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 Companies in Pune

Designing and Managing Value Networks and Marketing Channels

A normal way of functioning for a company is to procure raw materials, use its expertise in creating the product and then distribute to the customer. Companies have to convert this supply chain into a value network as to develop and maintain partnership with different stakeholders.

Value Network and Marketing Channel

A network which creates partnership and value in purchase, production and selling of products is referred to as value network. Value network looks at the whole supply chain system players as partners rather than customers. The purpose of value network is to increase productivity, save cost and increase revenue. Companies are willing to take the procurement process on online for accuracy and speed. Companies exactly know each partners role in influencing or disrupting normal operations.

Companies have developed distribution channel and network through which it supplies final product to customers. This distribution channel and network are referred to as the marketing channel. Companies invest time and money in a well functioning marketing channel. The marketing channels are an integral part of marketing and promotional activity of the company.

Marketing Channels

Core competency for a company lies in developing a product which satisfies a particular need of the market. A company if it decides to sell a product on its own than it is diverting from main line business resulting in operational difficulties. Marketing channel is ears and eyes of companies in the market. They provide companies with valuable information of customers, competitors and other players in the market. Dells computer exclusively uses direct marketing (the Internet and express mail service) in reaching customers. are different of marketing channel depending upon the number intermediaries like retailer, wholesaler and distributor. Channels are also used by companies providing services; for example, hospital and fire station have to strategically locate for people to reach without considerable efforts.

Marketing Channel Design, Management, Evaluation and Modification

In designing marketing channel companies analyze customer needs and preference for a given product. Further marketing channel should fall in line with overall objectives of the company in cost and desired output level. Companies then need to explore various marketing channels like direct marketing, tele-marketing, direct mail, etc. to find the right fit to reach the customer. Each channel short listed has is to be evaluated on operational, cost effective and flexibility criteria. Once the channel is designed, companies look forward to selecting partners with characteristics, which have a positive impact for the product. Channel members need to get the right amount of training as to full understand their role with respect to customer and product. Companies need to develop a mechanism as to monitor functioning of marketing channels on criteria based on total customer satisfaction. After reviewing marketing channel companies should modify them to improve functioning and productivity.

New Trends in Marketing Channels

Companies are looking forward to innovating business functioning as to stand up to the competition and changing market scenario. This has seen rise different types of marketing channel. In a vertical marketing channel, the traditional producer-wholesaler-retailer becomes one functional unit. This can be achieved through franchise or single ownership. In horizontal marketing channel two or more un-related agencies combine to exploit the market opportunities, for example, banks in super markets. In multi-channel marketing systems, companies use different marketing channels to reach different customer base or segment.

Conflict Management in Marketing Channels

In vertical channel conflicts are between members of same channel. In horizontal channel conflicts are between similar service providers in a different channel. In multi-channel conflict arise when a different channel serves the same market. The first step in conflict resolution is to identify the cause for the conflict. Next step is to manage the conflict. This can be done by setting up clear mandate for each member and their role in the overall objective of the company. Further, joint membership, diplomacy and exchange of team members are other ways in resolving conflicts.

Companies need to design and manage marketing channels in such a way that they are always able to deliver value to customer.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Roles and Responsibilities of a Store Manager

Retail Store

A fixed set up or location offering merchandise in small quantities to the consumers for their end-use is called a retail store.

Store Manager

An individual responsible for managing the overall functioning of the store is called a store manager.
A store manager takes care of the day to day operations of the store and ensures maximum profitability for his store.

In simpler words a retail store is a store manager’s baby.

Hierarchy

General Manager
↑
Store Manager
↑
All employees of the store
(Floor manager, cashier, Department manager, Asst Store manager)

Gender Preference

Both Male/Female. However in certain cases the selection might depend on the merchandise available in the store. A store specializing in female lingerie would prefer a female store manager as she would be more comfortable with the female buyers.

