Enough Credit Crunch Already!!!!

BEAT THE CREDIT CRUNCH - ORDER YOUR SUMMER BBQ NOW!
AVOID THE CREDIT CRUNCH - FLY TO SPAIN!
EASE YOUR CREDIT CRUNCH WOES - EAT SOME MARMITE!

It's getting ridiculous. Come on people, we know times are tough, but focussing on people's insecurities to make them buy stuff just feels sneaky and underhanded.

And why is it that my supermarket is littered with hundreds of "buy one, get one free" offers but almost nothing for half price. I don't need a second bottle of Head and Shoulders. For my slap headed noggin, one bottle will last well into the next time something cheery happens in Eastenders, and that's a bloody long time.

Then there's your budget supermarkets. Can you believe that there are still some people who believe that there is a greater stigma attached to shopping at Lidl than there is to being skint? I don't shop at Lidl, but it's only because they only ever seem to have one cashier serving 57 people, which means that most of my food will have hit its sell by date long before I get home.

So how does all of this relate to promotional merchandise? (Meena, you can stop reading now - yes it's true, my colleague will only read up to the point where I start talking about work and then she switches off. Be fair though, she is very small).

The problem is that more and more of our customers are becoming price sensitive. Creativity, loyalty and good service seem to have all taken a back seat to low low prices. It's understandable, but surely the smart companies out there need and want a little more from their providers.

I don't want to become the Lidl of the merchandising world. When it comes to service, you really do get what you pay for. Sure, there is no merchandise I can get you that other companies can't, but some of them will give you a catalogue and ask you to pick what you like. That hardly seems fair - they want you to do half the work but are they going to give you half their salary?

When this credit crunch ends and we all look back and laugh, the companies that invested wisely in their people will be the ones that are still around. They won't be scratching their heads wondering where the hell all the money went.

So here is a little test for you. Say this sentence to yourself. "People will always need....." and insert what it is you do at the end. Is it true? For the initiated amongst you, the answer should be a resounding yes. So now say this one - "People will always need MY........" same reaction? If not, you're not thinking about yourself in a positive light, and I'd be prepared to bet a week's worth of Lidl groceries (£2.65) that you're not marketing yourself properly either.

So put that catalogue down and stop looking for the cheapest item you can get with the lowest minimum order quantity. I'll save you some time. The lowest minimum order quantity is none - if you don't want them, don't buy them. Guess what the cheapest price is...that's right - zero, and for all the same reasons. If you want some really great idea to help you market yourselves in times of trouble then just pick up the phone or drop me a line. I'm here to give you a Harrods quality service at an Aldi price.

You see, you don't need to just survive the credit crunch, you need to make your business grow and thrive. But then, wasn't that always the case anyway?

The C Word

I was told last week that my blogs are getting a little bit lengthy. What I find amazing is that they take less than four minutes to read. Now if you genuinely don't have a spare four minutes in your working week to be gently entertained and educated, you really need to hire some more people. Screw the credit crunch - if you're too busy to enjoy yourself then that's just plain wrong.

This week I want to talk about the C word. A dirty word that's being used in more and more offices around the world. A word that makes most people wince and some others angry. A word that has been inflicted upon us in times of strife. A word so evil in it's inception that to utter it is surely to open the gates of hell itself (mwa ha ha ha ha evil laugh....)

The word is.....CONSULTANT.

You know the sort, the well suited, big smiled, slick haired bloke who spends weeks in your office interviewing all the staff to try and work out where your business is going wrong, charges you a ridiculous fee and then proceeds to tell you all the stuff that you already know.

One of my clients recently had a report from a consultant advising them that if they got their products to market faster, that they could sell them sooner and then make more money quickly - GENIUS! My son is 7 months old and even he could have put that report together - obviously I would have had to have typed it up for him, his hands are too small to do any serious keyboard work, but you get the idea.

More and more people are changing their title to consultant. Recruitment Consultants, Travel Consultants, pretty soon it won't be long before we're all being served by Burger Consultants, charging us a fee for recommending the use of fries and a milkshake.

It's all out of control and what is worse, we're missing the obvious trick. We are, in fact, ALL consultants. If someone comes to you with a question or a problem, then they are consulting with you. Surely there are still some people in the world who are happy to dispense their advice for free?

