Be Careful With Your Sales Approach

I recently vacationed in Hawaii, and was at the Thrifty rental counter finalizing our car for the next 10 days. As I began walking out the door, I passed by a kiosk with a lady, who I thought was a Thrifty employee, so I made no effort to make eye contact. However, she was able to get my attention by asking me if the group of five (four children and wife) outside was my family--hooked. As I answered yes, she followed it up by asking if I would be interested in treating the whole family to a nice FREE lunch, receive $100 discount on our rental--and wait there is more...a coffee table book on Hawaii worth $75. Well, of course, I said yes--not without a deep suspicion, however, that this was going to come at a price. Much to my surprise, she replied that since they are trying to showcase a new hotel in Waikiki, all I had to do was take a tour of the hotel and I would be entitled to all of the above benefits. Sign me up!

As I completed the paperwork, it became evident that this was not simply a tour of the hotel, it was much more involved. Once I signed the document to receive the benefits, my suspicions were confirmed, she subtly questioned me if I was familiar with timeshare--strike one. Unknowingly, I had signed myself, my wife and four kids in Hawaii up for a two-hour presentation regarding timeshare ownership of this supposed new "hotel".

Reluctantly, my wife and I, along with the four kiddos attended the presentation. Initially we were directed to the free lunch. Much to our chagrin, once we presented our tickets for the complimentary lunch, our server immediately lost interest in providing any type of service close to deserving a tip. Strike two!

We finally met our sales presenter for our two-hour presentation. She began the presentation with the disclosure that if we were uncomfortable with the proposal, we can say no, and she will respect that and end the presentation. Well, that was not the case. Repeatedly I tried to convey that this was not something for our family, but unfortunately she continued ignoring her promise at the beginning of her diatribe. At one point, she even involved her "finance" manager in the discussion to somehow strike interest. We were now 2.5 hours into our meeting and the children were beginning to grow restless. Strike three!!!!

A few lessons here that we need to tease out. First, be sure that you are not making any false or outrageous claims in your marketing. Ensure that your marketing communication is not hyper-inflated. Chances are that you will not be able to meet the expectations of your prospect or customer if your message is not reflective of your capabilities. In the end, this would mean that your customers will never come back.

Second, if you are going to offer any benefits like a free lunch, be aware that simply giving it away at no cost is not always perceived as a benefit, especially when it is mediocre at best. Select your add-ons carefully.

Lastly, stick to your word. If you make promises to your prospect or customer, it is essential that you respect and honor that promise. If not, the likelihood is that they will not return or refer you to a friend or colleague. Remember Net Promoter Score?

Expected vs. Amazing

Recently, I have been visiting a local coffee shop, BackPorch Coffee Roasters, in Bend, Or. After my second visit to BackPorch, the barista behind the counter immediately recognized me and engaged me in a discussion. "Cappuccino? On the wet side, right?", she asked. Now, I can only imagine how many coffee lovers she serves in a day, and for her to remember me after two weeks since my first visit, I was amazed! I was expecting the service to be, well, somewhat the same as any coffee outfit. "Hi, what can I get this early morning?" Not bad, but not particularly amazing. Starbucks, who is presumably selling experience over the coffee they serve, certainly has never remembered me, even after many visits.

So can your business do this? Yes, absolutely. Instill in your customers that they are the most important thing in the world when it comes to serving them. I was recently on the phone with customer service from an aviation insurance company. My last name is not the easiest thing to pronounce, but the customer service representative asked me how to pronounce my last name to prevent future representatives from pronouncing it incorrectly. For some, this may not be a big deal, but after hearing my surname butchered over and over again numerous times, I was relieved to think that on my next call they will not pause after saying my first name and guess which version of my name they were going to painfully speak.

Here are two crucial things to remember about your customers:
• Name (if possible)
• Reason for their first visit (probably more important that the name)

Keep in mind that there are endless varieties of technological applications out there that companies integrate within their system to remember you. Consider the airline reservation interface. Once you create an account, you can return without doing much work as the system has remembered your preferences from your last visit. Although this is very effective, it is somewhat regarded as "automated" and certainly does not have the impact of a personal experience.

Keep your customers amazed and keep 'em coming back.

Want to Conduct Surveys?

Organizations today rely on survey research to learn much-needed business intelligence. Surveys can help you understand customer preferences about a particular product, gauge employee satisfaction, identify market opportunities and much more.

Survey research is much more than simply asking someone a few questions. It’s a multiple-step process with a clearly defined protocol at each step. In order to get reliable results from your survey research, you must be able to plan the survey research project, collect data, access and manage the data easily, as well as report relevant results. And for your survey research project to be a success, you need to share your results with the decision-makers who can act upon them.

Areas that benefit from survey research
• Satisfaction measurements
• Customer/employee profile census
• Customer retention
• Complaint tracking
• Product features desired
• Medical errors
• Patient outcomes
• Viewer/readership interests
• Assess program effectiveness
• Customer acquisition

Popular questions that survey research attempts to answer
• What is most important to customers, employees or patients?
• What do people want or need in terms of programs, products or services?
• Who is our customer?
• Do consumers cluster into groups?
• How can we compete in the market most effectively?
• Are we providing value to our members or customers?
• What areas need improvement?
• What drives satisfaction or sales for customers
• How can we improve our programs, materials, products or services?
• What are the brand’s perceived strengths or weaknesses?
• Where should resources be directed?

The seven stages of survey research
Survey research can be divided into seven steps. In order to be successful, survey research needs to be implemented well at every step. Problems at any step can lead to incorrect results.
• Step 1: Planning and survey design
• Step 2: Data collection
• Step 3: Data access
• Step 4: Data preparation and management
• Step 5: Data analysis
• Step 6: Reporting
• Step 7: Deployment

Market Share vs. Market Growth

The economic downturn has changed the way business owners as well as consumers behave, so as a matter of course, companies will need to develop a plan that accommodates these challenges.

There are many speculations on what is going to happen economically in 2010. Most are very optimistic in their outlook, while others are still somewhat very conservative when predicting on how 2010 will unravel. Regardless of the economic prophecies, however, a majority of businesses will logically be planning for growth. The details of that growth can be planned effectively if you focus on the immediate opportunity of growing market share versus relying on market growth.

While your planning should integrate both, an approach that increases market share can facilitate expansion that is more tangible than market growth. Developing a plan that addresses market share permits you to evaluate the existing market and concretely implement plans that challenge the competition. When developing strategies to increase market share, you must have a good analysis of your competition. Outline their strengths and weaknesses in relation to their strategy but as well as in relation to their product or services. This analysis will provide you a landscape on how to construct a more effective approach on how you can compare your business or product to the competition.

Lastly, to optimize your activities in increasing market share, you can utilize a tool that evaluates your value chain. The value chain for your market is the series of people that actually experience your product from your company to the ultimate customer. For example, if you are a wholesaler, you may be selling to a buyer, retailer, and then the end-user. Once you establish your value chain, determine where in the chain your business is currently focusing on, and evaluate if this can be optimized or if a new marketing campaign that focuses on a different section of the chain. This exercise will help you to maximize your marketing efforts by targeting a specific segment within your market.

Why Should You Be Interested In Social Networks?

Social networking...still the talk of many businesses today. Larger corporations are now beginning to allocate large sums of their coveted budget into this phenomenon. However, there are still those millions of small to medium-sized businesses that are in the dark as to what social media can do for them. The fact is that social networking can be a crucial resource for growing your business, if utilized effectively.