Minimum order quantities

Good morning everybody - I trust that this day finds you well. I, sadly, have all but completely lost my voice, so I'll be confined to communicating via email, blog, post it note and smoke signal for the rest of the day.

Last night I found myself enjoying a telephone rant with an associate and as he is a follower of this blog, he suggested that it would make a suitable topic for today's posting, so a big shout out to KM in Hertfordshire - you know who you are. More importantly, I know what you did - and you should be ashamed of yourself.

We found ourselves talking about small orders. Now this is a touchy subject because any sensible business person will tell you that there really is no such thing as a small order. Oh sure, the initial value may seem low, but that person could become your next biggest customer. Good sense usually plays its part though. If Microsoft call you up because they want 12 football shirts for their company team, then you'll probably run around like a headless chicken to make it happen.

Similarly, if the local comprehensive call you up with the same request, you may well politely have to turn them down.

The important thing is that you need to put a value on your time, and the time of your suppliers too. Minimum order quantities exist for a good reason. In the world of print, it takes time, money and manpower to set up print plates and start up massive machines to process orders. Simply printing, say, 50 plastic pens is just not cost effective for anyone involved in the process. The simple rule of thumb is that the cheaper the item, the higher the minimum order quantity.

Pens actually provide a good example there. If you're looking for a budget pen around the 30p mark, then you're likely to find minimums of 1000, or 500 if you're lucky. Conversely, if you only need 50 pens for an event, then the price point is likely to be closer to the £6 mark.

Now there are some customers who think that we're trying to be difficult. We're not. We're trying to be profitable, and frankly we make no apology for that - why should anyone in business apologise for wanting to make money?

Do you remember what I said about politely saying 'no' to the local comprehensive school? That is absolutely key here. You see, it is perfectly acceptable to turn small orders away, just as long as you explain your reasoning behind it. Now I get it - sometimes you just figure that the whole order is going to be too much of a headache and when you look at the return on it, you realise it's not worth your time.

Well why would you not explain that to your customer? You may not wish to be so blunt - OK, I'll rephrase that - you wish you could be so blunt but understand that it would most likely get you into trouble, but if you have a good relationship with your customer, surely they would understand wouldn't they?

They wouldn't? Well whose fault is that? I've spoken on more than one occasion about managing the expectations of your customers. If you paint yourself as a miracle worker who'll gladly work through the night to ensure that your customer gets his £50 order on time then I admire your commitment to customer service, but you're just not being very realistic. You're not valuing your own time and you're actually losing money.

Your best customers will always respect your honesty and your practical approach to their situation. If you can help them without losing money, then you should do so. However, we're often reminded that 95% of our headaches will come from 5% of our customers, so just how much do you stand to lose by telling these people that on this occasion, you simply cannot help them.

Those words are very important - ON THIS OCCASION. Telling them that, along with the the reasons why, may well mean that they return to you in the future. And the last part - you cannot HELP them - remember that customers come to you for all sorts of reasons, but ultimately it's because they need your help, so make sure you acknowledge that fact.

Most importantly, make a point of setting your minimum order value - that's the point at which, if you went any lower, you'd fail to make a profit. AND STICK TO IT. Now don't get me wrong - there are plenty of things that you will do for your clients for free. You could give seminars, offer to work in their offices for a day, come up with presentations, you name it - but it all has to lead somewhere, and if you have a clear picture of your objectives in offering all of this free stuff, then you will ultimately succeed.

Just remember, it is your responsibility to show your customers just how valuable you are. Doing so time and time again will mean that you won't need to get into petty conversations about price or sign-offs from managers or all those other pesky little day to day things that we would all much rather do without. You are the most valuable commodity with which you can trade. Nobody else knows what you know or can do what you do, and if your clients are shopping around for someone who they think can do your job better than you can, then you haven't shown them your true value yet, so get out there and fix it.

That's my bit for this week. Just a chance to tell you that if you're looking at using any promotional merchandise in early January, that your deadline really is creeping up fast. Factories will close over Christmas and this means that everyone will find themselves in a mad panic some time around the 4th of January. Don't be amongst them - take care of things in advance and give yourself the chance to enjoy a relaxing festive season.

Email marketing is free - NOT!

Thursday Thursday Thursday. It seems that whoever you talk to, they're excited that the weekend is only two days away. That's a bit strange really, because fewer people get as excited about Wednesday afternoons, which is almost just as close.

Well, for me, the best reason to get excited about Thursdays is the chance to write this blog. Each week I notice that the visitor counter goes up and up a little more, and yet very few people choose to write a comment to let me know that they've been here. So I know I've asked it before but if you are a new reader, hello and welcome and please write a comment for me at the end.

This week I want to talk about email marketing. More and more companies are using it because they believe it to be an inexpensive, or perhaps even free way to pitch their products and services to a mass audience, all at once.

Does it work? Does it *?*&!?***!

Let's face it, email marketing is the junk mail of the 21st Century. Sure, all the spam filters can make sure that we don't have our inboxes overflowing with offers of a better sex life and the chance to lose 2 stone in 45 minutes, but then there are still offers from legitimate organisations which are not getting read.

Not convinced? Well try this experiment. For at least one hour at work today, switch off your email. Just turn it off. If you're worried that people won't get hold of you straight away, put on your out of office assistant explaining that you're in a meeting with no access to email and that you'll be back in an hour.

After the hour is up, turn your email back on and then drag to a new folder, all those emails which you are unlikely to ever do anything about, not including the ones from your office manager letting you know that you still haven't chosen what you want to eat at the Christmas party next week.

After one week, assuming that you do this every day, just look how full that folder is. Now these companies believed that they were saving money by sharing their information with you in this format. Look how wrong they were. It's not that they saved money, they actually wasted it instead.

You see every time we see a piece of mail from someone that we have instantly deleted in the past, we're more likely to delete it again, even before we've read it. What's worse, when that company does telephone you to discuss your needs, how likely are you to want to take their phone call?

You see, email marketing is far from free. It's very very expensive. People need to understand that any marketing effort that you make shows any potential customer just how much you value them. If I send you a slick brochure, a nice gift and follow up with a professional phone call and the offer of a meeting, I'm telling you that I value your business. I'm making an investment in our future relationship and what's more, I'm more confident that I will get a good return on that investment.

Conversely, if I send you some PDF mailer that I've sent to another 50,000 people that day, what I'm actually saying to you is that you're not really all that special - you're just another potential customer amongst a sea of thousands. Well just who wants to be treated like that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't market yourselves via email. I'm just saying that your data needs to be clean and that email should not be the only means by which you communicate with your customers.

Think about it, the next time someone says "just send me an email", why not ask them if they feel they're ever likely to read it. It may seem blunt, but if you're a regular follower of this blog you'll know that I have no fear of total honesty.

Seriously, the time you spend writing and sending that mail could be spent calling another potential customer who may well have a genuine need for your services. Now if you follow up that phone call with a relevant gift, just think what that will do for your relationship.

Remember, the right gift, given the right way, will do wonders for your business. Do you know, I really think that's starting to become a catchphrase for me. Do you think it'll catch on?

Good Data is worth its weight in gold

Well it's all fun and games here in the Merchandise Mania workshop. In fact, I just made a comment that made Meena laugh so much that water actually came out of her nose. It's all good, clean family fun, and without that, what would be the point of coming in to work at all?

So yesterday I receive a phone call from someone offering me financial "advice". I put the word advice in quote marks because it's not really advice at all. These people are brokers and for some reason, have got my name on what I am reliably informed is known as a Sucker List. That's no joke by the way - if you get called by these brokers, you have already been labelled as a sucker.

The call opened in the usual way - the over enthusiastic hello, immediately followed by asking me how I am when it's obvious that they have no interest in the answer whatsoever. Seriously, the next time some cold calling monkey opens with "how are you", simply respond with, "Well, I'll be honest with you, if one more person tries to sell me something, I'm going to grab my rifle, drive to the nearest shopping centre and just go mental - now what can I do for you?"

Oh go on - try it - I dare you.

