Let’s focus a bit on an aspect of marketing - Personal Selling or Sales, and unravel some aspects of it to help you increase sales and improve sales productivity.
This comes in a four-part package tagged “Sharpening Sales Skill”.
Part 1 highlights positive steps to prospecting, through provision of practical tips to assist a salesman (or salesperson) in becoming more effective at generating new business and following up with prospects.
Here are the practical tips:
a) Develop List of Potential Customers
- From seminars, workshops and meetings
- Seek names from reference materials (e.g. companies’ sales records,
directories, trade shows, personal referrals, etc)
- Evaluate information derived from above sources, for suitability
b) Create Enough Time for Prospecting
- Carve out specific time on daily/weekly schedule for this activity
- Treat time for prospecting with the same respect as you would any other
important appointment
- Remain focused on this timing
c) Be In a State of Preparedness
- All materials (e.g. notes, contact system) should be handy
- View this more as a mindset rather than merely as an activity.
d) Rehearse your Mode of Encounter
- Prepare a script
- Practice with script (e.g. simulate action with a colleague)
- Don’t fall for the temptation to sell over the telephone (Use this only to gather
information, make appointment)
e) Make Contact Quickly
- Don’t wait for prospect to call
- Remember, there are always competing interests
f) Avoid Temptation to Criticize Competitors
- Make healthy comparison
- Avoid being unprofessional and petty
- Guide prospect by emphasizing the benefits of own product/service
- Educate prospect by comparison of quality and price
- Play to your strengths and not the weakness of your competition
- Allow prospect make up his/her mind from your comparison.
g) Don’t Take Rejection Personally
- See as a natural aspect of the sales process
- Remember, in sales expect prospect to say NO five times before he/she
buys
- Learn from rejection
- Use it as a feedback mechanism
- Look for ways to improve your presentation
… more next time
… More next week
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...Previous Tips on Biz Fix Tips
The second part of the salient questions about the essence of planning in marketing continues: - … (B) What are the steps in the application of planning for marketing process?
Steps in the application of the planning process (continues):
(b) Developing Marketing Strategies
{A plan for selecting and analyzing a target market, creating and maintaining a marketing mix}.
- Positioning
- Product Development
- Testing
- Launching
- Control tools
- Strategy should be reflective of the company’s position in the market (If
a market leader, challenger, follower or nicher).
(c) Marketing Programmes
{Those sets of marketing strategies which are implemented and used at the same time}.
- While planning for the programme, consideration should be given to:
(i) Marketing Expenditures (e.g. %age of sales; allocation of budget to various tools of the marketing mix; allocation to various products,
channels, promotion media, sales area).
(ii) Marketing Mix
- Product: Quality, design, features, branding, packaging, etc.
- Price: Wholesale/retail prices, discounts, credit terms, perceived value
of pricing.
- Place: What’s in place to make offering accessible and available to
customers/consumers?
- Promotion: What’s on to communicate product/offering to the target
market? |
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