Well, I promised you at least one more blog before Christmas, and here it is. Despite the fact that the majority of our customers are now relaxing for the holidays, we will be on hand to help those poor souls who forgot to order their important January merchandise and have nowhere else to turn – so if that’s you, feel free to give me a call.
I want to talk about something interesting that happened to me in Tesco the other night. Now when I first started this blog, all those years ago, I mentioned how I was unlikely to ever shop in somewhere like Lidl – and not for the reasons you think either.
Well since then, I’ve discovered the joy of Lidl shopping, and it really can be a joy. The quality there is superb, the prices are fantastic and what’s more, it can be an adventure comparing European brand foods with the more recognised UK stuff and realising that, more often than not, it tastes exactly the same and in many cases – a lot better.
However, they don’t stock everything and I needed to pick up some chestnut puree so that Shelly could make her chestnut stuffing. It was her mother’s recipe and she really does do it proud, so darling, if you’re reading this – here’s to another great stuffing!
So back to Tesco, where it’s late at night, snowing and altogether unpleasant. After roaming the aisles of where logic dictated I would find the chestnuts, I was still sporting an empty basket. At that point I decided to ask for help, and I use the word ‘help’ in its broadest sense here.
“Excuse me”, say I, “can you tell me where I might find the chestnut puree and also the whole chestnuts – you usually sell them in vacuum packs?”
“Well you’ll find loose chestnuts in the whole foods section but I haven’t really seen any other chestnuts come in so I expect that we’re not doing them.”
STOP!!!!!!
So you’re one of the biggest supermarket chains in the country, and my local has expanded to such a ridiculous size that you can now by light aircraft in Aisle 37, next to the beans, but you’ve not seen chestnuts A WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!!???!!!
Obviously my real response was a little more reserved but it did get me thinking about something. Why didn’t she just tell me that she didn’t know?
Seriously, the lady is working in a shop that sells literally thousands of products. If she had the mental capacity to remember all of them, along with their location, then one would argue that she is woefully over qualified to be stacking shelves in the middle of the night in Tesco wouldn’t they?
I am perfectly happy for people to not know the answer, just as long as they take a moment to tell me where I might be able to get the help that I need. Bluffing your way through an answer is just plain wrong – the customer will not end up getting what he wants and will be more irate for the extra hassle of following up on bad advice.
So what do you tell your customers when you don’t know the answer to their question? Are you terrified of being thought of as less than an expert in your field? If so – why? A true expert opens himself up to new pieces of information every single day, and every once in a while, a vital piece of the jigsaw puzzle will be missing. Well, it’s not really missing, it’s just that someone else has it and we need to give them a call and get it.
We’re told of all of the truly powerful words in sales like YES and THANKS, but I’d like to add another phrase to that list – the phrase I DON’T KNOW. Going that extra mile to find out things for your customers is what separates you from the people who offer up a guess and then cross their fingers that there aren’t any follow up questions.
Here’s a clue to those people – there won’t be any follow up questions – because your prospective customer has already walked away.
On behalf of all of us here at Merchandise Mania, I’d like to wish you all the best of whichever holiday you choose to celebrate and I look forward to hearing from more of you in 2011.
Thursday 23 December 2010
Friday 17 December 2010
Training - it's not just for staff
How much does your company spend on training? OK, that’s a fairly ordinary question and no doubt it will have created a spectrum of responses. Well, I say spectrum, whereas I mean about three.
Well how about this then? Who does your company spend their time and money on training? Chances are, like most sensible companies, the people that you train are your own staff. That would seem to be the smart thing to do.
Indeed, at Merchandise Mania we even set up a training programme where staff could learn about the procedures in play in other departments. It’s an effective programme, because by learning just how much work someone else in your company has to do on a daily basis, you can gain more appreciation for the fact that the favour you asked them to do four hours ago hasn’t been done yet!
But I’ve come to realise that there is a whole group of people that we never really take the time to train. I’m not talking about getting in training companies, setting up seminars or correspondence courses. No, I’m talking about the simple imparting of information which would enable them to do their jobs and communicate more effectively.
Have you figured out who I’m referring to? That’s right (unless you got it wrong), I’m talking about your customers. In a world where knowledge is power, have you ever stopped to think about just how much your customers don’t know about how things work in your organisation?
Seriously, if I had a pound for everyone that called me in the second week of December asking for stuff before Christmas then I could happily fly off somewhere warm. I’m sure you have similar stories but have you ever stopped to consider that it might actually be your fault?
What if, the last time that client ordered from you, you gave them a special price or delivered the goods early or some other ‘extra mile’ gesture. Did you tell them that what they’d received was NOT the norm? Oh sure, good customer service should come with every order but if your very first deal with them was at a discounted price, what’s to make them think that they can’t get a discount from you every time they order?
As for deliveries, if something usually takes 3 weeks and you did it in 3 days, did you point out the extraordinary lengths that you went to in order to make that happen, or did you just tell them it was “all part of the service”?
Your customers need to be trained on how things work around there. Their demands are not unrealistic because history has shown them that you can work miracles when you really have to, so they now expect miracles every single time.
The result? A client that, whilst you’re grateful for their business, you regard much more as a hindrance than a help. It is within your power to change things – you just have to level with them. “I’m delighted that we were able to shrink the lead time on these by so much but please do bear in mind that this was the exception and not the rule. When you’re looking to place your next order, please make sure you leave a little bit more time – or better yet, why not order twice as many and rest easy, knowing that you have enough?
The next blog will be on Christmas Eve – yes we will be here and working hard. Well, I say hard……..well, I say working….
Well how about this then? Who does your company spend their time and money on training? Chances are, like most sensible companies, the people that you train are your own staff. That would seem to be the smart thing to do.
Indeed, at Merchandise Mania we even set up a training programme where staff could learn about the procedures in play in other departments. It’s an effective programme, because by learning just how much work someone else in your company has to do on a daily basis, you can gain more appreciation for the fact that the favour you asked them to do four hours ago hasn’t been done yet!
But I’ve come to realise that there is a whole group of people that we never really take the time to train. I’m not talking about getting in training companies, setting up seminars or correspondence courses. No, I’m talking about the simple imparting of information which would enable them to do their jobs and communicate more effectively.
Have you figured out who I’m referring to? That’s right (unless you got it wrong), I’m talking about your customers. In a world where knowledge is power, have you ever stopped to think about just how much your customers don’t know about how things work in your organisation?
Seriously, if I had a pound for everyone that called me in the second week of December asking for stuff before Christmas then I could happily fly off somewhere warm. I’m sure you have similar stories but have you ever stopped to consider that it might actually be your fault?
What if, the last time that client ordered from you, you gave them a special price or delivered the goods early or some other ‘extra mile’ gesture. Did you tell them that what they’d received was NOT the norm? Oh sure, good customer service should come with every order but if your very first deal with them was at a discounted price, what’s to make them think that they can’t get a discount from you every time they order?
As for deliveries, if something usually takes 3 weeks and you did it in 3 days, did you point out the extraordinary lengths that you went to in order to make that happen, or did you just tell them it was “all part of the service”?
Your customers need to be trained on how things work around there. Their demands are not unrealistic because history has shown them that you can work miracles when you really have to, so they now expect miracles every single time.
The result? A client that, whilst you’re grateful for their business, you regard much more as a hindrance than a help. It is within your power to change things – you just have to level with them. “I’m delighted that we were able to shrink the lead time on these by so much but please do bear in mind that this was the exception and not the rule. When you’re looking to place your next order, please make sure you leave a little bit more time – or better yet, why not order twice as many and rest easy, knowing that you have enough?
The next blog will be on Christmas Eve – yes we will be here and working hard. Well, I say hard……..well, I say working….
Thursday 9 December 2010
The truth might set you free..remember MIGHT!
I thought I would start this article a little differently than most. You see, in a lot of cases, when people are doing things for charity or asking readers for a little bit of extra ‘help’, it’s shoved in a little paragraph in italics at the end of the article.
In essence that seems fair enough, but if I don’t manage to hold your interests until the end of this page then two things are clear – first, that I’ve obviously run out of interesting things to say, and second, that my chances of getting anything from you are somewhere between slim and none.
Well, none of that nonsense for this bald headed sales person. At the end of April, I shall once again be running in The London Marathon. Now I hate running. I don’t do it in my spare time, I don’t find it “really clears my head” and given the choice, I’d rather sit down and listen to an entire Dido album – and that is pretty damn bland.
None the less, I am running to raise money for Dreams Come True – a great charity which help realise the dreams of terminally and seriously ill children. You can sponsor me – no, you SHOULD – no, you WILL sponsor me (Jedi mind trick – see what I did there) at www.justgiving.com/pauljrose2011 and thanks in advance for your generosity.
And so to the topic of this week's blog. In the last few weeks, our industry has been plagued by scams. People have purchased merchandise on dodgy credit cards, fake addresses, and all that sort of nonsense.
The scams themselves actually got me thinking – not so much about the criminal nature of certain people, but more about the nature of telling lies. You see, when you look a little further, so many people are telling little lies to us, every single day. They’re not evil (well, most of them anyway), it’s just that a polite excuse seems to be the accepted norm.
Think about all of those lies that we sales people have to hear every day. “He’s in a meeting at the moment”, “We’ve got your catalogue and we’ll come back to you”, “Send me your information and we’ll keep it on file”. AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGG!!! Why do we just assume that a polite lie is so much less offensive than a little bit of brutal honesty?
In a meeting? Seriously, how many ‘meetings’ can any one person realistically take in one working day and yet still be productive? I have one meeting per week and it’s held at a time of day when the phones are not likely to be ringing. Fact is, we know they’re not in a meeting, but we just blindly say thanks and leave a message any way – what a complete waste of time.
“Send me your information” – WHY? We all know that the ‘file’ your going to keep it in is currently sat under your desk housing three empty plastic cups and yesterday’s sandwich wrapper. Don’t these people realise that it actually costs us money to send out catalogues? That’s the thing – they do, and yet because they consider us a nuisance, they lose no sleep putting us to extra, pointless busy work.
My manner has often been described as ‘acerbic’, the less well read just simply opt for ‘rude’. I don’t really have too much of a problem with that. Sure, no one likes to be thought of as rude, but I just prefer complete honesty with people because it saves us all so much time.
I don’t want brokers to send me their information in the post only to follow up with countless phone calls – I am not interested and I tell them from the outset. They call and tell me that they don’t want to sell me anything, they just want to send me some information. Fine, but I’m not going to read it, so why don’t we just leave it there.
If you’re not interested in taking a sales call, isn’t it better to let the person know that? How about replacing “He’s in a meeting” with “He has no need for your services”? Sure, the caller might get their nose put out of joint, but any professional sales person will dust themselves off and make the next call.
Deep down, you’ve done them a favour – they won’t be wasting valuable call time on someone who is not buying. They’ll never really thank you for being so short with them, but in time they won’t remember you anyway, so who cares?
We are a society obsessed with saving time, and yet we allow some misguided sense of politeness to waste the very thing we’re trying to save. So be direct – I’m not saying we need to start being rude to each other, dropping our manners and generally becoming nasty people – I’m suggesting that the next time you consider telling a small fib just to make things a little easier, that you consider just how much more powerful the truth would be.
In essence that seems fair enough, but if I don’t manage to hold your interests until the end of this page then two things are clear – first, that I’ve obviously run out of interesting things to say, and second, that my chances of getting anything from you are somewhere between slim and none.
Well, none of that nonsense for this bald headed sales person. At the end of April, I shall once again be running in The London Marathon. Now I hate running. I don’t do it in my spare time, I don’t find it “really clears my head” and given the choice, I’d rather sit down and listen to an entire Dido album – and that is pretty damn bland.
None the less, I am running to raise money for Dreams Come True – a great charity which help realise the dreams of terminally and seriously ill children. You can sponsor me – no, you SHOULD – no, you WILL sponsor me (Jedi mind trick – see what I did there) at www.justgiving.com/pauljrose2011 and thanks in advance for your generosity.
And so to the topic of this week's blog. In the last few weeks, our industry has been plagued by scams. People have purchased merchandise on dodgy credit cards, fake addresses, and all that sort of nonsense.
The scams themselves actually got me thinking – not so much about the criminal nature of certain people, but more about the nature of telling lies. You see, when you look a little further, so many people are telling little lies to us, every single day. They’re not evil (well, most of them anyway), it’s just that a polite excuse seems to be the accepted norm.
Think about all of those lies that we sales people have to hear every day. “He’s in a meeting at the moment”, “We’ve got your catalogue and we’ll come back to you”, “Send me your information and we’ll keep it on file”. AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGG!!! Why do we just assume that a polite lie is so much less offensive than a little bit of brutal honesty?
In a meeting? Seriously, how many ‘meetings’ can any one person realistically take in one working day and yet still be productive? I have one meeting per week and it’s held at a time of day when the phones are not likely to be ringing. Fact is, we know they’re not in a meeting, but we just blindly say thanks and leave a message any way – what a complete waste of time.
“Send me your information” – WHY? We all know that the ‘file’ your going to keep it in is currently sat under your desk housing three empty plastic cups and yesterday’s sandwich wrapper. Don’t these people realise that it actually costs us money to send out catalogues? That’s the thing – they do, and yet because they consider us a nuisance, they lose no sleep putting us to extra, pointless busy work.
My manner has often been described as ‘acerbic’, the less well read just simply opt for ‘rude’. I don’t really have too much of a problem with that. Sure, no one likes to be thought of as rude, but I just prefer complete honesty with people because it saves us all so much time.
I don’t want brokers to send me their information in the post only to follow up with countless phone calls – I am not interested and I tell them from the outset. They call and tell me that they don’t want to sell me anything, they just want to send me some information. Fine, but I’m not going to read it, so why don’t we just leave it there.
If you’re not interested in taking a sales call, isn’t it better to let the person know that? How about replacing “He’s in a meeting” with “He has no need for your services”? Sure, the caller might get their nose put out of joint, but any professional sales person will dust themselves off and make the next call.
Deep down, you’ve done them a favour – they won’t be wasting valuable call time on someone who is not buying. They’ll never really thank you for being so short with them, but in time they won’t remember you anyway, so who cares?
We are a society obsessed with saving time, and yet we allow some misguided sense of politeness to waste the very thing we’re trying to save. So be direct – I’m not saying we need to start being rude to each other, dropping our manners and generally becoming nasty people – I’m suggesting that the next time you consider telling a small fib just to make things a little easier, that you consider just how much more powerful the truth would be.
Thursday 18 November 2010
A new and exciting product
I'm a cynical bloke me. Anyone who has put up with this blog for long enough will tell you that.
Oh sure, there was a time when a pen with a coloured light inside it could get me all giddy with excitement. When I first joined the promotional merchandise industry, going to trade shows made me feel like a kid in a candy store. Well, on day one at least. By day three I'm very tired and working on the very clear premise that I have seen it all before.
You see, eventually, it's not the product that's important, but what you do with it that counts. A cleverly branded mouse mat can be the start of a very effective marketing campaign, but I've told you all of this before.
Because every once in a while, a new product comes along which gets me genuinely excited. Often my colleagues will laugh at my enthusiasm, and that's fine, because proving them wrong can be a very sweet victory.
Today, I want to tell you about a new product in which I am very excited, mainly because I can see so many places where it has practical applications.
If you work in a busy office, this will improve productivity. If you work in the leisure industry, this will increase customer spend. If you work in the travel industry, this will make your customers happy. Not all of them, I hasten to add - but enough of them to make this a worthwhile investment.
I'm talking about The Vapestick.
This simple stick essentially replaces cigarettes. It uses a small amount of liquid nicotine - which in and of itself is a simple stimulant, and about as harmful to your system as a cup of coffee. Using a micro processor, the 'vaper' can feel as if he or she is smoking a regular cigarette, except that there is no smoke - it's water vapour. There's no smell, no ash, no second hand smoke, in fact none of the negative things associated with smoking, which means it is totally legal to smoke indoors.
Think about it. If you have lots of staff regularly nipping out for ciggy breaks, then this means that they can stay at their desks and keep working. How about a busy casino? Smoking and gaming go hand in hand, but your players can't stay at the tables any more thanks to the smoking ban - well now they can.
