Add more value to your offer, don't get beaten up on price

If you are up against it on price, try to think of ways of making your product or service different.

Differentiation is relatively easy with services, but with products its more expensive. You can of course improve the services that surround a product to differentiate it. Examples could be; a longer warranty, faster service back up, a replacement product and so on.

This week one of my clients added two processes to their service offering that were not anymore expensive to deliver and they closed an order, 30% higher than their competitors, who were not offering the same level of service, provided by my client. 

People will pay more if they can see the value. 


When your offering is difficult to compare to your competition, your product/service will be less of a commodity, making price pressure easier to deal with.


Let me give you a practical example; years ago I owned a concrete company, now that's a commodity business! We were one of the the first companies to offer  2 metre capacity trucks. We did not charge surcharges for small loads like the bigger operators and our trucks could access areas where the big trucks could not go.


It was a nice little business that we sold to Tarmac in the late 1990's.


Within our Results Driven Marketing coaching system we have 31 different strategies to defend price.


The question to consider is; where can you be different?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Your Business Model

I was at a meeting today discussing a new business opportunity and discussed different aspects of the business model that was being proposed for a start up.

A key point was that two elements must exist for me to get involved. 


In fact these two points are important to any would be business owner or existing one for that matter. Regular repeat sales and the ability to scale the business up easily.


A final point was that the business would need to be attractive to purchasers in the future. The objective being build it and sell it.


Do these points exist  in your business model? If not what can you do about it?


A short post today check out tomorrows.


All comments welcome, what do you think are the important aspects of a business model?


Take Care


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Managing Your Sales Numbers

This post is relevant to anyone that uses the phone to follow up leads.

Unless you manage your activity, you won’t know how many calls you need to make a sale. 

The cornerstone of face to face selling is making enough calls.

There was a brilliant book written in the 1930’s by Frank Bettger “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling” In it he wrote this;

“You can’t collect the commission until you make the sale,

You can’t make the sale until you write the order,

You can’t write the order, until you have an interview

You can’t have an interview until you make a call.”

Frank was making cold calls, there's nothing wrong with cold calling apart from many people don't like doing it. There are plenty of ways of generating leads without cold calling. 

All of the lead generation that I advocate is direct response marketing. Where you are making an offer and asking for people to 'put their hand up' to show you they are interested. What that means is; they fill in the coupon, or go to the website, call the special number etc.

If people have given you their number and expressed an interest, you've got a legitimate reason to call, particularly if you have made it clear that someone will be calling them.

To achieve a certain level of volume in sales you need to create enough activity to hit your target. Kind of obvious that one, but why not take a look at yourself and ask yourself  the question. Am I doing enough to hit my  sales target?

Selling is a process which tends to follow a sequence, a typical sequence could be:

1. Sales Letter
2. Letter Follow Up Introduction Call
3. Presentation
4. Proposal
5. Order
6. Sale (The first invoice)

Consider your own sequence and determine how many letters, emails etc, are required to  and  to hit your annual target?’

Your answer will depend on the number of letters, emails, and follow up phone calls required to get an appointment and the number of appointments that turn into sales.

           

You could be getting plenty of appointments, but not enough sales. This would indicate that the improvement area is somewhere in the presentation and proposal stages.

  

The point is by monitoring your numbers, it tells you where you are successful and where you may need to improve an aspect of the process or your technique. Its the early warning system of a sales slump!

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

People The Biggest Barrier To Growth Part 2.

There has been quite a lot of interest in my original post, 'People The Biggest Barrier To Growth.'

The idea for that post came from a friend, who told me that he was employing people in his company, for the first time. Moving from 'one man band' to a man with people management responsibilities.

Which was when I remembered the research that I did, on what stopped SME's growing. People being the problem, that was singled out as the biggest barrier to growth.

Anyway my friend asked me, what was the best strategy in overcoming that problem?

This was my reply.

There is no one answer to that of course. In my experience it’s attracting and selecting the right candidates. For example, the selection process that I use on salespeople for clients, has a number of elements designed to sort out the 'wheat from the chaff.' That’s the starting point of getting it right.

Beyond that, it’s the right conditions, pay, commission, training, their role and responsibilities. being clear, along with performance expectations being set.

The quality of the product and service the company provides has to be right.

Good leadership and fair management, are essential. Creating an environment where there is a lack of office politics, which can destroy organisations is vital.

People being valued for their contribution, some kind of review process, to get two way feedback on progress.

There is more of course, but getting those right is a good start.

A good book on managing people is the one minute manager. I recommend it to all my clients that want to learn some practical methods of managing people. The big bonus of this book is that; the style its written in, makes it an enjoyable and easy read.

Day five of my 41 day blog challenge, all comments questions and observations welcome.


Take Care 




Regards


Mark 


P.S. Guest Blog writers welcome send me an email.




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

What is the link between Rudyard Kipling and Consultative Selling?

Let me explain the link.

One of the aspects of consultative selling is uncovering the problems of the prospect, finding out what the real problems are. 

Seeking to put a value on what the current position is for them  clarifying what your solutions would mean to them if they invested in them, its a particularly useful approach when selling business to business.

The link is is from the poem  'I KEEP six honest serving men.'

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

What and Why and When and How and Where and Who are the consultants questions.

You will never be stuck in a sales situation when you use them. 

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved