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?
Thursday 23 September 2010
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.
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