Some airlines are now making them available for purchase too, and the beauty of ours is that it can be completely personalised with a full colour print.
Whilst there are full starter packs with a retail value of around £50, we now have a disposable model which we can supply for only £6.99, including branding. One of these is the equivalent of more than two packets of cigarettes - so think of the savings there.
I'm excited about this product and I want to share it with as many people as possible. I can tell you that I am not a smoker. I do enjoy the occasional social cigarette or cigar, but I can take it or leave it, and I find vaping fun.
Call me today and I'll tell you all about it.
Oh sure, there was a time when a pen with a coloured light inside it could get me all giddy with excitement. When I first joined the promotional merchandise industry, going to trade shows made me feel like a kid in a candy store. Well, on day one at least. By day three I'm very tired and working on the very clear premise that I have seen it all before.
You see, eventually, it's not the product that's important, but what you do with it that counts. A cleverly branded mouse mat can be the start of a very effective marketing campaign, but I've told you all of this before.
Because every once in a while, a new product comes along which gets me genuinely excited. Often my colleagues will laugh at my enthusiasm, and that's fine, because proving them wrong can be a very sweet victory.
Today, I want to tell you about a new product in which I am very excited, mainly because I can see so many places where it has practical applications.
If you work in a busy office, this will improve productivity. If you work in the leisure industry, this will increase customer spend. If you work in the travel industry, this will make your customers happy. Not all of them, I hasten to add - but enough of them to make this a worthwhile investment.
I'm talking about The Vapestick.
This simple stick essentially replaces cigarettes. It uses a small amount of liquid nicotine - which in and of itself is a simple stimulant, and about as harmful to your system as a cup of coffee. Using a micro processor, the 'vaper' can feel as if he or she is smoking a regular cigarette, except that there is no smoke - it's water vapour. There's no smell, no ash, no second hand smoke, in fact none of the negative things associated with smoking, which means it is totally legal to smoke indoors.
Think about it. If you have lots of staff regularly nipping out for ciggy breaks, then this means that they can stay at their desks and keep working. How about a busy casino? Smoking and gaming go hand in hand, but your players can't stay at the tables any more thanks to the smoking ban - well now they can.
Some airlines are now making them available for purchase too, and the beauty of ours is that it can be completely personalised with a full colour print.
Whilst there are full starter packs with a retail value of around £50, we now have a disposable model which we can supply for only £6.99, including branding. One of these is the equivalent of more than two packets of cigarettes - so think of the savings there.
I'm excited about this product and I want to share it with as many people as possible. I can tell you that I am not a smoker. I do enjoy the occasional social cigarette or cigar, but I can take it or leave it, and I find vaping fun.
Call me today and I'll tell you all about it.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Another Exciting Episode
Back by popular demand (my Mum likes it) is another installment from Merchandise Mania TV. Once again I've been roped in to getting in front of the camera, except this time I wasn't in a stripy purple shirt that induces migraines when set against a green screen.
Seriously, Doris in Wardrobe really is skating on thin ice.
Enjoy.
Seriously, Doris in Wardrobe really is skating on thin ice.
Enjoy.
Friday 5 November 2010
The Level Playing Field
Well, it finally happened. Yesterday I turned 40 years old. To some, I am officially middle aged, whereas to others, I am now a sad old man, mourning the good years that are now behind him and essentially just waiting to die.
Some of those birthday cards were just plain mean.
Well I’d love to suggest that with age comes wisdom, but frankly I just plan to keep on spewing out the same nonsense in the desperate hope that someone will read it, think to themselves “hmm, he has a point there”, and then order a generous amount of promotional merchandise from me.
There it is folks, if you’ve ever wondered why us bloggers do it, the reason it pure – revenue, and lots of it please. These blogs, tweets and all other manner of nonsense simply drive traffic. I could type out a recipe for chocolate cornflake cakes at this point and it would still be useful in the fight to boost my company’s profile.
Fortunately for you, I actually enjoy coming up with something interesting to say and every once in a while, I actually succeed. Sure it’s rare, but if you stick around for long enough you just might find some gold in here.
Today, I wanted to talk about the way buyers compare sellers, and how, in many cases, it seems a little flawed to me.
At the outset, people’s primary focus is price. That’s fair enough, we’re all trying to save money wherever we can. Trouble is that if you start there, then you’re often blinkered to everything else that matters.
The biggest issue, is that at the start of any race, every competitor is equal. Think about it, no one is interested in the runners’ position at the start of the race are they?
People need think more about the end result. What will the service be like? Will someone be taking them through every step of the process? Will they be left at any point wondering what’s going on? Ultimately, will they get the goods on time and will they be of an acceptable standard?
All really important questions, and yet when a lot of people go out to look for suppliers, they still look at that start line and based their decisions on what they see there.
The message here is that you need a better checklist. Yes, price will be on there, but if it’s in massive capital letters at the top of the page, you are going nowhere fast, because what you save today will go horribly wrong if you’re not careful.
A longer term view is crucial in the development of your business, so make sure you have one.
Some of those birthday cards were just plain mean.
Well I’d love to suggest that with age comes wisdom, but frankly I just plan to keep on spewing out the same nonsense in the desperate hope that someone will read it, think to themselves “hmm, he has a point there”, and then order a generous amount of promotional merchandise from me.
There it is folks, if you’ve ever wondered why us bloggers do it, the reason it pure – revenue, and lots of it please. These blogs, tweets and all other manner of nonsense simply drive traffic. I could type out a recipe for chocolate cornflake cakes at this point and it would still be useful in the fight to boost my company’s profile.
Fortunately for you, I actually enjoy coming up with something interesting to say and every once in a while, I actually succeed. Sure it’s rare, but if you stick around for long enough you just might find some gold in here.
Today, I wanted to talk about the way buyers compare sellers, and how, in many cases, it seems a little flawed to me.
At the outset, people’s primary focus is price. That’s fair enough, we’re all trying to save money wherever we can. Trouble is that if you start there, then you’re often blinkered to everything else that matters.
The biggest issue, is that at the start of any race, every competitor is equal. Think about it, no one is interested in the runners’ position at the start of the race are they?
People need think more about the end result. What will the service be like? Will someone be taking them through every step of the process? Will they be left at any point wondering what’s going on? Ultimately, will they get the goods on time and will they be of an acceptable standard?
All really important questions, and yet when a lot of people go out to look for suppliers, they still look at that start line and based their decisions on what they see there.
The message here is that you need a better checklist. Yes, price will be on there, but if it’s in massive capital letters at the top of the page, you are going nowhere fast, because what you save today will go horribly wrong if you’re not careful.
A longer term view is crucial in the development of your business, so make sure you have one.
Thursday 14 October 2010
The Importance of a Good Read
My wife went to test drive a new car on the weekend. She thought that the staff in the dealership were amongst the nicest car dealers she had spoken to. She thought that the price of the vehicle she tried was reasonable, and was quite competitive compared to other cars that she’d seen. She enjoyed the test drive and was quite happy to ask pertinent questions of the sales man in terms of extras, finance agreements and so on.
We left there with lots of literature giving us facts and figures.
She doesn’t want to buy the car.
But this blog is not about the car – it’s actually about the literature. Right now there is a brochure shoved inside the passenger side door of my car. It won’t get read again, and what’s worse is that it didn’t even get read in the first place, and this got me thinking.
As I prepare to go on my holiday at the end of this week, I’ve been making a point of calling all of those companies who asked me to send them some information. So far, not one of them has given me any business. I’m not bitter about that – frankly I accept it as the way of the world, but it does strike me just how many of us are wasting a fortune on printing up information that will never get read.
Think about the last time you were committed to seriously making an important purchase. I’m not talking about browsing or being ‘on the fence’ – I’m talking about seeing something, liking it, reaching into your wallet and actually buying it.
How much literature did you check out first? What did you do about all of the important questions that you had to ask? Did you consult with the brochure or the sales person?
These days, many of us will go online to check out reviews of certain new products before we buy, and if we’re lucky enough to find an impartial review, so much the better. But that’s all we need to read. The rest of the sale requires a personal interaction between you, the product and the person selling it.
I’ve written in the past about how ‘polite’ people ask us to send out information as a means to simply get sales people off of the phone, but it seems that there are a group of people who would rather hand over a brochure than have a real conversation, and as a salesman myself, I just don’t get it.
My recycling bin is filled with catalogues I will never read, and yet the people sending them never even bothered to ask me – they just spent their money and hoped for the best. Well I don’t work that way. If you ask me for a catalogue, I’ll make a point of asking you what it is you’re looking for and then I’ll talk with you about it – trust me, it’s better for everyone that way.
Right – that’s the last blog for a couple of weeks. I’m off to Israel with the family, and just so we’re clear, I didn’t pick the hotel out of a brochure!
We left there with lots of literature giving us facts and figures.
She doesn’t want to buy the car.
But this blog is not about the car – it’s actually about the literature. Right now there is a brochure shoved inside the passenger side door of my car. It won’t get read again, and what’s worse is that it didn’t even get read in the first place, and this got me thinking.
As I prepare to go on my holiday at the end of this week, I’ve been making a point of calling all of those companies who asked me to send them some information. So far, not one of them has given me any business. I’m not bitter about that – frankly I accept it as the way of the world, but it does strike me just how many of us are wasting a fortune on printing up information that will never get read.
Think about the last time you were committed to seriously making an important purchase. I’m not talking about browsing or being ‘on the fence’ – I’m talking about seeing something, liking it, reaching into your wallet and actually buying it.
How much literature did you check out first? What did you do about all of the important questions that you had to ask? Did you consult with the brochure or the sales person?
These days, many of us will go online to check out reviews of certain new products before we buy, and if we’re lucky enough to find an impartial review, so much the better. But that’s all we need to read. The rest of the sale requires a personal interaction between you, the product and the person selling it.
I’ve written in the past about how ‘polite’ people ask us to send out information as a means to simply get sales people off of the phone, but it seems that there are a group of people who would rather hand over a brochure than have a real conversation, and as a salesman myself, I just don’t get it.
My recycling bin is filled with catalogues I will never read, and yet the people sending them never even bothered to ask me – they just spent their money and hoped for the best. Well I don’t work that way. If you ask me for a catalogue, I’ll make a point of asking you what it is you’re looking for and then I’ll talk with you about it – trust me, it’s better for everyone that way.
Right – that’s the last blog for a couple of weeks. I’m off to Israel with the family, and just so we’re clear, I didn’t pick the hotel out of a brochure!
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Train your customers, not just your staff
My company prides itself on being investors in people. Not in the traditional, get a certificate and brag to all your mates type way, just in it's strong belief in training.
Each member of the team has the chance to learn about what goes on elsewhere in the company. It's incredibly useful, because by gaining an understanding of what people in other departments do, we can all work more closely together to create the best possible customer experience.
Trouble is, there's one person in that chain of command that a lot of companies don't bother to train at all. Have you figured out who it is yet? Oh come on, it's written in the flipping title of this thing, I mean it's not like I'm trying to make this difficult!
That's right genius, the customer. How many of you actually take the time to train your customers? More importantly, how does that training work?
You see, in any given day, there will be people that make requests of you which you would prefer to politely decline. Well, I say "politely", because sometimes you would just rather be plain rude, but common sense usually steps in to save you.
None the less, you do what you can to help and right there is where the problem begins. Your customer now has an expectation of you. They know that you're prepared to jump through hoops every time they call because they are the customer and you are oh so grateful for their business.
Except if you were to be truly honest, you're not grateful. The time you spend adhering to their near impossible requests is not matched by the amount of money that they're spending with you. It's just not fair to expect these things of you, but they do. Trouble is, it's not really their fault is it? No, it's your fault, and it's because you didn't train them.
Be honest, how scary is it really to have to tell a customer that if something has a three week lead time that needing it within 4 days really makes no difference. You're the expert here - if you think it can be done, then do your best to do it, but if your years of experience tells you it can't then simply tell your customer that this is the case.
Similarly, if a client expects you to run around all afternoon producing reams of quotes with no real focus or direction, take the time to explain to them that you would first like to get their focus in place before you put in all of the work.
Ultimately, the people who take umbrage with such a response are not really serious customers. You're not losing business because the business was not there in the first place.
But what about the good customers who need you to go the extra mile? Well of course you should, but at least make sure that they know and appreciate what you've done for them and that you would really rather not make a habit of it.
Are we still working in a world where people believe that the customer is always right? Yes they are the life blood of your business, so why not treat them as an intrinsic member of your team and train them on how things work around there. They will thank you for it and in the long run will undoubtedly put more business your way.
Think about it, when you wanted to get their business you took the time to learn about their operation. Now that you're partners, shouldn't that information flow both ways?
When they understand and respect you, the headaches just melt away and work becomes easy. You know what you need from them and more importantly, so do they.
Simple really, isn't it? Have a good week.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Each member of the team has the chance to learn about what goes on elsewhere in the company. It's incredibly useful, because by gaining an understanding of what people in other departments do, we can all work more closely together to create the best possible customer experience.
Trouble is, there's one person in that chain of command that a lot of companies don't bother to train at all. Have you figured out who it is yet? Oh come on, it's written in the flipping title of this thing, I mean it's not like I'm trying to make this difficult!
That's right genius, the customer. How many of you actually take the time to train your customers? More importantly, how does that training work?
You see, in any given day, there will be people that make requests of you which you would prefer to politely decline. Well, I say "politely", because sometimes you would just rather be plain rude, but common sense usually steps in to save you.
None the less, you do what you can to help and right there is where the problem begins. Your customer now has an expectation of you. They know that you're prepared to jump through hoops every time they call because they are the customer and you are oh so grateful for their business.
Except if you were to be truly honest, you're not grateful. The time you spend adhering to their near impossible requests is not matched by the amount of money that they're spending with you. It's just not fair to expect these things of you, but they do. Trouble is, it's not really their fault is it? No, it's your fault, and it's because you didn't train them.
Be honest, how scary is it really to have to tell a customer that if something has a three week lead time that needing it within 4 days really makes no difference. You're the expert here - if you think it can be done, then do your best to do it, but if your years of experience tells you it can't then simply tell your customer that this is the case.
Similarly, if a client expects you to run around all afternoon producing reams of quotes with no real focus or direction, take the time to explain to them that you would first like to get their focus in place before you put in all of the work.
Ultimately, the people who take umbrage with such a response are not really serious customers. You're not losing business because the business was not there in the first place.
But what about the good customers who need you to go the extra mile? Well of course you should, but at least make sure that they know and appreciate what you've done for them and that you would really rather not make a habit of it.
Are we still working in a world where people believe that the customer is always right? Yes they are the life blood of your business, so why not treat them as an intrinsic member of your team and train them on how things work around there. They will thank you for it and in the long run will undoubtedly put more business your way.
Think about it, when you wanted to get their business you took the time to learn about their operation. Now that you're partners, shouldn't that information flow both ways?
When they understand and respect you, the headaches just melt away and work becomes easy. You know what you need from them and more importantly, so do they.
Simple really, isn't it? Have a good week.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday 23 September 2010
Small widgets - big returns
Naturally, there are plenty of sales and business gurus out there that will tell you that the advice that they can give you will be the true turning point in the lifespan of your business. Of course, if you want the real juicy advice, you’re going to have to pay for it – anything from a simple book costing you around £15 to a seminar costing you several hundred.
Ultimately, these things all have one thing in common – if you want to do more business, then you have to pay for it. This is an accepted rule in commerce, and yet there are still people out there that believe that they can do all of their marketing for free!
Now it goes without saying (and yet oddly enough, I will say it) that there are some elements to any marketing strategy which don’t cost money – word of mouth, referrals, etc. But let’s be real for a moment – you’re only going to get referrals once you’re up and running, and those initial customers are going to cost money.
So, assuming that we can all agree that we need to invest in our customers, how can we go about keeping our costs down? Well, for this blog I’m going to talk about trade shows – mainly because it’s something I know quite a lot about.
In the past, I’ve spoken about not giving out gifts to everyone who comes by. There is real value in giving higher priced items to a smaller selection of genuine potential customers. To learn more about the metrics here, go through the archives and look for the posting entitled “Your money is no good here”.
But some people have a very small budget indeed – perhaps just a few hundred pounds, and this could mean that the higher priced gifts are not the best strategy for them. Is it all bad news? Of course not – we can still help.
There are plenty of simple exhibition widgets out there that cost under 50p each. We don’t need to go into specifics here, but you’re welcome to search through our on line catalogue by clicking HERE.
So let’s buy ourselves 1000 units and we’ll keep our total budget to £500 on merchandise. Now how much is an average customer worth to you? Is it £500? £1000? £5000? It’s important to take a look at your customers’ average spend because it’s a great way to gaze into your business’ crystal ball and forecast the future.
OK, let’s say that the average customer is worth £1000 to you. You’re going to give out 1000 gifts at a show and have a result only slightly better than absolute zero. That’s right, you get one new customer. Think about that for a moment – that’s a 0.1% success rate. If that’s what you think you’re capable of, may I interest you in a career in a non sales environment? Perhaps something with animals or mops?
So we get our rubbish return but, hey presto, we’ve actually made a 100% profit on our marketing investment! Not bad really – and that’s the worse case scenario.
So now that you can see, in a nutshell, just how powerful a small expense can be, isn’t it time you started thinking about what merchandise you’d like, rather than whether or not you think it will work for you?
Ultimately, these things all have one thing in common – if you want to do more business, then you have to pay for it. This is an accepted rule in commerce, and yet there are still people out there that believe that they can do all of their marketing for free!
Now it goes without saying (and yet oddly enough, I will say it) that there are some elements to any marketing strategy which don’t cost money – word of mouth, referrals, etc. But let’s be real for a moment – you’re only going to get referrals once you’re up and running, and those initial customers are going to cost money.
So, assuming that we can all agree that we need to invest in our customers, how can we go about keeping our costs down? Well, for this blog I’m going to talk about trade shows – mainly because it’s something I know quite a lot about.
In the past, I’ve spoken about not giving out gifts to everyone who comes by. There is real value in giving higher priced items to a smaller selection of genuine potential customers. To learn more about the metrics here, go through the archives and look for the posting entitled “Your money is no good here”.
But some people have a very small budget indeed – perhaps just a few hundred pounds, and this could mean that the higher priced gifts are not the best strategy for them. Is it all bad news? Of course not – we can still help.
There are plenty of simple exhibition widgets out there that cost under 50p each. We don’t need to go into specifics here, but you’re welcome to search through our on line catalogue by clicking HERE.
So let’s buy ourselves 1000 units and we’ll keep our total budget to £500 on merchandise. Now how much is an average customer worth to you? Is it £500? £1000? £5000? It’s important to take a look at your customers’ average spend because it’s a great way to gaze into your business’ crystal ball and forecast the future.
OK, let’s say that the average customer is worth £1000 to you. You’re going to give out 1000 gifts at a show and have a result only slightly better than absolute zero. That’s right, you get one new customer. Think about that for a moment – that’s a 0.1% success rate. If that’s what you think you’re capable of, may I interest you in a career in a non sales environment? Perhaps something with animals or mops?
So we get our rubbish return but, hey presto, we’ve actually made a 100% profit on our marketing investment! Not bad really – and that’s the worse case scenario.
So now that you can see, in a nutshell, just how powerful a small expense can be, isn’t it time you started thinking about what merchandise you’d like, rather than whether or not you think it will work for you?
Friday 17 September 2010
Sometimes you just have to STOP!!!
On more than one occasion, I have written about the power of keeping a positive mental attitude and a smile. A belief that your customers will say ‘yes’ to you affects your body language and your tone. Your confidence grows and the day just seems to flow perfectly.
Isn’t it wonderful that every day can be just like that?
OH NO IT CAN’T!
Of course it can’t. Some days, no matter how much of a smile you wear and a friendly approach you take with every call, some people just want to grind you down. It’s easy to dust off a simple objection – after all, we’re all grown ups and as professional sales people, we’ve learned not to take it personally.
Trouble is, we don’t spend every single call simply selling. We have to speak with suppliers who tell us that our orders are going to be late. We have to speak with customers who are pulling their hair out because they ordered 2000 units and only 1999 have shown up. We, all of us, will have days where the word frazzled just doesn’t even begin to cut it, and try as we might to hold on to cheerful grin and a pleasant outlook, it really can be a bit of a struggle.
It’s in times like these that picking up the phone and ploughing through a few more cold calls is, quite possibly, the worst decision you can make. Well no, to be fair the worst decision you can make is to storm into your bosses’ office and tell him just where he can shove his job. Poor bloke. It’s not his fault you’re having a bad day. Unless it is of course, but that’s a whole other story.
Calling potential customers from under a cloud is a waste of time. Your tone will be negative, and your objective will merely be to make calls so that you can say that you tried. Except that you won’t try. You won’t ask powerful questions, you won’t really listen to their responses and you’ll only give them about 10% of your attention at best. What a waste of time.
The best thing you can do when the world appears to be turning its spears on you is just stop. Go for a walk, go and have a cup of tea, go and ask a colleague if you can take a few minutes of their time to talk through some problems that you’re having. Whatever it is, for goodness’ sake don’t bottle it in and then take it out on the next potential customer.
You may not be obviously rude or dismissive to them, but you can bet that they will not feel any warmth from you. They won’t feel as if you’re delighted to be given the chance to work with them, and of course, they’ll take their business to someone who will.
It’s important to remember that everyone has bad days, but the keyword there is DAYS. How often have you had a good day and then immediately thought that it was so much better than yesterday? Exactly. Problems will rise and fall, but if you deal with them, ask for help and keep your emotions in check, things will balance out and you can look forward to your next really good day.
I hope that reading this blog will be the start of yours.
Isn’t it wonderful that every day can be just like that?
OH NO IT CAN’T!
Of course it can’t. Some days, no matter how much of a smile you wear and a friendly approach you take with every call, some people just want to grind you down. It’s easy to dust off a simple objection – after all, we’re all grown ups and as professional sales people, we’ve learned not to take it personally.
Trouble is, we don’t spend every single call simply selling. We have to speak with suppliers who tell us that our orders are going to be late. We have to speak with customers who are pulling their hair out because they ordered 2000 units and only 1999 have shown up. We, all of us, will have days where the word frazzled just doesn’t even begin to cut it, and try as we might to hold on to cheerful grin and a pleasant outlook, it really can be a bit of a struggle.
It’s in times like these that picking up the phone and ploughing through a few more cold calls is, quite possibly, the worst decision you can make. Well no, to be fair the worst decision you can make is to storm into your bosses’ office and tell him just where he can shove his job. Poor bloke. It’s not his fault you’re having a bad day. Unless it is of course, but that’s a whole other story.
Calling potential customers from under a cloud is a waste of time. Your tone will be negative, and your objective will merely be to make calls so that you can say that you tried. Except that you won’t try. You won’t ask powerful questions, you won’t really listen to their responses and you’ll only give them about 10% of your attention at best. What a waste of time.
The best thing you can do when the world appears to be turning its spears on you is just stop. Go for a walk, go and have a cup of tea, go and ask a colleague if you can take a few minutes of their time to talk through some problems that you’re having. Whatever it is, for goodness’ sake don’t bottle it in and then take it out on the next potential customer.
You may not be obviously rude or dismissive to them, but you can bet that they will not feel any warmth from you. They won’t feel as if you’re delighted to be given the chance to work with them, and of course, they’ll take their business to someone who will.
It’s important to remember that everyone has bad days, but the keyword there is DAYS. How often have you had a good day and then immediately thought that it was so much better than yesterday? Exactly. Problems will rise and fall, but if you deal with them, ask for help and keep your emotions in check, things will balance out and you can look forward to your next really good day.
I hope that reading this blog will be the start of yours.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
My Job Description
Every once in a while, it’s a really good idea to take a look at your own job description. I don’t mean the thing that’s printed on your business cards – some title that’s designed to give you a sense of purpose whilst simultaneously reminding you that it’s totally meaningless.
No, I’m talking about what you are actually paid to do. Those tasks which make up the bulk of your day, along with those ‘lesser’ tasks which are clearly less important, but must be done none the less.
When you look at it, it’s really quite a long list isn’t it? Mine certainly took up more than one side of a packet of Swan Vestas, so I’m rather pleased. However, that was not the real task, nor the purpose of this blog.
Now, grab a second box of matches and start writing down all those things which you’re asked to do which are NOT your job. Now I’m not talking about making cups of tea or occasionally helping out in other departments – we all have to chip in when we can. No, I’m talking about those things that customers ask you to do that you really should not have to.
I’ll tell you what prompted this blog. A few days ago I answered the phone to someone who told me that they were ‘just carrying out a costing exercise’. A costing exercise? What exactly is that? Yup – just what I thought, you essentially want me to tell you my prices so that you can phone around three or four more people, check my prices against theirs and then check all of our prices against your current supplier.
My role is to sell merchandise, and not to help my competitors to do the same. The person calling has openly admitted to me that they – a) base their decisions primarily on price and b) show no loyalty to their suppliers once they have them in place. Just how interested would you be in taking on a customer like that?
We are all of us told to be as helpful as we can to every new enquiry, because we never know where it might lead, but we all know that this enquiry was not going anywhere, and you can call me a cynic if you want to, but then if you’re a regular reader of this blog you will have formed that opinion a long time ago!
But how to turn this otherwise negative blog into a positive one? Well, once we know what our job isn’t, what do we do with the information? Do we start by telling people what we don’t do? Absolutely not. What we do is start to form relationships with companies and people who do perform the jobs that we don’t.
How powerful would this conversation be:
“Hello, I’m looking to get 6 T Shirts made up for my mate’s stag night on the weekend”.
“Sorry, our minimum order is 50”
Not very powerful at all, and certainly not very memorable. How about –
“Well I’m afraid that our minimum order is 50 Shirts but don’t worry because I can still help you. It just so happens that we’re partnered with Logo Shirts in the high street and I know that they can turn around an order like that on the same day if you’d like – let me just get you their telephone number and please do tell them that we sent you”.
Everybody wins, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll feel better knowing that your time went from being wasted to making someone’s day – not bad.
We all of us have a very long list of the things that we don’t do, but there are people out there who do do those things. They’d be grateful for the referrals and they’ll almost certainly find a way to return the favour, so try it out and see.
No, I’m talking about what you are actually paid to do. Those tasks which make up the bulk of your day, along with those ‘lesser’ tasks which are clearly less important, but must be done none the less.
When you look at it, it’s really quite a long list isn’t it? Mine certainly took up more than one side of a packet of Swan Vestas, so I’m rather pleased. However, that was not the real task, nor the purpose of this blog.
Now, grab a second box of matches and start writing down all those things which you’re asked to do which are NOT your job. Now I’m not talking about making cups of tea or occasionally helping out in other departments – we all have to chip in when we can. No, I’m talking about those things that customers ask you to do that you really should not have to.
I’ll tell you what prompted this blog. A few days ago I answered the phone to someone who told me that they were ‘just carrying out a costing exercise’. A costing exercise? What exactly is that? Yup – just what I thought, you essentially want me to tell you my prices so that you can phone around three or four more people, check my prices against theirs and then check all of our prices against your current supplier.
My role is to sell merchandise, and not to help my competitors to do the same. The person calling has openly admitted to me that they – a) base their decisions primarily on price and b) show no loyalty to their suppliers once they have them in place. Just how interested would you be in taking on a customer like that?
We are all of us told to be as helpful as we can to every new enquiry, because we never know where it might lead, but we all know that this enquiry was not going anywhere, and you can call me a cynic if you want to, but then if you’re a regular reader of this blog you will have formed that opinion a long time ago!
But how to turn this otherwise negative blog into a positive one? Well, once we know what our job isn’t, what do we do with the information? Do we start by telling people what we don’t do? Absolutely not. What we do is start to form relationships with companies and people who do perform the jobs that we don’t.
How powerful would this conversation be:
“Hello, I’m looking to get 6 T Shirts made up for my mate’s stag night on the weekend”.
“Sorry, our minimum order is 50”
Not very powerful at all, and certainly not very memorable. How about –
“Well I’m afraid that our minimum order is 50 Shirts but don’t worry because I can still help you. It just so happens that we’re partnered with Logo Shirts in the high street and I know that they can turn around an order like that on the same day if you’d like – let me just get you their telephone number and please do tell them that we sent you”.
Everybody wins, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll feel better knowing that your time went from being wasted to making someone’s day – not bad.
We all of us have a very long list of the things that we don’t do, but there are people out there who do do those things. They’d be grateful for the referrals and they’ll almost certainly find a way to return the favour, so try it out and see.
Thursday 26 August 2010
Episode Two from Merchandise Mania TV
Merchandise Mania TV is on the air. Well, I say "air", obviously it's on the web. This week, your presenter is the very cuddly Jurgens Brune - a man who can comfortably ingest 700 calories before the rest of us have even had coffee. Enjoy.
Thursday 19 August 2010
The 100th Blog
Well here we are - 100 posts old today. I wonder if Blogger will send me a prize as soon as I click on the Publish Post button. I suspect not. Let's face it, 100 is not the biggest number is some people's worlds, but I'm rather proud of it, so I shall take a moment to look up at the ceiling and smile.
Mmmm. That's better.
I had so many different topics on my mind this morning, which makes a refreshing change from the uninspired writer's block that had been plaguing me for the last couple of weeks. Clearly, this blog has become and opportunity for me to rant and moan about all that's wrong in the world of sales - not as a soapbox, but as a means to train and educate.
I've learned things along the way myself, and I'm still hopeful that I can take all of these musings and get some publisher to turn them into a book for me. Still hopeful.....still....
But I looked back at post number 1. In it, I said that I would bring what's new and exciting in the world of promotional merchandise. After all, the blog had a second purpose beyond my exorcising my demons - it was meant to drive traffic to the Merchandise Mania website and by using appropriate keywords like branded merchandise, corporate gifts and so on, all of those lovely search engines (yes, there is more than one out there) would send new customers my way.
So this week, I thought I would talk about product, and as we're coming into September, now really is the time to start looking at your diaries and calendars for 2011.
We have so many designs to choose from. Desk diaries, A5 and pocket, with a range of cover styles and different colours, we're bound to have the perfect diary to match your corporate image. What's more, our diaries can include up to 16 full colour 'tip in' pages, allowing you to advertise your products and inform your customers and staff.
Here's the thing. Have you ever noticed how there always seem to be one style of diary that's so much more popular than the others? Yup - this one-
There's a reason for that. It's the cheapest model and as such, the diary factories make substantially more of them than any of the others. What happens next is that a whole bunch of forward thinking companies buy the more interesting designs early and so by October and November, everyone else is left to buy what's left on the shelves.
It's not that they want this design - it's just that they have to buy diaries because their customers expect them, and they're too late to have any real choice.
The moral of the story? Oh come on, surely you've figured it out. Order your diaries now, whilst the choices are plentiful and the prices are decent.
Hope that helps. Here's to the next 100 blogs.
Friday 13 August 2010
One more until we hit the magic century
You know, usually I write my blogs on Thursdays, but as I came into work yesterday I realised that there was nothing that I found truly irksome about which I could write. Oh sure, I could have told you all about some brand new product or a really cool pen, but for some reason I just didn’t feel like it. However, with only one more blog to go before I can boast my 100th post, I figured I would go off on a small tangent - all I needed was something to get me properly annoyed.
In the back of my mind, I knew it would only be a matter of time before something really bothered me and, as luck would have it, only 24 hours later, I find myself truly perturbed.
I am in the midst of putting together some designs for some pin badges, and the hope is that the company in question will give them out to something in excess of 10,000 people.
In an attempt to convey a sense of British pride, they asked that an image of the Union Jack be incorporated somewhere in the design. Now even though they loved the designs, certain people in management were concerned that the use of a Union Jack might have connotations of a connection with the British National Party. For those of you outside of the UK – The BNP is an extremely right wing organisation whose views are wildly unpopular with a good number of people living in the UK – myself included.
But my issue here is not with the BNP. I’d rather not show up on their radar thank you very much, and given what a public forum this is, the less I say the better. No. My issue is with the fact that my country’s flag is no longer consider a symbol of patriotism or of something in which we should be proud – it’s become a symbol of hatred.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not a strong supporter of all things British. I don’t proudly hang a flag in my window whenever there’s a major sporting event and I don’t really care less about the Royal Family. But what is happening to that flag is wrong.
I used to look at the relationships that Americans have with their flag and think that it was all just a little too much. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, what’s wrong with a little patriotism? What’s wrong with a little pride?
I’m not screaming from the rooftops about how proud I am to be British, but my country is not made up of racist hate mongers, and I’ll be damned if my flag is going to be thought of in that way.
In the back of my mind, I knew it would only be a matter of time before something really bothered me and, as luck would have it, only 24 hours later, I find myself truly perturbed.
I am in the midst of putting together some designs for some pin badges, and the hope is that the company in question will give them out to something in excess of 10,000 people.
In an attempt to convey a sense of British pride, they asked that an image of the Union Jack be incorporated somewhere in the design. Now even though they loved the designs, certain people in management were concerned that the use of a Union Jack might have connotations of a connection with the British National Party. For those of you outside of the UK – The BNP is an extremely right wing organisation whose views are wildly unpopular with a good number of people living in the UK – myself included.
But my issue here is not with the BNP. I’d rather not show up on their radar thank you very much, and given what a public forum this is, the less I say the better. No. My issue is with the fact that my country’s flag is no longer consider a symbol of patriotism or of something in which we should be proud – it’s become a symbol of hatred.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not a strong supporter of all things British. I don’t proudly hang a flag in my window whenever there’s a major sporting event and I don’t really care less about the Royal Family. But what is happening to that flag is wrong.
I used to look at the relationships that Americans have with their flag and think that it was all just a little too much. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, what’s wrong with a little patriotism? What’s wrong with a little pride?
I’m not screaming from the rooftops about how proud I am to be British, but my country is not made up of racist hate mongers, and I’ll be damned if my flag is going to be thought of in that way.
Thursday 5 August 2010
Can I Have Some Business Please
Good morning. Let me start by saying that young Felix must have had a bad dream or something because he woke up crying at 4.30am and then simply didn't want to go back to sleep. The result is that I'm going to need prescription levels of caffeine to keep awake but if I did take the necessary amount of Red Bull, my chest would actually explode. The best thing I can do is type fast and think little.
This week, I want to return to the subject of social networking. Some time ago on this blog I pointed out what a waste of time Facebook appeared to be to me. More than a year on, my opinion has been ever so slightly modified.
You see, social networking truly is the opiate of the modern masses, and whilst there are still tens of thousands of people who choose to update their status with mindless drivel, there are countless more professional people who put these tools to good use.
Promoting special offers in tweets, changing Facebook status to talk about their latest projects and, of course, blogging, all do wonders at increasing one's ranking in the search engines. It's a darn site cheaper than paying for clicks and there are now even people who tout themselves as Social Media Consultants - a role that would have been laughed out of the office a mere two years ago.
Trouble is, all this blogging seems to invite a very long term view. I write this blog once a week, and I actually post excerpts from this, along with other posts, in a business networking site called eCademy. The immediate result is that people in the business world get a little more insight into how I think and what I might be able to do for them. That's great, and because I enjoy writing too, I keep doing it.
However, I've come to realise that all of these offers, opinions, video feeds, jokes and everything else have come at the expense of my making a very simple request of my readers, and it is this - can I have some business please?
Yep, it's that simple. A lot of sales people come up against this hurdle time and time again. They lay down all of the groundwork, building rapport, presenting excellent products and yet, when it comes to the crunch, they simply don't ask for the business.
Well it strikes me that my blog has gone much the same way. So here's the thing - if you like what I write and you feel that the services that I can offer are relevant to your company, please get in touch so that we can talk about your promotional merchandising needs.
Pretty straightforward, but as I get close to the 100 posts mark, I thought it needed saying.
Have a good week.
This week, I want to return to the subject of social networking. Some time ago on this blog I pointed out what a waste of time Facebook appeared to be to me. More than a year on, my opinion has been ever so slightly modified.
You see, social networking truly is the opiate of the modern masses, and whilst there are still tens of thousands of people who choose to update their status with mindless drivel, there are countless more professional people who put these tools to good use.
Promoting special offers in tweets, changing Facebook status to talk about their latest projects and, of course, blogging, all do wonders at increasing one's ranking in the search engines. It's a darn site cheaper than paying for clicks and there are now even people who tout themselves as Social Media Consultants - a role that would have been laughed out of the office a mere two years ago.
Trouble is, all this blogging seems to invite a very long term view. I write this blog once a week, and I actually post excerpts from this, along with other posts, in a business networking site called eCademy. The immediate result is that people in the business world get a little more insight into how I think and what I might be able to do for them. That's great, and because I enjoy writing too, I keep doing it.
However, I've come to realise that all of these offers, opinions, video feeds, jokes and everything else have come at the expense of my making a very simple request of my readers, and it is this - can I have some business please?
Yep, it's that simple. A lot of sales people come up against this hurdle time and time again. They lay down all of the groundwork, building rapport, presenting excellent products and yet, when it comes to the crunch, they simply don't ask for the business.
Well it strikes me that my blog has gone much the same way. So here's the thing - if you like what I write and you feel that the services that I can offer are relevant to your company, please get in touch so that we can talk about your promotional merchandising needs.
Pretty straightforward, but as I get close to the 100 posts mark, I thought it needed saying.
Have a good week.
Thursday 29 July 2010
Merchandise Mania TV is On The Air
In a change from our regularly scheduled programming, this week we bring you video. The new Merchandise Mania TV channel is now on You Tube and here is our first installment. Yes, I do talk about pens, so please don't hold that against me - there's some other cool stuff in here too!
Thursday 22 July 2010
Being rude saves me several hours a week
At least once a day, I get some kind of email newsletter sent through to me. I have not spoken with the sender in years, and I don’t actually read the content. The email will last less than ten seconds in my inbox before being consigned to the watery depths of my recycle bin. Incidentally, how politically correct is that? It’s not a recycling bin – it’s the trash. It’s not like my deleted files are going to be remade into something more useful is it?
Here’s the thing. Each one of these emails has an unsubscribe option down the bottom, but I don’t want to click on it. It’s not because I believe that, at some point, they might send me something useful – I mean, how would I know, because I’ve already told you that I don’t read it.
The reason I don’t unsubscribe is to spare the sender’s feelings. I don’t want someone to know that I am no longer interested in what he or she has to tell me, but I don’t want to upset them either.
Am I doing them a disservice? Absolutely. Any smart business keeps metrics on everything, and if they’re doing a mailing campaign, they want to keep track on just how many emails they’re sending out.
How proud the firm that can boast that they’ve just completed an email campaign to 50,000 recipients! Yeah, well – that’s lovely, but just how many people actually read the email and took advantage of the information or offer being shared? “We’re delighted to have had 15 new enquiries,” they say.
OK, so 15 is actually pretty good – but it’s only 0.03% - which is not so impressive.
The trouble is that we are a society of polite liars. We reject sales calls by telling people we’re in meetings. We tell people we’ll get back to them when we know we’re not really interested. We tell people we’ll ‘think about it’ when we’ve already made up our minds that the answer is no.
Why must we equate honesty with rudeness? Surely it’s so much ruder to let someone believe that they may be about to do some business with us when we know that they won’t.
Now there are plenty of people who think I’m rude. I tell people I’m not interested, or that I’m not going to take part in a certain activity. It’s not that I’m busy or have something more important – I’m just not interested. Certainly I often get challenged as to why, and that is a good conversation, rather than an attempt to close a sale.
I’m not suggesting that you shut every opportunity down before it starts to blossom, but you know as well as I do that there are whole bunch of things that come into you on a daily basis which simply stir no emotional response. They are blank space, and they’re stealing your life from under you.
Just think about how much of your busy time you could claw back if you just told people “no” instead of “I’ll let you know”. Sales people will stop calling, irrelevant emails will stop arriving and unnecessary meetings will cease to be.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven?
Here’s the thing. Each one of these emails has an unsubscribe option down the bottom, but I don’t want to click on it. It’s not because I believe that, at some point, they might send me something useful – I mean, how would I know, because I’ve already told you that I don’t read it.
The reason I don’t unsubscribe is to spare the sender’s feelings. I don’t want someone to know that I am no longer interested in what he or she has to tell me, but I don’t want to upset them either.
Am I doing them a disservice? Absolutely. Any smart business keeps metrics on everything, and if they’re doing a mailing campaign, they want to keep track on just how many emails they’re sending out.
How proud the firm that can boast that they’ve just completed an email campaign to 50,000 recipients! Yeah, well – that’s lovely, but just how many people actually read the email and took advantage of the information or offer being shared? “We’re delighted to have had 15 new enquiries,” they say.
OK, so 15 is actually pretty good – but it’s only 0.03% - which is not so impressive.
The trouble is that we are a society of polite liars. We reject sales calls by telling people we’re in meetings. We tell people we’ll get back to them when we know we’re not really interested. We tell people we’ll ‘think about it’ when we’ve already made up our minds that the answer is no.
Why must we equate honesty with rudeness? Surely it’s so much ruder to let someone believe that they may be about to do some business with us when we know that they won’t.
Now there are plenty of people who think I’m rude. I tell people I’m not interested, or that I’m not going to take part in a certain activity. It’s not that I’m busy or have something more important – I’m just not interested. Certainly I often get challenged as to why, and that is a good conversation, rather than an attempt to close a sale.
I’m not suggesting that you shut every opportunity down before it starts to blossom, but you know as well as I do that there are whole bunch of things that come into you on a daily basis which simply stir no emotional response. They are blank space, and they’re stealing your life from under you.
Just think about how much of your busy time you could claw back if you just told people “no” instead of “I’ll let you know”. Sales people will stop calling, irrelevant emails will stop arriving and unnecessary meetings will cease to be.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven?
Thursday 15 July 2010
You're on a roll
Have you ever played darts? I don’t mean pinning a photo of some Z list celebrity on a board and aiming for the eyes – I mean proper, normal darts?
If you have, even just once or twice, then you’ll be familiar with the fact that if you throw them very quickly in succession, that the second and third dart are more likely to land quite close to the first one. It’s like your arm has some sort of targeting mechanism that works for very small periods of time.
Professional darts players know this too. If you ever watch them play, you can see that in the earliest stages of the game, when they’re trying to score as much as possible, that they barely pause between throws.
How is this relevant to you? Well the same could be said of sales people. Have you ever noticed that once a particular sales person gets a good order, that another two of three seem to come along almost immediately? To coin a phrase, these people are “on a roll”.
Gamblers have winning streaks, sales people have roles, but it all comes down to the same thing. Positive results have a sort of magnetism to them. You get one great result and you feel good about it. That positive, good feeling feeds back on itself and you grow more and more successful.
But it’s not all tree hugging, hippy crap – sure, there is something to be said for a positive vibe, but in isolation it’s about as much use as a pork pie at a Barmitzvah.
Feeling good and positive changes the way we act. We speak with more confidence, we smile more, we’re open to new ideas and conversations, hence we essentially become someone that others actually want to do business with.
Armed with this, it’s easy to work out how to turn your losing streak into a winning one. Just tell yourself that it’s finished. It happens to everyone and thanks very much but you’re done with it now. Now take a deep breath and then tell yourself that you are in the midst of another winning streak. Really take the time to believe it, and then pick up the phone and make your next sales call.
If you’ve convinced yourself effectively, you’ll notice a pleasant change in the way people respond to you, and before very long, that winning streak that you just made up will actually become real.
Good luck.
If you have, even just once or twice, then you’ll be familiar with the fact that if you throw them very quickly in succession, that the second and third dart are more likely to land quite close to the first one. It’s like your arm has some sort of targeting mechanism that works for very small periods of time.
Professional darts players know this too. If you ever watch them play, you can see that in the earliest stages of the game, when they’re trying to score as much as possible, that they barely pause between throws.
How is this relevant to you? Well the same could be said of sales people. Have you ever noticed that once a particular sales person gets a good order, that another two of three seem to come along almost immediately? To coin a phrase, these people are “on a roll”.
Gamblers have winning streaks, sales people have roles, but it all comes down to the same thing. Positive results have a sort of magnetism to them. You get one great result and you feel good about it. That positive, good feeling feeds back on itself and you grow more and more successful.
But it’s not all tree hugging, hippy crap – sure, there is something to be said for a positive vibe, but in isolation it’s about as much use as a pork pie at a Barmitzvah.
Feeling good and positive changes the way we act. We speak with more confidence, we smile more, we’re open to new ideas and conversations, hence we essentially become someone that others actually want to do business with.
Armed with this, it’s easy to work out how to turn your losing streak into a winning one. Just tell yourself that it’s finished. It happens to everyone and thanks very much but you’re done with it now. Now take a deep breath and then tell yourself that you are in the midst of another winning streak. Really take the time to believe it, and then pick up the phone and make your next sales call.
If you’ve convinced yourself effectively, you’ll notice a pleasant change in the way people respond to you, and before very long, that winning streak that you just made up will actually become real.
Good luck.
Thursday 8 July 2010
My Supermarket Thinks I'm an Idiot
Now I don't think it's fair to name names here - in fact it may even constitute liable, but I'm getting just a little bit fed up with my local supermarket. I'm faced with aisle upon aisle of special offers - buy one get one free, buy two for only £5, buy three and the cheapest item costs nothing and blah blah blah.
The trouble is that these offers are robbing people of their hard earned cash - buying two perishable items, desperately believing that they'll eat both of them before their sell by date and giving themselves a pat on the back for saving that all important 50p.
But the deals are all wrong, and to illustrate my point - here are three deals that I spotted whilst shopping last night:
Dairylea Cheese Slices - perfect for the burgers that you'll be doing on the BBQ this weekend. 16 slices will cost you £1.86. Not bad. However, 8 slices will cost you £1.25 and this week it's by one, get one free! What moron is going to be buying the 16 pack?
Caffeine Free Diet Coke - my wife drinks it so don't judge me. A pack of 8 cans for only £3.50, or if you prefer, you can take home a pack of 12 cans for.....wait for it.....£3.50!
Fabric Softener - 1.5l for just £3.37, or you can buy 750ml for £1.67. Hold on a sec - doesn't that mean that if I buy two bottles I actually save money? Well yes it does, and this is a major bone of contention for me, because these people are essentially encouraging people to go through more packaging. It's ecologically unsound to encourage us to buy 2 smaller bottles as opposed to one big one, and the argument against that could fill another blog all on its own.
The supermarket's response to these errors? "Well it's the price we're told to sell at," oh come off it, you're a major client to the suppliers, so you should be able to dictate the prices that you charge, don't go fobbing it off on some faceless distributor! Now I want to see how many more of these ridicuous offers are out there, so please send them to me, either as a comment to this blog or on an email, and let's see if we can collectively do something about this.
Remember, I won't name names - but every little helps.
The trouble is that these offers are robbing people of their hard earned cash - buying two perishable items, desperately believing that they'll eat both of them before their sell by date and giving themselves a pat on the back for saving that all important 50p.
But the deals are all wrong, and to illustrate my point - here are three deals that I spotted whilst shopping last night:
Dairylea Cheese Slices - perfect for the burgers that you'll be doing on the BBQ this weekend. 16 slices will cost you £1.86. Not bad. However, 8 slices will cost you £1.25 and this week it's by one, get one free! What moron is going to be buying the 16 pack?
Caffeine Free Diet Coke - my wife drinks it so don't judge me. A pack of 8 cans for only £3.50, or if you prefer, you can take home a pack of 12 cans for.....wait for it.....£3.50!
Fabric Softener - 1.5l for just £3.37, or you can buy 750ml for £1.67. Hold on a sec - doesn't that mean that if I buy two bottles I actually save money? Well yes it does, and this is a major bone of contention for me, because these people are essentially encouraging people to go through more packaging. It's ecologically unsound to encourage us to buy 2 smaller bottles as opposed to one big one, and the argument against that could fill another blog all on its own.
The supermarket's response to these errors? "Well it's the price we're told to sell at," oh come off it, you're a major client to the suppliers, so you should be able to dictate the prices that you charge, don't go fobbing it off on some faceless distributor! Now I want to see how many more of these ridicuous offers are out there, so please send them to me, either as a comment to this blog or on an email, and let's see if we can collectively do something about this.
Remember, I won't name names - but every little helps.
Thursday 24 June 2010
EWVXGFDA - These random letters are worth a fortune
A very good morning to you all. As I write this, England are enjoying the euphoria of not being knocked out of the World Cup at the group stages. It's an odd mentality isn't it? We don't so much celebrate winning as we celebrate not losing. Still, it's nice to see so many people in a good mood, so let's see if we can keep it up.
This week I want to talk to you about voucher codes. Now there are a number of sites out there that will offer you discounts on restaurants, high street retail stores, attractions and all sorts of things. All you need to do is know where to find them, print them out and WHAM - money saved.
Shelly (that's my wife for all you new readers out there, and as much as I'd like her to read this blog, she rarely does) asked me what the point was in these vouchers. Why would anyone want to just give discounts to anyone who asks? It's fairly obvious though - these vouchers are an enticement. As a shopper you may well be saving 20-30%, but without the voucher you may well not have shopped there at all, so everybody wins - especially the retailer who has created a new customer.
Indeed, these people are buying your business, and the fact is that the system is working. I don't even think about shopping without checking the voucher sites first these days. But is there more to the story? Of course there is.
Let's say you're exhibiting at your first ever trade show and you've decided to have some promotional gifts on your stand. If you printed some kind of voucher code on the merchandise, then you would have a way to measure just where your customers are coming from.
Think about it - when you ask customers how they heard of you (waddya mean you don't ask - you really should) then a lot of them will simply say they Googled you. They're not lying to you, it's just that the correct answer is not all that important to them and they won't have remembered.
How much more powerful is this though? "Hello, I was at your stand at the recent ABC Exhibition and I have a voucher here - the code is WVXYG - is the offer still valid?"
Fantastic! You see if you give out, lets say, 1000 gifts and you get 150 calls like this, then you know that your merchandise is giving you a 15% return which is pretty great. You've tested it, you've measured it, and given the success ratio, there's a strong chance that you will repeat it, perhaps with even greater numbers next time.
Remember - a gift, in and of itself, really won't do that much for your business. Applied correctly, it could be a serious turning point for you.
Have a great week in business.
This week I want to talk to you about voucher codes. Now there are a number of sites out there that will offer you discounts on restaurants, high street retail stores, attractions and all sorts of things. All you need to do is know where to find them, print them out and WHAM - money saved.
Shelly (that's my wife for all you new readers out there, and as much as I'd like her to read this blog, she rarely does) asked me what the point was in these vouchers. Why would anyone want to just give discounts to anyone who asks? It's fairly obvious though - these vouchers are an enticement. As a shopper you may well be saving 20-30%, but without the voucher you may well not have shopped there at all, so everybody wins - especially the retailer who has created a new customer.
Indeed, these people are buying your business, and the fact is that the system is working. I don't even think about shopping without checking the voucher sites first these days. But is there more to the story? Of course there is.
Let's say you're exhibiting at your first ever trade show and you've decided to have some promotional gifts on your stand. If you printed some kind of voucher code on the merchandise, then you would have a way to measure just where your customers are coming from.
Think about it - when you ask customers how they heard of you (waddya mean you don't ask - you really should) then a lot of them will simply say they Googled you. They're not lying to you, it's just that the correct answer is not all that important to them and they won't have remembered.
How much more powerful is this though? "Hello, I was at your stand at the recent ABC Exhibition and I have a voucher here - the code is WVXYG - is the offer still valid?"
Fantastic! You see if you give out, lets say, 1000 gifts and you get 150 calls like this, then you know that your merchandise is giving you a 15% return which is pretty great. You've tested it, you've measured it, and given the success ratio, there's a strong chance that you will repeat it, perhaps with even greater numbers next time.
Remember - a gift, in and of itself, really won't do that much for your business. Applied correctly, it could be a serious turning point for you.
Have a great week in business.
Thursday 17 June 2010
Sorry to interrupt? NEVER!
We’ve all been through it – it’s the end of a long day and we’ve finally kicked off our shoes and settled onto the sofa when WHAM! The phone rings and once you’ve said “hello” three times waiting for the call centre operator’s software to kick in, they launch into their pitch:
“Good evening Mr Rose. Sorry to bother you. I’m calling from wer;lkjvfwe0r9qwecvnuwer…….zzzzzzzz” I mean they may as well be speaking gibberish after that awful opening. “Sorry to bother you” is a line that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
The problem is that it is weak, and it sucks all of the confidence out of the call. The person trying to sell you their goods or services clearly doesn’t believe that what they have to offer is any good. If they did, it wouldn’t be a bother at all would it.
I mean think about it. Does this sound like a likely scenario? “Good evening Mr Rose, I’m calling from National Savings and Investments and I am delighted to tell you that you have just won one million pounds!!!!”
Are the people at NSI sorry to bother me? Of course not. They know I am going to be ecstatic about the reason they’re calling.
Are people going to be just as pleased to take your call? Sure, chances are you’re not calling to give them something, but if you really believe in the value of your product, why wouldn’t you be just as enthusiastic?
“Good morning Mr Prospect. My name is Paul Rose and I’m calling today to see just how we can help you make the most of your promotional merchandise.” I’m not sorry to bother them because I am there to help them. It’ll come across in the tone of my voice and the shake of my hand when I meet them.
That’s right – they’re lucky I called. I could have helped any one of their competitors today but I chose to offer my expertise to them! Now do the people making sales calls in your organisation put out the same vibe when they pick up the phone? If not, then they’ll be sorry……
“Good evening Mr Rose. Sorry to bother you. I’m calling from wer;lkjvfwe0r9qwecvnuwer…….zzzzzzzz” I mean they may as well be speaking gibberish after that awful opening. “Sorry to bother you” is a line that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
The problem is that it is weak, and it sucks all of the confidence out of the call. The person trying to sell you their goods or services clearly doesn’t believe that what they have to offer is any good. If they did, it wouldn’t be a bother at all would it.
I mean think about it. Does this sound like a likely scenario? “Good evening Mr Rose, I’m calling from National Savings and Investments and I am delighted to tell you that you have just won one million pounds!!!!”
Are the people at NSI sorry to bother me? Of course not. They know I am going to be ecstatic about the reason they’re calling.
Are people going to be just as pleased to take your call? Sure, chances are you’re not calling to give them something, but if you really believe in the value of your product, why wouldn’t you be just as enthusiastic?
“Good morning Mr Prospect. My name is Paul Rose and I’m calling today to see just how we can help you make the most of your promotional merchandise.” I’m not sorry to bother them because I am there to help them. It’ll come across in the tone of my voice and the shake of my hand when I meet them.
That’s right – they’re lucky I called. I could have helped any one of their competitors today but I chose to offer my expertise to them! Now do the people making sales calls in your organisation put out the same vibe when they pick up the phone? If not, then they’ll be sorry……
Thursday 10 June 2010
A lack of integrity is costing you big time
Many years ago I attended a personal development programme known as The Landmark Forum. Many of you will have heard of it, and some of you may well have gone through it yourselves. To those people, you know all this stuff, so why not just flick over to my website and have a look at all the new merchandise that we have to offer.
I want to talk to you about integrity. Now this word means many things to many people, but for the purposes of this blog – and any future dealings that you may have with me – the definition is very straight forward. It is quite simply doing what you say you are going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
Not exactly rocket science, but you’d be amazed just how many “professional” organisations fall down miserably on this point.
Allow me to elaborate. I’m having a bit of trouble with a mobile broadband service provider at the moment. Now discretion prevents me from naming names, but suffice to say that their name is synonymous with the symbol for carbon dioxide, once you take all the carbon out.
After going round the houses and getting absolutely nowhere, the person on the phone gave me his word that he would call me back the next day. Now I’ve dealt with these people before, as has my wife, and I didn’t believe for a moment that he would actually call me, so I questioned him on it. With all the reserve I could muster (and that’s a lot of reserve let me tell you) the conversation went like this:
“No offence (OK, I realise that these words usually mean that the statement to follow has a 99.9% chance of actually causing offence) but I have no faith in the statement that you will call me tomorrow. In all my history of dealing with your company, nobody has ever called me back once they’ve promised to do so”.
“I understand Mr. Rose”, he offers, “but my Team Leader has told me to make sure that I will call you. So it’s in my notes to do so and I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon and will give you a call.”
I see – so despite the fact he’d offered to do it anyway, it seems that unless his manager was on his case to provide basic customer service, that he simply would not have bothered at all?
So did he call back the next day? I think we all know the answer to that question. But it gets worse – when I called the day after it turned out that he had made no notes reminding him to call me at all!
What kind of crappy customer relationship management is that? It’s bad enough that these massive organisations like this make you feel like just another number, but when given the chance to do just a little better, they totally stuff it up!
Anyway, rant over – I put in a formal complaint to them and they plan to invest more in staff training. Quite sad though that the training in question is to tell them to not lie to their customers. I mean seriously, if you don’t think you’ll be in a position to call me tomorrow then just don’t tell me that you will.
It all comes down to managing expectations. If you know that an order will take 7-10 days to fulfil, tell the client 10 days. That way the customer is either satisfied that their goods are on time, or delighted that they are early. Tell them 7 days just because you think it’s what they want to hear and you are inviting a world of trouble.
Is it really necessary to point out to the business world that they should not lie to their customers? Sadly, in the faceless, unqualified, most likely to not care about their job, assuming they’re even in this country – not that I’m a racist or anything but come on, you know what I mean – call centre mentality, the sad truth is that integrity has been lost to the ages.
Just don’t stand for it OK? If you’re getting given the wrong information by any of your providers, call them on it, and demand better of your business partners. Ultimately, the world will be a better place for it.
I want to talk to you about integrity. Now this word means many things to many people, but for the purposes of this blog – and any future dealings that you may have with me – the definition is very straight forward. It is quite simply doing what you say you are going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
Not exactly rocket science, but you’d be amazed just how many “professional” organisations fall down miserably on this point.
Allow me to elaborate. I’m having a bit of trouble with a mobile broadband service provider at the moment. Now discretion prevents me from naming names, but suffice to say that their name is synonymous with the symbol for carbon dioxide, once you take all the carbon out.
After going round the houses and getting absolutely nowhere, the person on the phone gave me his word that he would call me back the next day. Now I’ve dealt with these people before, as has my wife, and I didn’t believe for a moment that he would actually call me, so I questioned him on it. With all the reserve I could muster (and that’s a lot of reserve let me tell you) the conversation went like this:
“No offence (OK, I realise that these words usually mean that the statement to follow has a 99.9% chance of actually causing offence) but I have no faith in the statement that you will call me tomorrow. In all my history of dealing with your company, nobody has ever called me back once they’ve promised to do so”.
“I understand Mr. Rose”, he offers, “but my Team Leader has told me to make sure that I will call you. So it’s in my notes to do so and I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon and will give you a call.”
I see – so despite the fact he’d offered to do it anyway, it seems that unless his manager was on his case to provide basic customer service, that he simply would not have bothered at all?
So did he call back the next day? I think we all know the answer to that question. But it gets worse – when I called the day after it turned out that he had made no notes reminding him to call me at all!
What kind of crappy customer relationship management is that? It’s bad enough that these massive organisations like this make you feel like just another number, but when given the chance to do just a little better, they totally stuff it up!
Anyway, rant over – I put in a formal complaint to them and they plan to invest more in staff training. Quite sad though that the training in question is to tell them to not lie to their customers. I mean seriously, if you don’t think you’ll be in a position to call me tomorrow then just don’t tell me that you will.
It all comes down to managing expectations. If you know that an order will take 7-10 days to fulfil, tell the client 10 days. That way the customer is either satisfied that their goods are on time, or delighted that they are early. Tell them 7 days just because you think it’s what they want to hear and you are inviting a world of trouble.
Is it really necessary to point out to the business world that they should not lie to their customers? Sadly, in the faceless, unqualified, most likely to not care about their job, assuming they’re even in this country – not that I’m a racist or anything but come on, you know what I mean – call centre mentality, the sad truth is that integrity has been lost to the ages.
Just don’t stand for it OK? If you’re getting given the wrong information by any of your providers, call them on it, and demand better of your business partners. Ultimately, the world will be a better place for it.
Thursday 3 June 2010
New catalogue out this week
It seems that one of my old posts has started up a little bit of an argument, and I LOVE IT! The post in question is called "Scrap your no names policy" and you'll find it in the archives on the right, so feel free to have a read and chuck your two cents' worth in.
Rather than sparking another controversy this week, I just wanted to let you all know that the brand new Merchandise Mania catalogue is out this week, so if you'd like a copy, please drop me an email and I'll be glad to send one out to you.
Or will I?
'Glad' may be the wrong choice of word here. I may well send you a catalogue but I do find myself wondering why you would want me to do so. The catalogue itself is filled with all of the same generic merchandise that you would see from countless of my competitors. There's nothing wrong with that - it has to appeal to the masses and if we filled it with nothing but weird and wacky things, a lot of people would simply dismiss it.
The fact is however, that in any given year, over 60% of the merchandise that I sell to people was not in the catalogue in the first place. Much of this stems from what I talked about in last week's blog, in that if you do simply look through these books, you're limiting yourselves to a very small piece of a much larger picture.
Think about it. I have access to over 1 million products worldwide. Would you want to trawl through a catalogue with everything in it? Of course not. The sensible path is to get me in to discuss your marketing strategy with you and then start making suggestions as to which items may well bring about the desired result.
Ultimately, and I've said this before, there's no lack of merchandise out there, but there is a lack of application. Branded with a clever message, the ubiquitous pen could become your most powerful marketing ally. Sure, you will have seen it in the catalogue, but I doubt that it would have jumped off of the page for you.
So by all means, call me to take a look at the new catalogue. Just bear in mind that I won't be putting it in the post - I'll be bringing it with me to what promises to be a very enlightening meeting.
Have a good week.
Rather than sparking another controversy this week, I just wanted to let you all know that the brand new Merchandise Mania catalogue is out this week, so if you'd like a copy, please drop me an email and I'll be glad to send one out to you.
Or will I?
'Glad' may be the wrong choice of word here. I may well send you a catalogue but I do find myself wondering why you would want me to do so. The catalogue itself is filled with all of the same generic merchandise that you would see from countless of my competitors. There's nothing wrong with that - it has to appeal to the masses and if we filled it with nothing but weird and wacky things, a lot of people would simply dismiss it.
The fact is however, that in any given year, over 60% of the merchandise that I sell to people was not in the catalogue in the first place. Much of this stems from what I talked about in last week's blog, in that if you do simply look through these books, you're limiting yourselves to a very small piece of a much larger picture.
Think about it. I have access to over 1 million products worldwide. Would you want to trawl through a catalogue with everything in it? Of course not. The sensible path is to get me in to discuss your marketing strategy with you and then start making suggestions as to which items may well bring about the desired result.
Ultimately, and I've said this before, there's no lack of merchandise out there, but there is a lack of application. Branded with a clever message, the ubiquitous pen could become your most powerful marketing ally. Sure, you will have seen it in the catalogue, but I doubt that it would have jumped off of the page for you.
So by all means, call me to take a look at the new catalogue. Just bear in mind that I won't be putting it in the post - I'll be bringing it with me to what promises to be a very enlightening meeting.
Have a good week.
Thursday 27 May 2010
Buying Online
Well what a lovely summer we've enjoyed here in the UK. If any of you missed it, it was last weekend, so I hope you made the most of it.
This week, I want to talk about the benefits of buying from companies who host the majority of their business on line. I'll list them in no particular order:
1. They might be cheaper
That's the end of the list.
Of course these companies are going to be cheaper. The majority of them are based in the back bedrooms of people who are showing a little entrepreneurial spirit. I say good luck to them - for the most part. Whenever I am shopping for a new piece of technical equipment, my first port of call is always eBay - not because I want to necessarily buy something second hand, but because a lot of people run eBay stores using a principle known as dropshipping.
Dropshipping is brilliant. People open stores online offering a fantastic selection of brand new merchandise at competitive prices. The truly brilliant part is that these people are not holding any stock. They will take your order, send it through to the factory where your goods are being held, pay that factory and then keep their own markup for themselves.
The factory send the goods directly and will even handle any complaints or technical faults, so everybody wins.
Fantastic in the 'retail' world, but are the same benefits in play when it comes to corporate sales, more specifically, promotional merchandise? Obviously not, because the benefits of working with someone who might be cheaper are far outweighed by the pitfalls, and let's see if we can list some of those:
1. Less quality control
2. Difficult to find a decent solution when there's a problem with your order]
3. No personal service - you are just a number
4. No creativity - you pick what you want from their site and they supply it to you
5. No long term view - it's all about revenue
6. Limited options - if it's not on the site, you won't get to see it
7. No focus on results
And of course, there are loads more, but you get the point don't you? If price is the only consideration that you have, then you're really taking a short term view. That may actually work for you. If, for example, you've got one charity event per year and you just want to give out some badges, then it makes sense to get them for as little as you can.
However, I'd like to think that the majority of people reading this blog are working within companies that want to excel in the marketplace and make the very most of their marketing budget.
One other point to consider is that I emphasised that these Internet firms might be cheaper. The fact is that larger providers have stronger buying powers and will most likely be in a position to offer you a competitive rate, along with all of the other benefits that I've mentioned.
So by all means shop around, unless you're looking to be successful, in which case just give me a call and let's get down to business.
Have a good week.
This week, I want to talk about the benefits of buying from companies who host the majority of their business on line. I'll list them in no particular order:
1. They might be cheaper
That's the end of the list.
Of course these companies are going to be cheaper. The majority of them are based in the back bedrooms of people who are showing a little entrepreneurial spirit. I say good luck to them - for the most part. Whenever I am shopping for a new piece of technical equipment, my first port of call is always eBay - not because I want to necessarily buy something second hand, but because a lot of people run eBay stores using a principle known as dropshipping.
Dropshipping is brilliant. People open stores online offering a fantastic selection of brand new merchandise at competitive prices. The truly brilliant part is that these people are not holding any stock. They will take your order, send it through to the factory where your goods are being held, pay that factory and then keep their own markup for themselves.
The factory send the goods directly and will even handle any complaints or technical faults, so everybody wins.
Fantastic in the 'retail' world, but are the same benefits in play when it comes to corporate sales, more specifically, promotional merchandise? Obviously not, because the benefits of working with someone who might be cheaper are far outweighed by the pitfalls, and let's see if we can list some of those:
1. Less quality control
2. Difficult to find a decent solution when there's a problem with your order]
3. No personal service - you are just a number
4. No creativity - you pick what you want from their site and they supply it to you
5. No long term view - it's all about revenue
6. Limited options - if it's not on the site, you won't get to see it
7. No focus on results
And of course, there are loads more, but you get the point don't you? If price is the only consideration that you have, then you're really taking a short term view. That may actually work for you. If, for example, you've got one charity event per year and you just want to give out some badges, then it makes sense to get them for as little as you can.
However, I'd like to think that the majority of people reading this blog are working within companies that want to excel in the marketplace and make the very most of their marketing budget.
One other point to consider is that I emphasised that these Internet firms might be cheaper. The fact is that larger providers have stronger buying powers and will most likely be in a position to offer you a competitive rate, along with all of the other benefits that I've mentioned.
So by all means shop around, unless you're looking to be successful, in which case just give me a call and let's get down to business.
Have a good week.
Thursday 20 May 2010
Don't call us - we'll call you
In the world of sales, we are, all of us, surrounded by clichés. Trouble is, if you dig a little deeper, it turns out that the majority of these clichés are, in fact, lies.
They’re not malicious lies designed to bring down corporations and fiddle people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. They’re not massive whoppers, designed to cover up to mistakes of high ranking officials. Some of them would not even classify as “Porkies” (for the non UK readers, this term comes from the Cockney Rhyming Slang, pork pies, which simply means lies. And don’t go thinking that you can work out how people in the East End of London speak by watching a Guy Ritchie film, because you can’t.)
No. These lies are bordering on white lies. Nobody’s getting hurt – in fact it’s quite the opposite – they’re used to spare people’s feelings. Trouble is, real business growth depends upon truth, and we’re so used to telling people what we think they want to hear that the truth has become some weird and diluted version of itself. Think about it, we don’t even really believe some of the stuff we’re told any more. So here, in reverse order, are my top 3 annoying lies:
At number 3 - “He’s in a meeting at the moment”. It seems that there are some people out there who are always in meetings. Whenever you call, they’re in a meeting. Doesn’t matter if it’s first thing in the morning or last thing at night, you know exactly what you’re going to be told when you call. Do you believe they’re in a meeting? Of course you don’t. If anyone spent that much time in meetings they would never get any real work done. There’s only so much crap you can talk about around a conference table before you want to run out of the room screaming.
Anyone working that inefficiently clearly does need help. If your firm specialises in management consultancy and training, you might want to consider sending that prospect a gift, making some joke about the fact that they always seem to be in a meeting and how you’d like to help them manage their time a lot better.
Just missing the top spot at number 2- “We’ll come back to you if we’re interested”. You won’t. Just grow a pair and tell it straight – you won’t. In fact, you won’t even remember me by this time tomorrow. The truth is that the interest in a product or service has a very short shelf life – if your company can offer me something that I need right now, then I’m very pleased to discuss it with you. If I don’t think I’m going to need it for six months, then don’t expect me to call you when I do, because your competitors are already beating a path to my door, and the one who calls me exactly when I need them are more likely to get a chance to bid for the business.
Can you beat that one? Of course you can. Diarise your next call and then send something to that prospect to let them know that you’re thinking of them and that you will be in touch closer to the time that they need you. And here’s a tip – halve the time. If they tell you they don’t need you for six months, you call them in three. The script is a simple one, “When last we spoke, you told me it would be a good idea to call you in six months. Now I appreciate that that is still three months away, but I wanted to make sure that there had not been any developments on which I may have missed out.”
No respectable business person is going to have a problem with a line like that. You’re being respectful, professional and proactive, without coming on too strong, and that has to count for something.
And the number 1 lie, at least in my book – “More or less”. That probably needs a little more explanation. Think about the last time you asked someone if they had taken care of a specific task and they answered with “More or less”. IT’S ALWAYS LESS.
Think it through – “Have you finished doing the dishes?” “More or less”. Well they haven’t finished have they? It’s not like they’ve finished and then took the time to redecorate the kitchen is it?
“Is that presentation ready for the meeting?” “More or less”. So it isn’t actually ready then is it?
And from a sales perspective, if someone responds with a “more or less” when you ask them if all of their needs are met in relation to your business, then you know that there is an opening there. Remember, more or less just means less, it’s just that people are a little embarrassed that they have not taken care of business. Tell them that you are there to help them, that people aren’t always totally in control of a given situation and then offer them the help that they need.
Ultimately, these little lies are opportunities. They’re a chance to dig a little deeper and ask what the real problems are. Problems that your company may well be able to solve, if only given half the chance.
So go for it. Challenge the excuses, ask just how “less” their “more or less” is. Find out when your prospect is coming out of his meeting and never ever ever wait for someone to get back to you when they’re interested.
Does that all make sense? Well……more or less.
They’re not malicious lies designed to bring down corporations and fiddle people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. They’re not massive whoppers, designed to cover up to mistakes of high ranking officials. Some of them would not even classify as “Porkies” (for the non UK readers, this term comes from the Cockney Rhyming Slang, pork pies, which simply means lies. And don’t go thinking that you can work out how people in the East End of London speak by watching a Guy Ritchie film, because you can’t.)
No. These lies are bordering on white lies. Nobody’s getting hurt – in fact it’s quite the opposite – they’re used to spare people’s feelings. Trouble is, real business growth depends upon truth, and we’re so used to telling people what we think they want to hear that the truth has become some weird and diluted version of itself. Think about it, we don’t even really believe some of the stuff we’re told any more. So here, in reverse order, are my top 3 annoying lies:
At number 3 - “He’s in a meeting at the moment”. It seems that there are some people out there who are always in meetings. Whenever you call, they’re in a meeting. Doesn’t matter if it’s first thing in the morning or last thing at night, you know exactly what you’re going to be told when you call. Do you believe they’re in a meeting? Of course you don’t. If anyone spent that much time in meetings they would never get any real work done. There’s only so much crap you can talk about around a conference table before you want to run out of the room screaming.
Anyone working that inefficiently clearly does need help. If your firm specialises in management consultancy and training, you might want to consider sending that prospect a gift, making some joke about the fact that they always seem to be in a meeting and how you’d like to help them manage their time a lot better.
Just missing the top spot at number 2- “We’ll come back to you if we’re interested”. You won’t. Just grow a pair and tell it straight – you won’t. In fact, you won’t even remember me by this time tomorrow. The truth is that the interest in a product or service has a very short shelf life – if your company can offer me something that I need right now, then I’m very pleased to discuss it with you. If I don’t think I’m going to need it for six months, then don’t expect me to call you when I do, because your competitors are already beating a path to my door, and the one who calls me exactly when I need them are more likely to get a chance to bid for the business.
Can you beat that one? Of course you can. Diarise your next call and then send something to that prospect to let them know that you’re thinking of them and that you will be in touch closer to the time that they need you. And here’s a tip – halve the time. If they tell you they don’t need you for six months, you call them in three. The script is a simple one, “When last we spoke, you told me it would be a good idea to call you in six months. Now I appreciate that that is still three months away, but I wanted to make sure that there had not been any developments on which I may have missed out.”
No respectable business person is going to have a problem with a line like that. You’re being respectful, professional and proactive, without coming on too strong, and that has to count for something.
And the number 1 lie, at least in my book – “More or less”. That probably needs a little more explanation. Think about the last time you asked someone if they had taken care of a specific task and they answered with “More or less”. IT’S ALWAYS LESS.
Think it through – “Have you finished doing the dishes?” “More or less”. Well they haven’t finished have they? It’s not like they’ve finished and then took the time to redecorate the kitchen is it?
“Is that presentation ready for the meeting?” “More or less”. So it isn’t actually ready then is it?
And from a sales perspective, if someone responds with a “more or less” when you ask them if all of their needs are met in relation to your business, then you know that there is an opening there. Remember, more or less just means less, it’s just that people are a little embarrassed that they have not taken care of business. Tell them that you are there to help them, that people aren’t always totally in control of a given situation and then offer them the help that they need.
Ultimately, these little lies are opportunities. They’re a chance to dig a little deeper and ask what the real problems are. Problems that your company may well be able to solve, if only given half the chance.
So go for it. Challenge the excuses, ask just how “less” their “more or less” is. Find out when your prospect is coming out of his meeting and never ever ever wait for someone to get back to you when they’re interested.
Does that all make sense? Well……more or less.
Thursday 13 May 2010
GO AWAY!!!!
No – not you, you can stay. In fact, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? Perhaps a biscuit or light snack? Comfortable? Good.
No, my instruction to go away is addressed to all those people offering me services for which I did not ask. Now I have to tread carefully here, because in the past I have spoken of the value of a good cold call, and I don’t want to start bashing cold calling here because I do believe in it.
It’s just that some cold calling is so cold it’s positively icy. You see, if you are in the business of canvassing for new business by telephone, you should at least have some helpers to turn any call from cold into slightly warm. Allow me to demonstrate, using my own industry as an example:
The Cold Call
“Hello, my name is Paul Rose and I work for Merchandise Mania. I was just calling to find out if you were looking for any promotional items right now.”
Now we’ve all received calls like that and frankly, that sales person is going to need a combination of luck and massive call rates to have any hope of getting a positive result.
The call is stone cold – no research what so ever and chances are, the person on the other end would have switched off almost instantly. So why don’t we try this:
The Warm Call
“Hello, my name is Paul Rose and I’m with Merchandise Mania. I was on your website recently, learning a little more about how you market your company and I’ve a product here which I think could do wonders for your business. Who do you think it would be best to talk to about this?”
Much more powerful. Now bear in mind that the caller had no special access to any information, had no contact names within the company and, most importantly, had no way of knowing whether or not his call would get passed reception. But how much more likely is it that he will?
Customers like to feel that the people they are buying from understand their needs. They may not need you to know their life story, but if they’re made to feel like more than just another customer, then they will be so much more inclined to deal with you.
More importantly, there’s a strong chance that the majority of people you call for the first time will not have an immediate need for your goods or services, but if you keep talking to them, building rapport and helping them, even if there’s nothing in it immediately for you, then eventually the business will come.
Now of course, a gift can go a long way toward building on that relationship. You may not think you need it now, but chances are that within the next 3 months you’re going to have a really great conversation with a new potential client and you’re going to wish you could just reach into a nearby cupboard, pull out a nice, branded gift and have it sent along to thank them for their time and interest.
Don’t wait until that call happens! You’ll be left looking for stuff that can be turned around in 24 hours and when you find out that there’s nothing decent, you’ll end up going to the high street and grabbing the nearest thing you can find. Those gifts DON’T WORK – they look and feel like bribery, which could seriously backfire on you.
Remember – the right gift, given the right way, really can do wonders for your business.
Have a good week, and feel free to make life really difficult for the next call centre based monkey who rings you at dinner time to sell you a new kitchen. Trust me, it’s fun.
No, my instruction to go away is addressed to all those people offering me services for which I did not ask. Now I have to tread carefully here, because in the past I have spoken of the value of a good cold call, and I don’t want to start bashing cold calling here because I do believe in it.
It’s just that some cold calling is so cold it’s positively icy. You see, if you are in the business of canvassing for new business by telephone, you should at least have some helpers to turn any call from cold into slightly warm. Allow me to demonstrate, using my own industry as an example:
The Cold Call
“Hello, my name is Paul Rose and I work for Merchandise Mania. I was just calling to find out if you were looking for any promotional items right now.”
Now we’ve all received calls like that and frankly, that sales person is going to need a combination of luck and massive call rates to have any hope of getting a positive result.
The call is stone cold – no research what so ever and chances are, the person on the other end would have switched off almost instantly. So why don’t we try this:
The Warm Call
“Hello, my name is Paul Rose and I’m with Merchandise Mania. I was on your website recently, learning a little more about how you market your company and I’ve a product here which I think could do wonders for your business. Who do you think it would be best to talk to about this?”
Much more powerful. Now bear in mind that the caller had no special access to any information, had no contact names within the company and, most importantly, had no way of knowing whether or not his call would get passed reception. But how much more likely is it that he will?
Customers like to feel that the people they are buying from understand their needs. They may not need you to know their life story, but if they’re made to feel like more than just another customer, then they will be so much more inclined to deal with you.
More importantly, there’s a strong chance that the majority of people you call for the first time will not have an immediate need for your goods or services, but if you keep talking to them, building rapport and helping them, even if there’s nothing in it immediately for you, then eventually the business will come.
Now of course, a gift can go a long way toward building on that relationship. You may not think you need it now, but chances are that within the next 3 months you’re going to have a really great conversation with a new potential client and you’re going to wish you could just reach into a nearby cupboard, pull out a nice, branded gift and have it sent along to thank them for their time and interest.
Don’t wait until that call happens! You’ll be left looking for stuff that can be turned around in 24 hours and when you find out that there’s nothing decent, you’ll end up going to the high street and grabbing the nearest thing you can find. Those gifts DON’T WORK – they look and feel like bribery, which could seriously backfire on you.
Remember – the right gift, given the right way, really can do wonders for your business.
Have a good week, and feel free to make life really difficult for the next call centre based monkey who rings you at dinner time to sell you a new kitchen. Trust me, it’s fun.
Thursday 6 May 2010
I write a blog - so what?