Responsibilities of the Store Manager

Recruiting employees for the store is the store manager’s prime responsibility. He not only has to hire the right candidates for the store but also train them for their overall development. He must ensure that all the employees (floor manager, department manager, cashier and so on) contribute to their level best for the effective functioning of the store. He must act as a strong pillar of support and stand by his team at the hour of crisis. It is his duty to acquaint his team members with the latest trends in fashion or any other newly launched retail software. It is his responsibility to delegate responsibilities to his subordinates according to their specializations and extract the best out of them. The store manager must motivate his team members from time to time.
The store manager must make sure his store is meeting the targets and earning profits. He is responsible for the smooth and effective functioning of the store.
The store manager is responsible for maintaining the overall image of the store. It is his duty to sensibly display the merchandise so that it immediately catches the attention of the customers. The store manager must ensure that his store meets the expectations of the customers and lives up to its predefined brand image.He must ensure:
1. The store is kept clean
2. Shelves and racks are properly stocked and products do not fall off the shelves.
3. Mannequins are kept at the right place to attract the customers into the store and rotated frequently.
4. The merchandise should be according to the season as well as the latest trends.
5. The store is well lit, ventilated and offers a positive ambience to the customers.
6. The signage displaying the name and logo of the store is installed at the right place and viewable to all.
One of the major responsibilities of the store manager is to make the customers feel safe and comfortable in the store. It is his key responsibility to make sure that the customer leaves the store with a pleasant smile.
He is responsible for managing the assets of the store. The security and safety of the store is his responsibility. The store manager must ensure that sufficient inventory is available at the store to avoid being “out of stock”.
He along with his subordinates are responsible for planning, managing profit and loss, handling cash at the store as well as collating daily sales as well as other necessary reports.
He must ensure that the store is free from pilferage.

Sales Solution – Presenting – 10 Critical Components

Successful selling isn’t about presenting. Presenting your solution is critical to sales success, but it is not the most important step in the sales process. We’ve covered the most important aspect of successful selling in #4 Building the Database. If you don’t prospect – you don’t close business. Presenting is an eventual step in the sales process, and so today’s post addresses the critical components for effective presenting and closing.

Qualify – You must have completely qualified the prospect. Dah! I know this is a known, but time and time again, we learn that sales people continue to fail to do this no matter how much training and coaching we provide.

Complete the “As We Agreed To” Process – You must have sent the prospect the “as we agreed to” letter and you must have followed-up that letter with a phone call.
Conduct Pre – Call Strategy Sessions – You must have a solid pre-call session with your manager and or peers. Conduct dry runs and role play the actual presentation. Make sure that your participants play their roles accurately and honestly. Making it easy on you won’t get you paid.
Review – Before you begin the presentation – review. Review where you’ve been, why you are there (to solve problems, make pains go away, take care of the compelling reason to act). Make sure that everyone is still in agreement that, when you finish your presentation, they will make a decision to say “yes” or “no” to your proposal.
Let Them Start. What I mean by that is you need to hand them a 1-page document outlining the problems they shared with you that need to be fixed. Ask them to point out where they want to start the process. What problem on that paper needs to be addressed first?
Make Sure They are Satisfied. Once you answer their first item – STOP. Ask them if they are satisfied with the solution. Assume for a second that they say “yes”. You now need to make sure they are really satisfied. You ask them, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with this solution?” If they give you a number below 7, you have a lot of work to do; they clearly were not upfront with you about their satisfaction. You must ask, “Before we move on, let’s address that. What have I missed?”
Continue – Continue through all of the items that you’ve come prepared to address, making sure that they are satisfied with your answers, your solutions and your explanations. Make sure you have 10s for each solution you provide.
Close – Assume you’ve covered 5 items, you’ve got agreement that they like your solutions, and you have 10s next to each one. All the supporting data that you have is sitting by your side and not theirs. When you finish you simply ask, “What would you like to do now?” This is a big if, IF you’ve done everything right going around the bases, there will only be one answer – do business. If you do not get that answer, you must ask what you missed. You are confused, they stated that they were okay with all of the solutions, they gave you a ten and now they want to think it over. Nothing makes sense.
Be Prepared to Leave – this is the hardest part. If you don’t get an answer – and they agreed to give you one because you did a great job in the commitment step – you must be prepared to leave WITH your proposal. They don’t get that until they decide. Failing to do that exposes you to competitors.
Rehearse – No matter who you present to, you must be prepared for buyer’s remorse. You get it when you make a major decision and so will your new client. Let them know that, if they are going to change their mind, if they have any doubts, they should deal with those now and not on Monday after people have created doubt in their minds.

Will this give you a 100% closing ratio? Nope. Will it improve the one you have? Yep, but only if you have the courage to execute.

Tags: sales competencies, sales presentations, sales improvement, sales development, dealing with objections