My business card has me down as an Account Manager. I prefer to think of myself as a marketing consultant, but that title brings up some negative feeling. I know that I have created campaigns and slogans that certain marketing consultants will have charged tens of thousands of pounds for, and I did it all for free. Why? Because good advice yields its own rewards. Those clients did buy merchandise from me and a great relationship was formed - everybody won and I was happy to provide a consultation to my clients.

This is the thing I cannot get my head around. Week on week my company offers free marketing consultations to companies around the world, and yet many of them are simply not interested. Did I mention it was free? We're talking about a company who advise the number one Superbrand in the world and we're offering you the same level of advice for free and you don't want it?

By all means, call up some marketing consultant firm with a swanky website and ask them to come in. If you're lucky, maybe they won't charge you ten grand to tell you that the best way to make more money is to sell more stuff.

My name is Paul, and I am a consultant. It's not always a dirty word.

What Price Confidence?

Have you ever spent your time looking at just how many blogs there are out there? It seems that every gun carrying, pinball playing, mac loving, tv hating, cake eating, hair losing, merchandise printing nutter can put his opinion on the web and share it with the world. With this in mind, I'd like to thank you for taking the few precious minutes out of your day to enjoy the random musings of the safari park that is my brain.

So to the title of this week's blog - what price confidence? Well if you're clever, you can actually set that price at around 25p. Now of course 25p won't get you that much confidence - perhaps enough to offer to buy someone a drink but you're still going home alone. Spend a little more and you too could go from dud to stud, or in the case of the ladies - drag to.....well you get the idea.

At this point you clearly must be wondering what I have taken this morning. Well, they do say Omega 3 capsules are good for the brain, but I don't think they class as mind altering drugs.

No, I'm talking about merchandise (surprise surprise). Now those of you who know me will know that I don't believe in using gifts to close sales. Many companies like to give their sales people gifts to take out to meetings - a little trinket to leave behind to thank the prospect for their time. Sadly, there are some companies who don't use these gifts wisely - they treat them almost as if they were some sort of bribe and it's just so unnecessary.

If you have a sales person on your team who believes that the difference between closing a sale and not is whether or not he leaves a nice mug behind then there's more than one mug at that meeting. (See what I did there - I mean, that's actually quite clever isn't it? Do you know I'm making this stuff up as I am going along? Seriously, this blogging is a laugh - you should try it. I'll read yours too and then we can each think of ourselves as writers with an audience and celebrate over champagne and cucumber sandwiches - lovely).

This week I met with a company who told me that the sales in one office increased by 13% once their staff had gifts to leave with customers. The key here is that the gift, in and of itself, is not actually important here. What is important is that the sales people did have something that they could leave behind.

Sales are a tricky business. In many cases the days can be quite soul destroying - rejection after rejection. Your heart really does have to go out to those poor people sitting in a call centre in Bangladesh phoning to offer you a cheaper phone service. Actually, no it doesn't, I'm in the middle of my bloody dinner! And another thing - if you are genuinely from BT and offering me a cheaper service and I don't have to pay anything, why don't you just switch me on to that? Surely noone would actually say no to that would they? AHA!!! So you're not actually from BT after all are you then, and don't go telling me that your name is Mandy when it's perfectly clear that your name has probably got more syllables in it than that station in Wales.

Right, sorry. Sales. So how do we get that bit of confidence I was talking about? Well put yourself in the shoes of the sales person (size 9 if you're interested). You're going to visit 5 potential clients today. Some of them will say yes, some of them will say no and some of them will tell you that they want time to think about it. Now of all of those responses, you've only a 1 in 3 chance of leaving with a truly positive result. Now let that roll around in your head just before you start the meeting and think what your body language might be like.....exactly, your confidence may well be a little low.

Now picture this. Regardless of the outcome, you know that you're going to be leaving a really nice gift behind when you leave. You have a very very strong chance of leaving a good impression behind because you will be giving that prospect a warm and fuzzy feeling and that's the last thing he remembers. How's your body language now? See? You know you're leaving on a positive note and your confidence increases as a result.

If you're not sure, try this simple exercise. Think about something that you want from a colleague - a favour - and go and ask them knowing full well that they will say no to you. Look at how you approach them. Now, then think of a fairly unreasonable request and go and make it knowing full well that the person will say yes. It's just a bit of fun but you'll be amazed at the results.

I hope you can see now why it is a good idea for your sales force to be armed with some gifts to leave behind. You're not bribing customers, you're investing in your staff, and surely that's worth at least 25p.

Do you want fries with that?

The selling of extras - we've all been there and, in many cases, we've been happy to hand over our money. Some extras make good sense - let's face it, a Big Mac without fries is like a night without stars. The reason we don't get wound up by being asked is that we expect it, but more and more, we are getting offered (and by offered I mean sold) things that we didn't come in for. Allow me to elaborate.

My wife went into the Post Office last week to sort out her car tax. It's not a complicated procedure - hand over documents, hand over money, receive tax disc, cheery smile, exit. The whole thing should take about three minutes, not allowing for the one hour queue that preceded it, accompanied by that lovely woman exclaiming "cashier number one please". There is only one cashier - sure you've got six counters there, but they're usually always closed - AAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!

So, back to the car tax. We've given over the documents and money and so all we need now is the disc and we can go right? WRONG! "Mrs Rose," begins our postal operative, "can I ask who your home contents insurance is with?" Are you thinking what I'm thinking? "NO! NO YOU BLOODY CANNOT ASK ME WHO MY HOME CONTENTS INSURANCE IS WITH. I CAME IN FOR A TAX DISC, I'VE BEEN STOOD IN THAT QUEUE FOR A WHOLE HOUR AND ALL I WANT TO DO IS GET THE HELL OUT. GIVE ME MY DISC AND I MEAN NOW!!!!!!!!"

Being the much calmer member of my family, my wife just offered them a reserved "No thank you" and went on about her day.

And I bet there are those amongst you who are sick to the back teeth of being offered mortgage reviews, financial reviews and personal banking services every time you go in just to pay a cheque. I know my bank offers mortgages, ALL banks do mortgages, but I already got mine sorted. Don't offer me an appointment with a personal banking manager - I've been with your bank for twenty years and I have never once taken you up on the offer, and given that I have not taken a sharp blow to my skull in the last week, I am not about to start seeing him now.

Is there anything that you can't buy from Tesco these days? Food, clothes, a telephone service, broadband, home insurance, a pension, a mortgage. Any day now Madonna won't have to nip over to Africa to pick up a baby - they'll be on aisle 16 next to the pet food.

With more and more companies offering more and more services, the market has become over crowded. I want to do my banking at a bank - not at a supermarket. I want to get my insurance from a reputable insurance company - not the post office. What we are losing sight of are specialists, because despite all of these wonderful services being offered by everyone, most people still prefer to deal with an expert.

Here at Merchandise Mania, we've often struggled to explain to people that when it comes to branding, we really can do anything that they want. The trap we fall into is being thought of as a Jack of all trades, and yet a master of none, and this simply is not the case.

So how do we overcome this obvious obstacle? It's actually very simple. Even though we have access to over a million products worldwide, we choose to align ourselves with specialists. There are hundreds of people that we can go to for, say, a USB memory stick, but we choose to stick with the people that we know and, more importantly, trust. We do "audition" new factories on a regular basis - if someone is offering a cheaper product of the same quality, we'd be foolish not to look into it so that we can pass the savings on to you. However, if we get some random email from a factory offering to do a little bit of everything, we just don't even bother reading it.

Now of course we're going to offer you extras - the nice pen to go with the pad, the lanyard to go with the USB stick, and so on, but it's only because experience tells us that many people want to have their hands held - to be shown what else is available and to make an informed decision. Of course, if you don't feel you need them, that's absolutely fine - we don't believe in pressure here and we really hate to be thought of as "sales people" with the negative feelings that seem to be associated with the term. We are advisors, and we'd like to think that you trust our advice - it's free, so please do help yourself.

For this week's competition you will need a cheque (cash will also work), a bank account and a stop watch. Go in to pay in some money into your account and see how quickly you can get out. Send in your times and the best one will win a 1Gb USB memory stick.

Now we're into October we're really starting to think about Christmas. If you did do something for Christmas last year then tell us about it now. If the decision has not been made as to whether you are to do something this year then that is something that you need to look at sooner rather than later. We've got a great array of gift ideas ready and waiting for you, and we promise we won't try and sell you any home contents insurance, telephone services or African babies.