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.

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Designing Global Market Offerings

21st century world is presented as a flat world. It is not flat because earth is changing shape but because way communication has evolved. Flow of information, goods and services is faster. Branded products like Gucci are available in developed countries like USA and in developing economies of India and China. Growth in number of multi-national companies has been exponential. Not every company is open to idea of globalization but it is prudent for companies to consider internationalizing their operation at some point. Companies can achieve globalization through analysis and research.

Is there a need to be global? The 1st question companies have to address. There are definite challenges in going international, right from product design and mix, to people with international marketing knowledge. A company may decide to become a global player, if international markets offer better profitability than the domestic market. A company may decide to become a global player to achieve economies of scale or if international company is giving competition in the domestic market. A company may decide to be a global player if there is customer movement from one country to another. However, becoming a global player has share of dreaded consequence if companies ignore culture, regulatory requirement, political environment, foreign exchange policy and competition in the identified international market.

Once the company has decided to become international, next step is to identify which market to enter. Companies can choose to explore one market initially and then build up from that or companies may decide to enter in several markets and diversify the risk. For example, European Union, it is one of the single largest market with access to 15 countries.

The next step is the evaluation of the potential markets. Companies generally prefer to go international by selling to the neighboring countries. For example, US companies prefer doing business in Canada. One of the reasons is better understanding of the market as there are similar in culture, language and laws. Companies choose to enter the market which has high rating in market attractiveness, low risk level and where they enjoy a competitive advantage.

There are various ways of entering the international market. Indirect and direct exporting is one way of becoming international. In indirect exporting involves selling goods to domestic export agents as a first step to become a global player. In direct exporting companies open sales branch or overseas subsidiary. Licensing is another way of entering global markets; here company (licensor) enters into an agreement to allow another company (licensee) to sell and manufacture the product in the chosen market. Investment and risk level associated with indirect/direct exporting and licensing is minimal.

Another way to enter the market is a joint venture. Company forms partnership with the local player facilitating direct entry into the market. The reason of the joint venture could be political as well as economical. The last form of entering is through direct investment. In direct investment, company enters the global market through direct ownership. This can be done by buying a local company or facility. Companies can also set up their own manufacturing facility.

Once the market and format of entering in the market are finalized, it is time for the company to work out the marketing strategy. Company has to work out the option between standardized marketing of one size fits all or come out with completely new strategy for the new market. Alternatively, companies can choose to mix and match in product, promotion, price and place. At product level, company may choose to enter the global market without changes in the original product, or company may choose to modify the product as per the local market taste and preference or company may decide to introduce completely new products. For promotion company may choose standard or may modify as per the local market needs. Pricing is a tricky issue. Therefore, companies can set uniform price across global market or introduce market based price in each market or use cost based approach to set the price. At distribution channel level company have to figure the best way to reach the market.

A company entering a global market also has to be aware of cultural, political, legal, and technological factors in respective markets.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Retail Merchandising

Merchandising

Retail Merchandising refers to the various activities which contribute to the sale of products to the consumers for their end use. Every retail store has its own line of merchandise to offer to the customers. The display of the merchandise plays an important role in attracting the customers into the store and prompting them to purchase as well.
Merchandising helps in the attractive display of the products at the store in order to increase their sale and generate revenues for the retail store.
Merchandising helps in the sensible presentation of the products available for sale to entice the customers and make them a brand loyalist.

Promotional Merchandising

The ways the products are displayed and stocked on the shelves play an important role in influencing the buying behavior of the individuals.

A merchandiser maximizes the sale of the products by:

Attractive packaging

The packaging of the merchandise goes a long way in improving the brand value of the product. A product kept in a nice box would definitely catch the attention of the customers.

Impressive presentation of the Product

The display of the products at the retail store must entice the customers. The merchandiser in coordination with the store manager must ensure that the products are according to the season as well as latest trends.

The merchandiser must:

Source something which is unique and not available at any other retail store.
Never compromise on quality of the merchandise. Compromising on quality costs later.
Source merchandise as per the season and climate.

By mid of August and early September, the summer merchandise is generally on a close out and stores begin stocking merchandise for the winter season. Warm clothing, full sleeves apparels, jackets, pullovers start replacing cut sleeves, capris, ankle length dresses, shorts and so on. Colourful clothes dominate the shelves as compared to the subtle colours in summers.

