Face to Face Marketing and Door to Door Marketing

Nothing beats the reality that one gets when you can interact with potential clients face to face physically moving from door to door within a community or household to household, face to face field marketing is also called personal selling or door to door marketing, customers are met directly in order to sell their products, using this method of field marketing we rely on our skills and persuasive abilities. During the period where we get to interact with the client face to face we get more chance to pass across edible information which would be useful to all our customers at that time and it’s also an opportunity for us to get feedback and to gauge your opinion about our business.

I did door-to-door sales for nine years, in hundreds of different cities and towns all across the india. Through long, hard, agonizing trial and error, I eventually developed enough skill that I could take any product into any area on any day and make sales.

In the beginning, I struggled. But when I was about to give up on myself and quit (like 99.9% of people that try door-to-door sales do within their first few days), experienced salesperson to give me a chance to get on track.

What I saw that day changed my life forever.

I watched as the experienced salesperson drove to an area where he had previous sales success, and listened as he explained to me why he parked his car in the exact spot he did to start his day and laid out his exact plan of attack.
Within the first 10 minutes, I learned a valuable lesson that not only made my door-to-door sales career much easier, but has also been the key to bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for my own companies, and those of thousands of others I’ve consulted to:

A current customer is the easiest person to make a sale to – many, many times easier (and less expensive) than trying to get new customers.

Most business owners operate a risky, day-to-day, transactional business, believing that the reason for getting a customer is to make a sale. That’s their biggest problem: making nothing more than “a” sale to a customer. After that initial transaction, they simply hope that their product or service or location is good enough that they will get a repeat visit from that customer.

On the other hand, sharp business owners (and door-to-door salespeople!) know that the point to making a sale is to get a customer. We have systems put together to maximize the value of that customer by making future offers to them, so that they buy more of the same product or service, or a different version, or even an entirely different product or service.

In other words, we recognize that a current customer is the easiest person to sell to, and a prospect is the hardest and most-expensive person to sell to. Therefore, we concentrate on maximizing the value of every new customer we get.

If you want to grow your business during these challenging economic times (and even during boom times), your time and effort should be invested in working to turn prospects into customers and retain them to market to in the future.
While your marketing is doing its job to get you prospects, you need to be working on turning those prospects into customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal. You need to be:

Inviting
Informative
Enjoyable

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dreaded “buyer’s remorse.” You want to minimize this as best you can, and if you’ve provided a quality product or service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made, the risk will be lower.

However, returns can still occur. Here are the two most effective ways to deal with this:

Offer to refund money — no questions asked
Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product

These offers alone will also lessen the impact of buyer’s remorse, because the customer will trust you more just because you showed the confidence in your product or service to offer these options in the first place.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

Offer a special price as an opportunity for them to test the market.
Offer a lower price with a legitimate reason, such as clearing out inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s braces, or another tangible reason. (Added bonus: Customers love you for doing this, because it makes you so much more human to them.)
Offer a referral incentive.
Offer a smaller, less expensive entry-level product to build trust.
Offer package deals.
Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
Offer extra incentives, such as longer warranties or free bonuses, if they order by a certain date.
Offer financing options, if applicable.
Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
Offer special packaging or delivery.
Offer “name-your-own-price” incentives.
Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
Offer to let them trade up or upgrade to something better if they want.
Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options are really only limited by your imagination and marketing skill. You can use these or other ideas to discover what works the best for your specific business, with your specific products, services and target market.

Even if you ever find yourself doing door-to-door sales.

marketing education in pune

The Lone Ranger and Concurring the Wild, Wild, West

When I was but a wee young lad… one of my first childhood heroes was the Lone Ranger. I loved that show, faithfully delivered every day in vivid black and white. Even as I’m writing, I can still hear the Lone Ranger theme song playing in my mind, when I saddled up my stick horse and rode fearlessly around the living room boldly daring any bad guy to cross my path. Rumor has it that I wore out many a stick horse, I mean “Silver”, riding through the wild, wild, west, totally decked out in my Lone Ranger outfit, cowboy hat, leather vest (okay maybe felt), with my six shooters (cap guns) strapped to my side shouting “Hi Yo Silver away!” I personally took it upon myself to keep all the town folk safe in our neighborhood and ensure that the fair maiden Chelli, the cute little neighbor girl next door, who always dressed up like Annie Oakley, safe from all the villains of the wild, wild, west. Truth be known, our wiener dog Heidi unfortunately took the brunt of my ambitious peacekeeping and was known to be roped and put in her jail cell (dog kennel) far too many times!

Sales used to be a lonely job.

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to work with, manage, and observe a lot of salespeople whose behaviors reminded me a lot of the Lone Ranger. They preferred to work alone, or thought that they could do it all on their own, and that because they had the personal relationships they would always walk away with the sale. In all fairness, the fact is, in the past, sales used to be a lot more of an independent, lonely job. Sales were typically conducted one on one: one salesperson sitting across the desk from another, a handshake and it was done, then off to golf! Individual relationship selling was the way we conducted the sell. “Ding Dong”. And remember when sales were all about the door to door salesperson and the tireless road warriors who were gone from home for weeks on the road? Not that those skills or practices are entirely gone today, relationships are still important, but in the world of big sales, especially large transformational sales, the way the sales transaction is conducted has dramatically changed.

Didn’t the Lone Ranger have a side kick named Tonto?

Today, to successfully land large, transformational accounts/sales it takes an entire posse…. okay, sales team. We call this a Hunt Team. Represented on the customer’s side are multiple individuals who take part in the buying decision and sit at the buyers table, influencers, stakeholders, technical staff, financial, operational, onboarding, supporters, champions, and eels. All have a say in the buying decision and all can influence whether the company buys from you or not. A successful Hunt Team consists of corresponding players: Shoe, Closer, Flow, SME’s, all from various levels throughout the organization from frontline experts to the CEO. Each having been prepped and prepared to support the business case and tailored solution for the customer. Customer confidence is raised knowing that an entire team is ready, willing, and waiting to make the solution a success. Knowing who from the customer’s side will be sitting at the buyer table dramatically affects who we will bring from our side to help balance the buying decision. Today sales truly is a team effort.

Gone is the day of selling like the Lone Ranger!

Much like my favorite show, the days of selling like the Lone Ranger have long since passed… okay, I can still watch the Lone Ranger on Netflix! But my point is, to be successful at transformational sales, it takes an entire team, a finely tuned Hunt Team, to successfully land your next big whale!

Brand Attributes

Brand Attributes portray a companys brand characteristics. They signify the basic nature of brand. Brand attributes are a bundle of features that highlight the physical and personality aspects of the brand. Attributes are developed through images, actions, or presumptions. Brand attributes help in creating brand identity.

A strong brand must have following attributes:

1. Relevancy- A strong brand must be relevant. It must meet peoples expectations and should perform the way they want it to. A good job must be done to persuade consumers to buy the product; else inspite of your product being unique, people will not buy it.

2. Consistency- A consistent brand signifies what the brand stands for and builds customers trust in brand. A consistent brand is where the company communicates message in a way that does not deviate from the core brand proposition.

3. Proper positioning- A strong brand should be positioned so that it makes a place in target audience mind and they prefer it over other brands.

4. Sustainable- A strong brand makes a business competitive. A sustainable brand drives an organization towards innovation and success. Example of sustainable brand is Marks and Spencers.

5. Credibility- A strong brand should do what it promises. The way you communicate your brand to the audience/ customers should be realistic. It should not fail to deliver what it promises. Do not exaggerate as customers want to believe in the promises you make to them.

6. Inspirational- A strong brand should transcend/ inspire the category it is famous for. For example- Nike transcendent Jersey Polo Shirt.

7. Uniqueness- A strong brand should be different and unique. It should set you apart from other competitors in market.

8. Appealing- A strong brand should be attractive. Customers should be attracted by the promise you make and by the value you deliver.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Revenue Growth Strategies are not an Oxymoron….

in this down economy. On April 30, 2009, I will hold a webinar over at the Top Sales Experts entitled “Where is your revenue Growth to come from?”. Having lived almost an equal amount of years in the corporate strategy sphere as I live now in the Sales Consulting, Teaching and Coaching world, I have helped many Sales Executives and Managers to get more clarity on their Sales Growth Strategies.

Based on this experience, I have now develop a new road map to clarity. I will present this for the first time to a wider audience on said occasion.

Lots of advise is available to salespeople and how to adapt to these turbulent times. For example, I have heard Jill Konrath saying in her fist Sales Stimulus preview call that salespeople need about 50% more leads to have a chance to make their numbers this year. I will show you on a high level where to look for those leads without running the risk of creating collateral damage. Getting clarity on this will also help you to work smarter instead of harder. Others have suggested you should prune your pipeline and focus on the best opportunities. These can seem as contradicting suggestions. I will show you that the question is not either/or but doing both and assuring on strategic level, that your pipeline does not fill with hopeful but with realistic opportunities

I will introduce you to four generic sales growth strategies. which you select based on where you are finding your leads you want to covert into revenue sources Although defining strategies is important, their flawless execution is the real key to successfully grow your revenues. I will therefore discuss key success factors helping you for flawless execution. Knowing those factors can also help you to have meaningful discussions with marketing on how they can support your strategies.

Depending on where you find your leads, the time it takes to turn them to revenue contribution will differ. Being aware of this, will help you to have more realistic revenue projections.

Sales managers will learn what type of people resources they need for flawless execution of the four generic strategies.

Often, I hear sales people saying, that they could be more successful if the company were to provide them with the right products at the right price points. You need not necessarily to wait for these things to happen to execute your growth strategies. I will help you to get clarity where you can act alone and where only a tight alignment between your strategy and the corporate strategy well lead you to success.

This is not a promise for the silver bullet. All it is, is a framework pointing you to the aspects that you have to consider when defining successful, executable revenue growth strategies for your business. Although Sales executives and managers are profiting more from this concept, particularly B2B sales people with account management or territory management responsibility can also apply parts of the concept.

Developing strategies is often perceived as an abstract task aloof from reality. I promise you that I will make it come to life through examples.

If you are interested to learn more, you can register here for the webinar taking place on April 30, at 1 p.m. US Eastern Time/ 7 p.m. Central European time