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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Competition Strategy – Dealing with the Competition

Consumer and business markets have distinct characteristics by which they function. Earlier, importance was given mainly in understanding customer and their business. But in this age of technology and globalization companies cannot afford to ignore competition.

Many companies are lowering their cost by outsourcing production to Asian countries. Companies must keep an eye on strategies and marketing program undertaken by competitors, to remain successful.

Michael Porters five force model is appropriate in identifying competitive forces, which affect business in any given environment. These five forces are the threat of companies from same segment, threat of new entrants in the segment, threat from substitute products, threat from the increase in consumers bargaining power and threat from suppliers bargaining power. If in the same segment there are too many players, if the segment is reaching saturation, if no further scope of expansion than to continue operation is difficult for the company. If the entry barrier are few and far than it makes easy for companies to enter, making segment un-attractive but if the entry barriers are tough than the company is better off in entering the segment.

Substitute products are big threat and limit scope of a price increase. If consumers are better organized, have a choice in terms of product available and can create pressure on profits, making segment un-attractive. Similarly, if suppliers are better organized, less in number and supply is a key raw material for final output than also segment is unattractive.

Dealing with threats is one thing but if companies are not able to identify their competition than it can cause serious consequences. In recent years technology and internet have change the way business is conducted. Many companies were caught napping with respect to competition coming from the internet. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target are facing competition from online retailer Amazon.com. Companies see competition in a direct format. This direct format consists of industry structure, number of players, entry-exit barriers, business model and ability to globalize. Market looks at competition in much more holistic manner where different products can satisfy a similar need. For example, for teens fashion can be explained by apparel to a music player, so with limited budget choice can only be one. Market approach increases the number of competitor in a real and abstract manner.

Companies after going through the process of identifying competition, also need to do in-depth analyze in terms of nature, strategy, strength, weakness and operation pattern. Companies following similar strategy need to group existing player in a matrix of product offering. For example, in the laptop market, apple is on the high end where as Dell offers low end models.

Companies need to understand competitors motive and goal to be in the market. US companies believe in shareholder value where as Japanese companies believe in market share. Next companies need to understand competitors strength and weakness. For example, GM has good reach in USA but its weakness is quality where as Toyota does not have extensive dealer network but offers quality. Competitors operating pattern also need careful study like competitors action in the face of challenge to their position in the market.

To deal with competition companies need to design an intelligence system. Companies need to identify parameters which will help in analyzing the competition. It is then followed by gathering information for which source and methodology have to be finalized. Once the information is collected it has to be analyzed and sent to appropriate decision makers to act upon. As there are cost involved in design and maintaining such system, some companies give out contracts to companies which specialize in intelligence gathering activity.

The information from system is helpful in designing marketing strategies. Marketing strategy evolve depending on company position in the market. Market leaders, market challenger, market follower and niche players are four types of position strategy companies follow.

Dealing with competition is not an easy task and it requires dedicated resources of manpower, system and budget. Any lapse from company would result in decrease of market share and profit.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Retail Management – Meaning and its Need

What is management ?

Management refers to the process of bringing people together on a common platform and make them work as a single unit to achieve the goals and objectives of an organization. Management is required in all aspects of life and forms an integral part of all businesses.

Retail management

The various processes which help the customers to procure the desired merchandise from the retail stores for their end use refer to retail management. Retail management includes all the steps required to bring the customers into the store and fulfill their buying needs.

Retail management makes shopping a pleasurable experience and ensures the customers leave the store with a smile. In simpler words, retail management helps customers shop without any difficulty.

Need for Retail Management – Why retail management ?

Peter wanted to gift his wife a nice watch on her birthday. He went to the nearby store to check out few options. The retailer took almost an hour to find the watches. This irritated Peter and he vowed not to visit the store again.-An example of poor management.

You just can’t afford to make the customer wait for long. The merchandise needs to be well organized to avoid unnecessary searching. Such situations are common in mom and pop stores (kirana stores). One can never enjoy shopping at such stores.

Retail management saves time and ensures the customers easily locate their desired merchandise and return home satisfied.

An effective management avoids unnecessary chaos at the store.

Effective Management controls shopliftings to a large extent.

The retailer must keep a record of all the products coming into the store.
The products must be well arranged on the assigned shelves according to size, colour, gender, patterns etc.
Plan the store layout well.
The range of products available at the store must be divided into small groups comprising of similar products. Such groups are called categories. A customer can simply walk up to a particular category and look for products without much assistance.
A unique SKU code must be assigned to each and every product for easy tracking.
Necessary labels must be put on the shelves for the customers to locate the merchandise on their own.
Don’t keep the customers waiting.
Make sure the sales representatives attend the customers well. Assist them in their shopping. Greet them with a smile
The retailer must ensure enough stock is available at the store.
Make sure the store is kept clean. Don’t stock unnecessary furniture as it gives a cluttered look to the store. The customers must be able to move freely.
The store manager, department managers, cashier and all other employees should be trained from time to time to extract the best out of them. They should be well aware of their roles and responsibilities and customer oriented. They should be experts in their respective areas.
The store manager must make daily sales reports to keep a track of the cash flow. Use softwares or maintain registers for the same.
Remove the unsold merchandise from the shelves. Keep them somewhere else.
Create an attractive display.
Plan things well in advance to avoid confusions later on.
Ask the customers to produce bills in case of exchange. Assign fixed timings for the same. Don’t entertain customers after a week.

Selling and Your Plan of Execution

A good friend and I were on the golf course in Nashville, Tennessee working a booth at the General Agents and Managers Association conference (A life Insurance Group – GAMA) being held at Opryland. The meeting was over and we decided that, before we headed back to Cincinnati, we should swing the clubs at Gaylord Springs Golf Links. We were the only ones on the course that day, as it was a bit chilly and a bit rainy, but not cold or wet enough to keep us from playing. We finished the front nine, and as we looked at the 10^th fairway, we planned our strategy. We both agreed that the best strategy was to keep the ball left; we certainly didn’t want to go right as that would put our ball out of bounds and possibly in the Cumberland River that ran adjacent to the fairway.I approached my ball, took a nice easy swing (yea, right…) and proceeded to land the ball in the river. Whitey took his turn after having a good chuckle at my expense and proceeded to put his in the river as well. We picked up our bags, and as we headed down the fairway to play our third shots, he turned to me and said, “That execution thing is way over-rated. It is all about the strategy.”

Obviously, he was joking, but many people look at strategy as what drives success. Without strategy, you have nothing. Well to quote, or semi-quote, General Patton, “I’d rather have an average plan executed today than a perfect plan executed tomorrow”, now that I can agree with.

Too many people spend time getting ready to get ready. They take way too much time planning their strategy waiting to get their ducks in a row. Well, I can tell you having grown up in and around farms in the early part of my life that ducks don’t line up all that easy, and they certainly don’t line up and go where you want to them to go. You try and push them or guide them one way or another and you’ll have ducks all over the yard. But, if you lead them with some incentive – food – they will line up and follow you. So, the key is to know is the secret to execution. The “one thing” that will get you started. Don’t wait on all the right things to line up or show up. You’ll find yourself sitting around looking at great strategy without any results.

My idea of a good plan is one that gets executed and gets you the results that you are looking for. It could be as simple as a one card business plan that you keep in your pocket, or it could be as complicated as a business plan associated with a large financial institution. It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is your plan of execution.

The PLAN of execution is what takes courage. It is determines if, in fact, your strategic plan or business plan is really going to get executed. I cannot begin to tell you how many strategic or business plans that I’ve read that had very little in the way of “this is what we will execute.” Most plans have a

Rarely, do I see an execution plan. You know, that information that tells us exactly what the sales person is going to do day in and day out. How they will track their activities and how they will eventually report their success or failure to execute. And, there is hardly ever any mention of consequences of process or discipline identified if a sales person fails to execute.

Why? Well, there can be a couple of reasons: lack of understanding, lack of coaching, lack of introduction to an effective business plan. But, ultimately, the problem is lack of courage; the courage to put yourself out there on the skinny branches and announce to the world “this is what I will do.” Not what I want to do or think I will do, but what I will do.

It takes courage to clearly identify those activities that you will execute and to tie those activities to standards of execution. Most people shy from that type of accountability. They fear failure or success. They hide behind the tried and true defense of “that is micro-managing.”

You want more success? You want your sales people to have more success? Then make sure that there is a plan of execution in place with the strategy.

Tags: Selling, Sales Execution, Sales Plan, Sales Strategy