make.

And the easier it is to do business with you, the more sales you will make. So get that merchant account set up now. Accept as many of the major credit cards as you can and make sure you tell everybody about it! Realize that some people will not want to do business over the Internet or through the mail and that they will want to speak to a live person. Give them a toll-free number so that they can speak to you, or a live operator anytime they want to!

Make the sales process as easy and as painless as possible for your clients and they will buy from you. If you don’t offer these simple tools, I guarantee you that you are losing sales every single day that you are in business!

Advertise to let people know who you are and what you offer. If you don’t, you’ll be out of business before you know it. Give them many choices on how to pay. And finally, give them a way to call you, at no cost to them.

Look at this for a moment. If you did not implement all 3 of these items, say you just did the Unlimited Leads Program and found more leads and your business grew, say a modest 30%. That would be awesome!

Then, a little bit later, you decide to accept credit cards and your business now grows another 30%. Great!

Now, you’re really excited and you add a toll-free telephone number to the mix and your business grows another 30%. You’re happy as can be!!

But look at this your business didn’t just grow a mere 30%! No, it grew 30%, then it grew 30% again, then 30% again for a compounded grand total growth of almost 100%!

Are you excited yet? I was when I first found this stuff out and when I did implement these items, my business grew, not 100% (double) but much more than that!

Remember, I am being conservative here, so as not to exaggerate what is possible to accomplish with just a few simple, low cost marketing tools.

So why are you still here reading this? Go get your hands on these tools now!!