The type of product sourced also depends on the climatic conditions of the place.

A Reebok store in Central India or Southern India would stock summer merchandise between April to September whereas a retail store under the same brand somewhere in a cold area would source woollen merchandise along with summer clothing as per the demand of the season.

Unique Pricing (Discounts)

Attractive prices, discounts, rebates also bring customers to the store.

Promotional schemes, gifts

Coupons and attractive gifts make shopping a pleasurable experience for the customers.

Merchandising Tips

The merchandiser must source products according to the latest trends and season.
The merchandise should be as per the age, sex and taste of the target market.
Merchandise for children should be in line with cartoon characters (like Barbie, Pokemon etc) to excite them.

Creative Portico Pvt Ltd sources bed sheets, curtains specially inspired from characters (Disney, Harry Porter, Hannah Montana) – a hit amongst kids.

Youngsters prefer funky clothes (colourful T Shirts, faded denims) as compared to professionals who would go for subtle colours.

The target market of Zodiac Clothing Company Limited mainly comprises of office goers and professionals. The merchandise (shirts, trousers, neck ties, belts) is as per the taste of the professionals. Beach house shirts would have no takers in such a store.

The merchandiser ideally works on the “invariant right” principle.Since most of us are right handed, it is a common tendency that customers entering into retail store would first go towards the right side of the store. The merchandiser should display the unique and expensive collections on the right side of the store to entice the customers.
The set up of the store should be such that once a customer enters into a store, he has to walk through each and every department.
The shelves should be stocked with the latest trends. The merchandise should be well organized on the racks according to their size and pattern.
It is the key responsibility of the merchandiser to create an attractive display to pull the customers into the store. Once the customer steps into the store, he would definitely buy something or the other.

Points for Sales Change

I first landed at the Bradley International Airport outside of Hartford Connecticut when I was 18. I again flew out of there a couple of days ago, 35 years later, after one of our sales training sessions with an insurance company’s salesforce. I can’t believe the changes. Though I didn’t remember all the details of the airport, I do remember it being small and unremarkable. Today it is a bright, vibrant and a much-expanded hub of air transportation; the improvements are remarkable.

As I sat there having lunch, I wondered how much I had changed over that same time period. Certainly, the physical changes were obvious. When I was 18, I was there as a recruit to play football for the University of Connecticut. Today, I’m a 53-year old consultant to companies that are trying to improve their sales force, align sales efforts, and build systems and resources that support extra-ordinary sales growth. Money isn’t the measure of everything that happens, but it is one way to keep score and track how far you have come. 35 years ago, if you had told me that someday I would own a company with 8 employees that generates 2 million dollars a year, I would have thought you were nuts. My goal at that time was to graduate and become a college football coach. How did I go from football coach to entrepreneur? The following list isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive answer to that question, but maybe it will give you some idea of what it takes to change from an average “doing ok sales person”, to one that is considered extra-ordinary and best in class.

Goal setting – You have to establish non-negotiable goals that extend who you are.
Commitment – You have to demonstrate your commitment with consistent behaviors.
Persistence – Nothing that you want will be easy, you have to persist beyond obstacles.
Passion – I love what I’m doing. If you don’t love what you are doing, get out.
Learning – You can’t stop learning. If you do, you’ll stop growing and earning.

Certainly, you can make a living and you probably will do ok, but is that why you chose professional selling as a career – to be average and just ok? Challenge yourself in the following ways:

Set new goals for yourself that are way beyond what you think is possible.
Commit to write down your goals, share them with others and then execute activities consistent with those goals.
Persist – Do not let yourself or others convince you that you are too old, too young or already good enough to take on a challenge of getting better.
Re-ignite the passion that you had the first day you started. Think that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Start over again as if you have to prove something.
Read a book at least every other week. Learn something new about yourself, your business and about selling. Expand your knowledge and skill to become best in class.

Again, this isn’t the end all and you may actually be thinking,”Is it worth the effort?” I can’t tell you the answer to that. Once you accept this challenge, only you will know your return on investment.

Tags: setting sales goals, sales improvement, sales development, Sales Coaching, sales accountability