Back to the point. This person told me that I had spoken with a colleague of his several months ago and that he was now following up on that call. STOP RIGHT THERE, because if I did really speak with his colleague then I almost certainly would have told him that I had no interest whatsoever. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to be called in the future. I didn't want to read any literature. I was not interested.

Now you may think that I am being closed minded to these people, given how often I have spoken about the importance of keeping an open mind to opportunities. What you have to understand is that I did give one of these people a fairly large sum of money several years ago and they quite literally disappeared with it. Once bitten, twice shy, but that's a whole other story.

Once I told this caller that I was not interested, what he said next was amazing. He responded with, "Yes I can see some notes on our system so I won't start up anything with you now." Well congratulations genius, perhaps if you'd read those notes before you picked up the phone you could have saved us both some unnecessary aggravation.

What I found interesting, is that this company did take notes. They logged the details of every call so that future callers could act upon the data in question. Now any forward thinking company will employ the exact same strategy. Notes aren't just for the sales quotes and order details, they can be used to make a note of anything - a customer's birthday, their hobbies, their favourite film, whatever it is, and then armed with this knowledge, you can develop the one thing that can move you ever closer to a valuable customer - rapport.

So when was the last time you sent a potential new client a birthday card or a gift? Interesting. I bet you only reserve that privilege for your existing customers right? Think about it. Putting a smile on a potential new customer's face is the first step towards a successful working relationship.

I know I've been speaking about Christmas gifts for the past few weeks, but there's a whole year of gift giving opportunities there for you. Showing someone that you care about them as a person, rather than a commission cheque, is what good business is really all about.

It needn't be expensive, and having a small stock in your office to send out when you need to shows some very forward thinking on your part. All we have to do now is find the perfect gift. Hmmmmm - if only you knew someone in the gift business......

Your call is important to us....

Good morning my favourite reader - yes you. I'm so grateful that you've chosen to dedicate a few minutes of your busy schedule just to read what it is that I have to share with the world.

Yesterday was my birthday and despite the fact that I did come into work, I had a really nice day, so a big thank you to all of my well wishers. Just one more year in my thirties and then apparently life really begins. We'll see.

So let's take a look at the title of this week's blog - Your call is important to us. How did that comment make you feel? Interesting. You see, here I am, opening my blog with thanks and appreciation that was totally sincere, and yet as soon as I think of that phrase, my face just drops, and I bet yours does too.

We all know why - it's because we only ever hear it in circumstances where we don't really believe that our call is important at all. Call centres are naturally the worst offenders, where row upon row on minimum wage monkeys tell you that there is nothing they can do to help you before passing you off to a supervisor who'll tell you the exact same thing.

Not to mention the fact that they've allowed your anger to reach boiling point by making you wait for 20 minutes before they actually pick up the phone.

But why must we be repeatedly told that our call is important to them? Here's the thing - my company sells products at a business to business level, and every time the telephone rings, there is a very good chance that the person on the other end is either an existing customer or someone that we're hoping will be a new customer. By that standard, EVERY call that comes in is important to us. Is it really any different where you are?

Now don't get me wrong. Some calls are not so important. Some calls are people trying to sell us services that we neither need nor want, and occasionally we will take calls from people who we are simply unable to help, either because we don't supply what they need or because their order level falls below our minimums. Now these people's calls are still important, but there just not as important as the others.

None the less, when have you ever told a customer that their enquiry was not important? Do you really think I'm going to take an enquiry and respond with "Frankly you're wasting my time, your questions are beneath me now please go away"? Believe me, there are times when I would like to, but it's hardly professional is it.

So is there a point to all of this? Well you can make of it what you will, but for me, the point is that telling a customer that they're important is actually a waste of time. At least it is if you don't show them just how important they are. We're coming up to Christmas and it really is the best opportunity for you to show them just how important they are. It needn't be a grand gesture - a card, a donation to charity in their name or a simple gift to put a smile on their faces will do wonders for your relationship in the year ahead.

If you're not sure what to give them, I'm here to help you, so pick up the phone and let's see what we can come up with. Remember, your call is important to us.......