Secrets of Effective Salespeople Are you looking to improve your selling skills? Do you want to know one of the things almost all great salespeople have in common? They are good listeners. Many people think that being good at sales means being a smooth, fast-talking salesperson with rebuttals to everything—the kind that can sell ice to an Eskimo. While it is important to be able to respond to all of your prospect's objections, the sales process is not about coercing your prospect into buying a Web site. Help your prospect make an informed buying decision by listening to their concerns, understanding their business, and showing them how the Web site solution you are offering will address their problems. If you are too busy talking over the prospect, or trying to impress them with your knowledge, you will never hear what they are saying. If you take the time to listen, the prospect will tell you exactly what features and benefits you should focus on if you want to make the sale. What is most important to this business? How does the business make money? Where can they cut costs or increase revenues? How do they see the business changing and evolving over the next few years? How can a Web site help the business owner meet his or her goals? Effective salespeople know how to ask the right questions, and they know how to listen carefully. If you want to be a great salesperson, you will have to become a great listener.   Last-Minute Cancellation Policy A few months ago, we changed our last-minute cancellation policy to reduce the number of tentative, unconfirmed appointments being scheduled in the Sales Calendar. Lately, we've noticed that a majority of the appointments in the calendar have been solid appointments that were properly confirmed, so we have decided to amend our last-minute cancellation policy. Starting today, any appointment cancelled within 4 hours of when the appointment is scheduled to begin will be considered a last-minute cancellation. If you have three last-minute cancellations within a 30-day period, you will be prohibited from using the Sales Calendar for 30 days.   Did you know that last year over 40 million consumers in the U.S. changed their opinions about a company or a specific product brand as a result of information they found online? SOURCE: DIERINGER RESEARCH GROUP   Do you have a good sales or marketing tip? A story we can use to teach other WebCenter licensees? Any questions or problems you'd like to see covered in upcoming newsletters? We value your input, so please take the time to e-mail us at newsletter@mawebcenters.com, and please let us know how we can better meet your needs.

Adding Tables to 3.0 Web sites Table components are one of the most important (yet least understood) tools in creating professional, well-designed Web pages with our site building software. Every single component on our Web sites is placed inside a table to give the page structure and organization. If you open up a page in Edit mode and enable Borders (under the Options link at the top of the page), you will be able to see how tables are used to neatly arrange components as they divide the page into individual sections. If you've done a few walkthroughs with Sales Support, you are probably familiar with adding and modifying table components. If you haven't had the opportunity to use one of our Product Specialists, or if you want a quick review on adding tables before you start doing your own sales presentations, here is a brief walkthrough of the process. Open up a Web page in Edit mode, and click on the area into which you would like to insert the table (you can also click on the Page button in the menu bar). When the Table Menu opens up, select Container under Add Component, and then click on Table. To use an existing table component, click on Copy or Use; to create a new table, assign a name to the component, and then click on the Create New Table button. When the Edit Table page opens up, you will be able to customize the table component by adjusting the size of the table, the width of the borders, the color of the background, cell padding (the area around the contents) and cell spacing (the area around the table). After you have added a table onto your site, you will be able to segment it into smaller areas by adding new cells. Conversely, you can combine cells within the same table to form a larger cell inside of the table component. To add a new cell, click on the editing square in the top left corner of any table, and then select Add Row or Column. The expanded menu will give you the option of adding a row or column above, below, to the left, or to the right of the table. If you would like to remove cells from a table, you can click on Merge Cell to combine the cells into a larger area. Depending on the location of the cells, you will be able to combine the two areas by merging them up, down, left, or right. (Adding or merging cells does not alter the contents of the cells.) Once you have finished modifying the table, click on the "Publish" link to save and apply these changes to the Web page. Before you log out, we recommend that you view the actual Web site to verify that your modifications look the way you intended. If you or your customers have any questions about using table components on a 3.0 Web site, please consult the online help guide at http://help.mawebcenters.com/userGuide, or contact Customer Care at (866) 932-4357.