I find myself asking a very simple question of people these days. It’s my way of responding to sales pitches, junk emails and pretty much any form of presentation that comes my way. You probably ask it yourself – some of you on a sub conscious level and others (if you’re anything like me) in ten foot tall letters, posted to the side of your building.
That question is – so what?
As simple as it is, this question can prove to be incredibly powerful when it comes to your next sales promotion. To put it to good use, make a list of all the things that you want to say to your customer in your next promotion.
Don’t hold back – no matter how mundane you think the point is, write it down. It’s much better to have a long list that you can edit right down, rather than desperately trying to think of new things just to make up the numbers.
Got the list? No? OK, I’ll wait a bit……………..
Right, time’s up. OK, so what you need to do next is to put yourself in the mindset of one of your customers. Just to make things interesting, picture yourself as one of the more disagreeable ones. You know the sort – your eyes always roll into the back of your head when you hear they’re on the phone but you still cannot afford to ignore them. Oh don’t act like you don’t have a customer like that, everybody has one and you never know, you may very well be that very customer to someone from whom you buy. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but we all need to accept that sometimes there are just people that rub us up the wrong way.
OK, so now you are in the mind of Mr or Mrs Pita (that’s an acronym for Pain in the Arse), take a look at point number 1 on your list and then ask the magical question – SO WHAT?
And pay very close attention to the answer, because once you’ve made a note of it, I want you to put that new point to Mr Pita again, and once again, ask the magical question – SO WHAT?
Keep doing this until you can really get to the point of why your customer would care about what it is you’re trying to tell them. In the traditional days of sales training, we were taught to look at Features – Advantages – Benefits. That’s still a powerful way to work, but using the SO WHAT method can cut through a lot of the crap that you’re about to share with your clients.
You see, any sales point without the benefits to back it up is no sales point at all, it’s just needless fluff, and it’s actually more damaging than you realise. I’ll give you an example; each week I get an email through telling me the name of someone who has won some sales incentive. Here’s the thing – I don’t care. That information is utterly pointless to me but what’s worse, the people sending the mail don’t give me the option to unsubscribe, so once a week I get mildly annoyed at someone or, more specifically, some company.
The result? Just how much do you think I want to do business with that company? Precisely – I don’t. The information they are sharing with me is of no benefit to me whatsoever. I ask SO WHAT? and there is no answer.
Are you guilty of the same? Are you telling people facts and figures that aren’t really all that interesting? Are you telling them why they need to know this stuff and, perhaps most importantly, do they really need to know in the first place?
We are all of us told that Knowledge is Power. Well knowledge of pointless crap is only useful when you’re on a game show, so just stop putting it out there.
On a parting note, please sponsor me in the Royal Parks Half Marathon by visiting www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain I have not actually ran at all since last year's London Marathon and in starting to train again last night, I figured I could pick up where I left off. WRONG!!! I need to go back to square one and develop my skills all over again. SO WHAT? you say, well the point is that any of you who think that an ex Marathon runner will not struggle is wrong - I am going to have to work very hard, so all of your support will mean a great deal to me.
That question is – so what?
As simple as it is, this question can prove to be incredibly powerful when it comes to your next sales promotion. To put it to good use, make a list of all the things that you want to say to your customer in your next promotion.
Don’t hold back – no matter how mundane you think the point is, write it down. It’s much better to have a long list that you can edit right down, rather than desperately trying to think of new things just to make up the numbers.
Got the list? No? OK, I’ll wait a bit……………..
Right, time’s up. OK, so what you need to do next is to put yourself in the mindset of one of your customers. Just to make things interesting, picture yourself as one of the more disagreeable ones. You know the sort – your eyes always roll into the back of your head when you hear they’re on the phone but you still cannot afford to ignore them. Oh don’t act like you don’t have a customer like that, everybody has one and you never know, you may very well be that very customer to someone from whom you buy. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but we all need to accept that sometimes there are just people that rub us up the wrong way.
OK, so now you are in the mind of Mr or Mrs Pita (that’s an acronym for Pain in the Arse), take a look at point number 1 on your list and then ask the magical question – SO WHAT?
And pay very close attention to the answer, because once you’ve made a note of it, I want you to put that new point to Mr Pita again, and once again, ask the magical question – SO WHAT?
Keep doing this until you can really get to the point of why your customer would care about what it is you’re trying to tell them. In the traditional days of sales training, we were taught to look at Features – Advantages – Benefits. That’s still a powerful way to work, but using the SO WHAT method can cut through a lot of the crap that you’re about to share with your clients.
You see, any sales point without the benefits to back it up is no sales point at all, it’s just needless fluff, and it’s actually more damaging than you realise. I’ll give you an example; each week I get an email through telling me the name of someone who has won some sales incentive. Here’s the thing – I don’t care. That information is utterly pointless to me but what’s worse, the people sending the mail don’t give me the option to unsubscribe, so once a week I get mildly annoyed at someone or, more specifically, some company.
The result? Just how much do you think I want to do business with that company? Precisely – I don’t. The information they are sharing with me is of no benefit to me whatsoever. I ask SO WHAT? and there is no answer.
Are you guilty of the same? Are you telling people facts and figures that aren’t really all that interesting? Are you telling them why they need to know this stuff and, perhaps most importantly, do they really need to know in the first place?
We are all of us told that Knowledge is Power. Well knowledge of pointless crap is only useful when you’re on a game show, so just stop putting it out there.
On a parting note, please sponsor me in the Royal Parks Half Marathon by visiting www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain I have not actually ran at all since last year's London Marathon and in starting to train again last night, I figured I could pick up where I left off. WRONG!!! I need to go back to square one and develop my skills all over again. SO WHAT? you say, well the point is that any of you who think that an ex Marathon runner will not struggle is wrong - I am going to have to work very hard, so all of your support will mean a great deal to me.
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Short term view - long term fail
Well it's been a fun week hasn't it? Especially if you're one of those unlucky people "stranded" on holiday in Barbados. I mean I suppose I have a small degree of sympathy for you - maxing out your credit cards in expensive hotels is not fun but, on the other hand, just how bad is it to be stuck on holiday?
I want to talk this week about something that really bothered me in light of this international disaster. Now most people were pretty reasonable - nobody told us off for failing to deliver their merchandise if it was being flown in, and everyone has actually been quite good humoured about the whole thing.
The people that weren't however, were the people that played by the traditional rules of supply and demand. The guilty party in this case were the ferry and tunnel operators. With people in dire need of transportation, with their credits cards stretched to cover additional hotel charges and travel costs, the ferries and tunnels put their prices UP.
"Of course they did!" you cry, and from a traditional and commercial perspective, you'd be right. On the other hand, I think that what they did was wrong. For a start they are blatantly kicking a lot of people when they're down. Now I am a fan of capitalism - it's hard to be a salesman and not be - but it does strike me that when extraordinary things like this happen, that companies could stand to be a little bit more helpful and, dare I say it, charitable.
But let's put the tree hugging argument to one side for the moment and look at a different implication. Now a lot of people may well have never used the Eurotunnel or ferry service before. They may always fly somewhere, believing it to be the most efficient and pleasant way to travel.
Now is it possible - even just a little bit - that some people forced to travel on the Eurostar may have found themselves thinking "Hey, you know this really isn't all that bad. We really must do this again some time"? Sure it's possible, but how likely is it that this very same passenger would be thinking that when they are simultaneously spitting at the thought of having to pay extra just because some volcano in Iceland decided to kick off?
Exactly. The tunnels and ferries had the most fantastic opportunity to create a new base of customers. They could have converted hundreds of air travellers and all they had to do was.....nothing at all. They could react by laying on more trains - which they did, but if they just left their prices alone then nobody would have thought worse of them. Here's a wacky idea - what if they'd actually discounted their prices to help more people get home? Chances are they would have actually generated even more interest, actually enticing people to use them as opposed to feeling that they had no other choice.
The problem with an economy in downturn is that it forces short term thinking. Sales people ring up prospective clients and unless they're looking to order immediately, feel slightly less enthused and move on. The closer to the end of the month, the worse that gets too, and the disappointment just grows and grows until we find ourselves in a panic.
It's just not necessary, and it can be very costly too. So what if a client is not ready to order this week? As long as, when they're ready to order, they order from you, everybody wins. Of course you could phone them once a week to see how they're getting on, but are you really adding any value in doing so?
"Hi, I just wondered if you'd made a decision yet," yawn yawn yawn. No. You need to be adding some value, each and every time you call. How about sending them a video of someone using the product, or an article where their name came up and you thought it would be of interest.
Or the Zeuss of sales ideas - letting them know that you've thought of a product which would go really well with the thing they're thinking about and getting them to buy both!
A good piece of promotional merchandise can really help you here. Keeping your name and contact details in front of the prospect will help to reinforce your sales message - you're not pestering for a sale, more so you are providing a service, or helping them to solve a problem.
Salespeople bring negative connotations with them, yet problem solvers are our heroes.
So how do you know which piece of merchandise will work for you? Well you don't, but if you take the time to look at your own sales messages and all of the features and benefits of your own products, some ideas will become obvious. The good news is that you don't need to do any of that - you just need to get in touch with me and I'll do it all for you.
And did I mention that I would do it all for free?
So take a long term view. After all, you didn't get into business just to see how well you'd be doing in three or six months did you? If you want to make a quick buck, there are hundreds of ways to do it, and most of them require very little effort. If you want to grow a business for the long haul, relax - take your time and HELP your customers.
Right - who's up for a last minute flight to Iceland?
I want to talk this week about something that really bothered me in light of this international disaster. Now most people were pretty reasonable - nobody told us off for failing to deliver their merchandise if it was being flown in, and everyone has actually been quite good humoured about the whole thing.
The people that weren't however, were the people that played by the traditional rules of supply and demand. The guilty party in this case were the ferry and tunnel operators. With people in dire need of transportation, with their credits cards stretched to cover additional hotel charges and travel costs, the ferries and tunnels put their prices UP.
"Of course they did!" you cry, and from a traditional and commercial perspective, you'd be right. On the other hand, I think that what they did was wrong. For a start they are blatantly kicking a lot of people when they're down. Now I am a fan of capitalism - it's hard to be a salesman and not be - but it does strike me that when extraordinary things like this happen, that companies could stand to be a little bit more helpful and, dare I say it, charitable.
But let's put the tree hugging argument to one side for the moment and look at a different implication. Now a lot of people may well have never used the Eurotunnel or ferry service before. They may always fly somewhere, believing it to be the most efficient and pleasant way to travel.
Now is it possible - even just a little bit - that some people forced to travel on the Eurostar may have found themselves thinking "Hey, you know this really isn't all that bad. We really must do this again some time"? Sure it's possible, but how likely is it that this very same passenger would be thinking that when they are simultaneously spitting at the thought of having to pay extra just because some volcano in Iceland decided to kick off?
Exactly. The tunnels and ferries had the most fantastic opportunity to create a new base of customers. They could have converted hundreds of air travellers and all they had to do was.....nothing at all. They could react by laying on more trains - which they did, but if they just left their prices alone then nobody would have thought worse of them. Here's a wacky idea - what if they'd actually discounted their prices to help more people get home? Chances are they would have actually generated even more interest, actually enticing people to use them as opposed to feeling that they had no other choice.
The problem with an economy in downturn is that it forces short term thinking. Sales people ring up prospective clients and unless they're looking to order immediately, feel slightly less enthused and move on. The closer to the end of the month, the worse that gets too, and the disappointment just grows and grows until we find ourselves in a panic.
It's just not necessary, and it can be very costly too. So what if a client is not ready to order this week? As long as, when they're ready to order, they order from you, everybody wins. Of course you could phone them once a week to see how they're getting on, but are you really adding any value in doing so?
"Hi, I just wondered if you'd made a decision yet," yawn yawn yawn. No. You need to be adding some value, each and every time you call. How about sending them a video of someone using the product, or an article where their name came up and you thought it would be of interest.
Or the Zeuss of sales ideas - letting them know that you've thought of a product which would go really well with the thing they're thinking about and getting them to buy both!
A good piece of promotional merchandise can really help you here. Keeping your name and contact details in front of the prospect will help to reinforce your sales message - you're not pestering for a sale, more so you are providing a service, or helping them to solve a problem.
Salespeople bring negative connotations with them, yet problem solvers are our heroes.
So how do you know which piece of merchandise will work for you? Well you don't, but if you take the time to look at your own sales messages and all of the features and benefits of your own products, some ideas will become obvious. The good news is that you don't need to do any of that - you just need to get in touch with me and I'll do it all for you.
And did I mention that I would do it all for free?
So take a long term view. After all, you didn't get into business just to see how well you'd be doing in three or six months did you? If you want to make a quick buck, there are hundreds of ways to do it, and most of them require very little effort. If you want to grow a business for the long haul, relax - take your time and HELP your customers.
Right - who's up for a last minute flight to Iceland?
Thursday 15 April 2010
How much do your customers know?
This week I received a text from a friend of mine telling me that one of the companies I work with had gone through a bit of a rebrand. Now in and of itself, this was not particularly interesting, which may explain why he texted it to me as opposed to just picking up the phone and giving me a call.
On a side note, I find texts to be very annoying things, especially when they start turning into whole conversations that would have been a whole lot quicker and less thumb destroying than simply talking. Seriously, texting is destroying our language - there are people out there who actually say LOL! You heard me - they don't physically laugh, they actually say LOL. And get this - why do people now say OMG? It takes the exact same amount of time to use the actual words. What's more, if someone doesn't know what OMG means, you then need to explain it to them, which would seem to make the whole abbreviation utterly redundant! So many morons - so few alibis.
Anyway, back to the point of this week's blog. I called the company in question because, as luck would have it, they happen to be a client of mine, and I asked them why it was that I was finding out this information through a rumour mill as opposed to some form of direct communication.
"Well you've opted out of our newsletter", was their reply. Fair enough, I did indeed opt out of the newsletter, but that's only because there's only so much junk my mailbox can receive before my computer becomes truly self aware and starts attacking the human race with offers of discounted double glazing and Viagra.
But therein lies the problem. Sometimes customers are interested in little bits of information from their suppliers - I mean it might not be all that often, but the occasional gentle nudge could go a long way to bringing about some new business. A customer who you haven't spoken with in three years may well be in the market for some sort of upgrade, but when was the last time you actually asked them if they were interested?
It all stems from what I talked about a little bit last week - a short term view. We want business NOW, and if someone tells us that they're not going to be in the market for another year, we tell them we'll call them in a year. Some of us will - MOST OF US WON'T.
What's worse, our competitors will call that customer in a year and then - and I suspect you know where I am going with this - BANG, we lose out to our competitors.
Just because someone has opted out of your newsletter does not mean that they are not interested in hearing from you. They're just not interested in hearing from you every 5 minutes. Face it, there are plenty of newsletters and mailers that I get from people with whom I have a good working relationship, but I don't read all of them. The truly important information will find its way to me, and I'm not talking about a sales mailer or some 5% off special offer which, let's be fair, is really neither special or that much of an offer.
No, I'm talking about the information that's actually going to make a difference to me should I choose to act upon it. Something that addresses a prior concern like "hey, you know you bought that software from us two years ago, well lots of customers said they wished it could do x, y and z and we're pleased to tell you that it now can."
See how powerful that was? They showed that they had listened to their customers and acted on the information. Well as I am a customer too, it's just possible that they may have addressed some of my issues too, so it would be stupid to not at least check it out wouldn't it?
Your existing customers will always be your very best resource - it's seven times harder to land a new customer than it is to cultivate an existing one (seriously, how exactly did they work that out? You know you read these statistics in all the sales training stuff and you blindly accept it as fact. I want to talk to the person that put that statistic together - does anyone have his details?)
In any given year, and at any given moment within that year, more than 50% of the people that you contact will not be in a position to buy. Does that mean you drop them from the database? Of course it doesn't. What it means is that you need to keep in front of them until they are in that position, whilst at the same time not being a pest. It's a fine line, but it's not difficult to walk it.
