Sales and Marketing covers the practical side of winning and keeping customers — finding people worth talking to, handling the objections that come back, closing without pressure, and the marketing work that makes all of it easier: knowing your market, your competitors, and what makes you different. Written for small business owners, salespeople and anyone who has just been handed a sales team.
Selling, Step by Step
The sales cycle in order — how to find someone worth calling, earn the meeting, handle what comes back at you, and finish. Start with the overview if you are new to it.
The Seven Steps of a Sale
The whole cycle in one place, from preparation and questioning through closing and after-sales follow-up.
How to Find Sales Prospects and Cold Call Them
Building a target list worth calling, opening the call, and the calling rules that apply in the United States.
SPIN Selling Explained
Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-Payoff questions — a structured way to uncover what a customer actually needs.
How to Give a Sales Presentation
Researching the prospect, reading buying signals, finding the real decision maker, and presenting well remotely.
How to Overcome Sales Objections
The five objections you will hear most, what to ask instead of pushing back, and when the answer really is no.
How to Close a Sale
Why closing starts at the beginning, how to test where you stand mid-conversation, and how to finish cleanly.
Knowing Your Market
Before any of the selling works, you need to know who you are selling to, who else is selling to them, and why anyone should pick you.
How to Define Your Target Market
Identifying the customers your product actually fits, and choosing the channels that reach them.
How to Do a Competitive Analysis
Sizing up competitors on price, product, placement, presence and customer base — without losing focus on your own business.
Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
A repeatable four-step exercise for finding the one thing you offer that your competitors genuinely do not.
How to Build a Brand
What a brand is beyond a logo, how positioning and advertising reinforce it, and how to keep it consistent.
Product, Pricing and Your Sales Team
The decisions behind the sale — what you are selling, what you charge for it, and who does the selling.
How to Develop a New Product
Testing whether a real need exists, working out the return on investment, and running a staged launch.
Pricing Strategy: Penetration vs Premium
Entering low to win share versus pricing high to signal quality — when each works, and the risks of both.
How to Hire Salespeople
The signals that actually predict a good salesperson, how to test for them, and the questions to avoid asking.
How to Manage and Motivate a Sales Team
Setting expectations both ways when you take over a team, and using incentives without distorting behavior.
Customers, Service and Training
Selling is the start of the relationship, not the end of it. These sit in the Small Business section alongside the rest of the customer-service guides.
Customer Service on the Phone and in Person
Handling the first contact well — greeting someone face to face, and taking an inbound call properly.
How to Handle an Angry Customer
A four-step sequence for complaints, what to say and avoid, and how to handle anger in writing and online.
How to Train Employees
Running a training session that works — in a classroom, one on one, or remotely — and building a course from scratch.
Latest Sales & Marketing Articles
- How Fast Food Chains Master Marketing: A Case StudyFew industries make marketing strategy this easy to watch in action. A fast-food chain applies the same handful of principles … Read more
- How to Manage and Motivate a Sales TeamSetting written expectations in your first two weeks, building a vision the team helped write, and running incentives that reward durable revenue instead of short-term volume.
- How to Develop a New ProductCustomer discovery, market and competitor checks, honest cost and break-even math, a staged rollout, and the post-launch follow-up that tells you whether it worked.
- Pricing Strategy: Penetration vs Premium PricingOnce your costs set the floor, where do you stand above it? The market-entry choice between entering low to win share and pricing high to signal quality, and the real risks of each.
- How to Build a BrandA brand is the expectation a customer has before they deal with you — how to choose one promise your market cares about, make it visible everywhere, and then keep it.
- How to Do a Competitive AnalysisA five-part framework — price, product, placement, presence, customer base — for working out where you stand against competitors, and where to find the research for free.
More sales and marketing articles →
Related Sections
Small Business
Running a business day to day — structure, taxes, bookkeeping, pricing, hiring and customer service.
Jobs & Career
Getting hired, interviewing, workplace skills and the money decisions that come with a job.
Entrepreneurship Lessons
Classroom lesson plans and worksheets on marketing, selling and running a business, for teachers.
These guides are educational and general. Rules on telemarketing, advertising and hiring change and vary by state, so check the current requirements that apply to your own business before acting on anything here.