Follow this six-step program to keep ahead of the pack.
The idea of 'value-added' is changing. The term has become so overused that it's now of little value to most customers. So-called value-added resellers stay in business by discounting, rather than adding anything significant to their products. In service businesses, value-added usually means a few bells and whistles rather than extraordinary service.

Focus on attracting customers not making sales.
With effusive CEO testimonials and countless articles and books describing how companies have transformed themselves into tightly focused, totally energized commerce machines, it would seem that change should be easy. But let’s face it: If it were simple, there’d be more of it. Even when the evidence for change is compelling, most companies continue to cling to the known and the familiar.

Use these seven principles to stay ahead of the pack in any market.
Most businesses fail to achieve their potential because of faulty thinking — which happens when business executives, owners, and managers don’t like news that runs contrary to the pictures inside their heads.

The growth of the Internet poses a threat to the need for sales people. In this article, John Graham offers six guidelines that sales professionals can use to survive, and thrive, in a Web-based business environment.

To serve your clients more effectively, grow your business, and match your competitors, you need the most effective website. Whether you’re planning a new site, reviewing an existing one, or developing an Internet-based marketing strategy, I’d recommend these guidelines:

Improved communication has turned us into less adroit communicators. With e-mail, voice-mail, and cell phones, getting the message to another party is so easy that we no longer worry about the content of the message. Poor communications skills translate into lost business. This article by John Graham discusses these consequences and offers guidelines for improving communications.

John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and of 203 Ways to Be Supremely Successful in the New World of Selling. He can be contacted at 40 Oval Rd., Quincy, MA 02170, (617) 328-0069, fax (617) 471-1504, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.grahamcomm.com.

'We don't want to be all things to all people,' says one agency manager, 'so we want to identify a niche for Life insurance agents to master. Do you have any suggestions?'

In 1976, 12 insurance executives spent a day trying to pinpoint the reasons for their success. Their large insurance agency had doubled in size over the last three years. The company's employees had worked hard to achieve a high rate of referrals and were aggressive in their roles as producers. But what factors led to their astonishing success? How did they attract a client? And most of all, what made each client buy and renew year after year?

I recently read four news items that relate to how consumers perceive Life insurance:
Insurance companies are “horrible” at getting people to understand what they’re talking about.
Surveys show that insurers are at, or near, the bottom of simplicity ratings.
More than 60% of people who own Life insurance have no idea what they own or how it works; and 29% said that although they need more insurance, no one has asked them about it.
More than one in four (26%) of Americans prefer to buy Life insurance through the internet, mail, or over the phone.