Of course, you could always send out the information in a much more creative way. Do you realise that there are thousands of promotional items which will fit very neatly into the very same envelope that you're using to send out a newsletter? If you're spending your days stuffing envelopes, you really should be stuffing them with something that's more likely to yield a response.
As for email marketing, well I've posted about that before - it needs to form part of your marketing plan, but it must not account for all of it. Junk email filters are commonplace and I use them across all of my email accounts. What shocks me is that, when I last checked, 94% of all emails sent to my home account in one month was junk. That is an astonishing figure, but just look at what it is doing to the email habits of the recipients - unless we recognise the name of the sender, we may well be skipping over information that would otherwise be useful to us.
We can all do so much better than that, and I want to help, because until that check from the Nigerian Lottery clears, I am going to need to keep working.
Have a good week.
On a side note, I find texts to be very annoying things, especially when they start turning into whole conversations that would have been a whole lot quicker and less thumb destroying than simply talking. Seriously, texting is destroying our language - there are people out there who actually say LOL! You heard me - they don't physically laugh, they actually say LOL. And get this - why do people now say OMG? It takes the exact same amount of time to use the actual words. What's more, if someone doesn't know what OMG means, you then need to explain it to them, which would seem to make the whole abbreviation utterly redundant! So many morons - so few alibis.
Anyway, back to the point of this week's blog. I called the company in question because, as luck would have it, they happen to be a client of mine, and I asked them why it was that I was finding out this information through a rumour mill as opposed to some form of direct communication.
"Well you've opted out of our newsletter", was their reply. Fair enough, I did indeed opt out of the newsletter, but that's only because there's only so much junk my mailbox can receive before my computer becomes truly self aware and starts attacking the human race with offers of discounted double glazing and Viagra.
But therein lies the problem. Sometimes customers are interested in little bits of information from their suppliers - I mean it might not be all that often, but the occasional gentle nudge could go a long way to bringing about some new business. A customer who you haven't spoken with in three years may well be in the market for some sort of upgrade, but when was the last time you actually asked them if they were interested?
It all stems from what I talked about a little bit last week - a short term view. We want business NOW, and if someone tells us that they're not going to be in the market for another year, we tell them we'll call them in a year. Some of us will - MOST OF US WON'T.
What's worse, our competitors will call that customer in a year and then - and I suspect you know where I am going with this - BANG, we lose out to our competitors.
Just because someone has opted out of your newsletter does not mean that they are not interested in hearing from you. They're just not interested in hearing from you every 5 minutes. Face it, there are plenty of newsletters and mailers that I get from people with whom I have a good working relationship, but I don't read all of them. The truly important information will find its way to me, and I'm not talking about a sales mailer or some 5% off special offer which, let's be fair, is really neither special or that much of an offer.
No, I'm talking about the information that's actually going to make a difference to me should I choose to act upon it. Something that addresses a prior concern like "hey, you know you bought that software from us two years ago, well lots of customers said they wished it could do x, y and z and we're pleased to tell you that it now can."
See how powerful that was? They showed that they had listened to their customers and acted on the information. Well as I am a customer too, it's just possible that they may have addressed some of my issues too, so it would be stupid to not at least check it out wouldn't it?
Your existing customers will always be your very best resource - it's seven times harder to land a new customer than it is to cultivate an existing one (seriously, how exactly did they work that out? You know you read these statistics in all the sales training stuff and you blindly accept it as fact. I want to talk to the person that put that statistic together - does anyone have his details?)
In any given year, and at any given moment within that year, more than 50% of the people that you contact will not be in a position to buy. Does that mean you drop them from the database? Of course it doesn't. What it means is that you need to keep in front of them until they are in that position, whilst at the same time not being a pest. It's a fine line, but it's not difficult to walk it.
Of course, you could always send out the information in a much more creative way. Do you realise that there are thousands of promotional items which will fit very neatly into the very same envelope that you're using to send out a newsletter? If you're spending your days stuffing envelopes, you really should be stuffing them with something that's more likely to yield a response.
As for email marketing, well I've posted about that before - it needs to form part of your marketing plan, but it must not account for all of it. Junk email filters are commonplace and I use them across all of my email accounts. What shocks me is that, when I last checked, 94% of all emails sent to my home account in one month was junk. That is an astonishing figure, but just look at what it is doing to the email habits of the recipients - unless we recognise the name of the sender, we may well be skipping over information that would otherwise be useful to us.
We can all do so much better than that, and I want to help, because until that check from the Nigerian Lottery clears, I am going to need to keep working.
Have a good week.
Wednesday 14 April 2010
It's the little things
Do you know, last week I found myself in the town of Fareham in Hampshire. I mean I wasn't there by accident - I was supposed to be there. What struck me about this town is that, just to look at it, it looks like any other urban town with its collection of chain stores, fast food restaurants and shops selling everything for a pound.
Dig a little deeper however, and something really weird happens. The people working in the shops care. That's right - they actually care. These aren't people in their fifties who remember when service was service and people showed respect. No, these are young people - some of them fresh out of school, and yet everywhere I went I was treated with a welcome smile and useful information.
I'll give you some examples. I went into a jewellery store to look for a jewellery box for Shelly. Now it's not like she's got so much bling she doesn't know where to put it - it's just that Felix likes picking up shiny things, and he is perfectly comfortable opening up his Mummy's drawers and helping himself. Some say his inquisitive nature means he will grow up to be a scientist. My money is on international art thief, so it's anybody's guess at this stage.
The store in question did not sell jewellery boxes, but rather than simply let me leave with a shrug of the shoulders and a half baked apology from some chav with far too much make up and far too little intelligence, the young lady took the time to list those stores in the area that I might like to try, and she even offered me directions! I was blown away by this level of service - I was not even a paying customer, but she took the time to be helpful and I left her store with a happy smile across my face.
It gets better. Oh yes my friends - why stop at just one anecdote when the second one is even more surprising? I wanted to stop for a bite to eat and I am always happy to pay my respects to the nearest Golden Arches. Not only are they a valued customer of mine, but they are the one fast food restaurant when I can be sure of a certain standard of cleanliness. Plus I'm collecting the monopoly vouchers so that's handy too.
One thing I do not expect from them is a standard level of service. There are no two restaurants when I am greeted or treated in the same way. It's fine really - the person serving me has nothing to gain personally - they're not on some sort of commission and the majority of them are content to take money, hand over food and move on.
Over the years I have been greeted with everything from the "How may I Help you Please" which they're trained to use, to the more colloquial "Next Order Please", right down to "Yes mate", when the place is so busy that they choose to herd their customers like the cattle they're about to serve betwixt two halves of a sesame seed bun.
So what made this experience special. She called me SIR. That's right - sir. This girl must have been no more than 19 years old and yet she treated me with the respect that I deperately yearn for in today's high street.
Now it didn't make a difference to her, but it certainly did to me. I felt compelled to write about it in this week's blog, and rest assured that my friends at McHQ will be getting a mail from me letting them know just want a pleasant experience eating in their Fareham branch was.
I know I preach on and on about the value of good customer service, but in general, I come from the persepctive of someone wanting to help you generate more business. Between the two of them, the two young ladies in question didn't generate any more revenue from me than I had already planned to spend. What they did manage to achieve however, was to create a pleasant experience to someone who walked through their door.
I was made to feel uplifted, and when you're in a good mood, you tend to spead that mood amongst other people that you meet. Moods are infectious, and nobody wants to catch a bad one.
Now I only spoke of two experiences but the fact is that as I walked in and out of various shops in this area, there was not one person who didn't appear happy in their work and happy to help me. So what's going on here? More importantly, why is it that such an attitude should come as a pleasing alternative to the norm?
There really is no excuse for a poor work ethic. Everyone has bad days - of course they do, but true professionals leave their troubles at the door and do their job with pride. Think about the last time you dealt with someone like that - I bet it didn't take you long to remember them, and I bet you told your friends about the experience too.
So what are the people getting from you when they walk in the door or pick up the phone to you? Do you show them that you care and that you're not only able, but actually happy to help?
I want to march in defiance of bad service and poor attitudes - who's with me?
Dig a little deeper however, and something really weird happens. The people working in the shops care. That's right - they actually care. These aren't people in their fifties who remember when service was service and people showed respect. No, these are young people - some of them fresh out of school, and yet everywhere I went I was treated with a welcome smile and useful information.
I'll give you some examples. I went into a jewellery store to look for a jewellery box for Shelly. Now it's not like she's got so much bling she doesn't know where to put it - it's just that Felix likes picking up shiny things, and he is perfectly comfortable opening up his Mummy's drawers and helping himself. Some say his inquisitive nature means he will grow up to be a scientist. My money is on international art thief, so it's anybody's guess at this stage.
The store in question did not sell jewellery boxes, but rather than simply let me leave with a shrug of the shoulders and a half baked apology from some chav with far too much make up and far too little intelligence, the young lady took the time to list those stores in the area that I might like to try, and she even offered me directions! I was blown away by this level of service - I was not even a paying customer, but she took the time to be helpful and I left her store with a happy smile across my face.
It gets better. Oh yes my friends - why stop at just one anecdote when the second one is even more surprising? I wanted to stop for a bite to eat and I am always happy to pay my respects to the nearest Golden Arches. Not only are they a valued customer of mine, but they are the one fast food restaurant when I can be sure of a certain standard of cleanliness. Plus I'm collecting the monopoly vouchers so that's handy too.
One thing I do not expect from them is a standard level of service. There are no two restaurants when I am greeted or treated in the same way. It's fine really - the person serving me has nothing to gain personally - they're not on some sort of commission and the majority of them are content to take money, hand over food and move on.
Over the years I have been greeted with everything from the "How may I Help you Please" which they're trained to use, to the more colloquial "Next Order Please", right down to "Yes mate", when the place is so busy that they choose to herd their customers like the cattle they're about to serve betwixt two halves of a sesame seed bun.
So what made this experience special. She called me SIR. That's right - sir. This girl must have been no more than 19 years old and yet she treated me with the respect that I deperately yearn for in today's high street.
Now it didn't make a difference to her, but it certainly did to me. I felt compelled to write about it in this week's blog, and rest assured that my friends at McHQ will be getting a mail from me letting them know just want a pleasant experience eating in their Fareham branch was.
I know I preach on and on about the value of good customer service, but in general, I come from the persepctive of someone wanting to help you generate more business. Between the two of them, the two young ladies in question didn't generate any more revenue from me than I had already planned to spend. What they did manage to achieve however, was to create a pleasant experience to someone who walked through their door.
I was made to feel uplifted, and when you're in a good mood, you tend to spead that mood amongst other people that you meet. Moods are infectious, and nobody wants to catch a bad one.
Now I only spoke of two experiences but the fact is that as I walked in and out of various shops in this area, there was not one person who didn't appear happy in their work and happy to help me. So what's going on here? More importantly, why is it that such an attitude should come as a pleasing alternative to the norm?
There really is no excuse for a poor work ethic. Everyone has bad days - of course they do, but true professionals leave their troubles at the door and do their job with pride. Think about the last time you dealt with someone like that - I bet it didn't take you long to remember them, and I bet you told your friends about the experience too.
So what are the people getting from you when they walk in the door or pick up the phone to you? Do you show them that you care and that you're not only able, but actually happy to help?
I want to march in defiance of bad service and poor attitudes - who's with me?
Thursday 8 April 2010
Have some Fun
Here at Merchandise Mania we have a set of Key Beliefs and Values. Each member of staff has a plaque on their desk which reminds them of what these values are. There's nothing particularly surprising in there - you know the sort of thing - work as a team, win as a team, attitude is 90% of the game, Paul Rose is King, etc.
But there's one value on there which is my particular favourite, and it's the last one on the list. Quite simply, it is to Have Some Fun. It makes sense really - if your job wasn't fun then you wouldn't want to do it right?
Of course, it's not going to be fun 100% of the time. Let's face it, even those lucky folks working at Disneyworld feel a little put out once in a while, and that's supposed to be the happiest place on Earth.
Now just yesterday I met with a couple of people that are looking at their merchandise choices for the year ahead. They'd been through our catalogue but I pointed out that the real value in working with my company is that one of our people comes along and gets creative. Any idiot can sell a pen or quote prices based on items that the client has already chosen, so you don't need me for that.
The meeting itself turned out to be a lot of fun, and the reason was because these people were not simply looking at the product - they were looking at the message behind it. They were thinking about what the products said to people once they were handed over, and that is absolutely key when it comes to looking at promotional merchandise.
The company in question are part of an NHS team that provide support for people looking to quit smoking. Now certain people in the team wanted to offer up merchandise which talked about all of the negative aspects of being a smoker. That seems logical, except when you consider that the average smoker is not wandering around in blissful ignorance, completely unaware that they are doing themselves any harm.
No. The smart thing to do is to offer up merchandise which amplifies the positive aspects of not smoking - the money you save, the improvements to your health and energy levels, the return of your sense of taste and smell, and so on. As I sat there, I was amazed at just how many benefits there were, and what's more, as we continued having fun in our meeting, I actually found myself coming up with benefits that they had not even considered!
And that's the point of this week's blog - fun sparks creativity, and can take your sales processes in new directions, possibly even breathing new life into a project which was looking stale.
How you inject fun into the workplace is entirely your decision. I can heartily recommend a book called "Fish" by Stephen Lundin - it's a very quick read and real eye opener. I myself took quite a few lessons from it and a lot of my positivity comes from what I took out of that book.
So go and have a laugh, and then go and turn that joy into revenue. It doesn't need to be some wild gesture - just a little bit of fun can go a long way.
Now speaking of going a long way (see what I did there, clever eh?) I am once again hitting the streets in the name of charity. The Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon takes place in October of this year and I am running as part of the Help a London Child Team. If you would like to sponsor me (yes you would, you know you would - I give you all this stuff for free so frankly you owe me, and the money isn't even for me) then please visit www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain for more information.
Have a good (and fun) week.
But there's one value on there which is my particular favourite, and it's the last one on the list. Quite simply, it is to Have Some Fun. It makes sense really - if your job wasn't fun then you wouldn't want to do it right?
Of course, it's not going to be fun 100% of the time. Let's face it, even those lucky folks working at Disneyworld feel a little put out once in a while, and that's supposed to be the happiest place on Earth.
Now just yesterday I met with a couple of people that are looking at their merchandise choices for the year ahead. They'd been through our catalogue but I pointed out that the real value in working with my company is that one of our people comes along and gets creative. Any idiot can sell a pen or quote prices based on items that the client has already chosen, so you don't need me for that.
The meeting itself turned out to be a lot of fun, and the reason was because these people were not simply looking at the product - they were looking at the message behind it. They were thinking about what the products said to people once they were handed over, and that is absolutely key when it comes to looking at promotional merchandise.
The company in question are part of an NHS team that provide support for people looking to quit smoking. Now certain people in the team wanted to offer up merchandise which talked about all of the negative aspects of being a smoker. That seems logical, except when you consider that the average smoker is not wandering around in blissful ignorance, completely unaware that they are doing themselves any harm.
No. The smart thing to do is to offer up merchandise which amplifies the positive aspects of not smoking - the money you save, the improvements to your health and energy levels, the return of your sense of taste and smell, and so on. As I sat there, I was amazed at just how many benefits there were, and what's more, as we continued having fun in our meeting, I actually found myself coming up with benefits that they had not even considered!
And that's the point of this week's blog - fun sparks creativity, and can take your sales processes in new directions, possibly even breathing new life into a project which was looking stale.
How you inject fun into the workplace is entirely your decision. I can heartily recommend a book called "Fish" by Stephen Lundin - it's a very quick read and real eye opener. I myself took quite a few lessons from it and a lot of my positivity comes from what I took out of that book.
So go and have a laugh, and then go and turn that joy into revenue. It doesn't need to be some wild gesture - just a little bit of fun can go a long way.
Now speaking of going a long way (see what I did there, clever eh?) I am once again hitting the streets in the name of charity. The Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon takes place in October of this year and I am running as part of the Help a London Child Team. If you would like to sponsor me (yes you would, you know you would - I give you all this stuff for free so frankly you owe me, and the money isn't even for me) then please visit www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain for more information.
Have a good (and fun) week.
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