16 Ways to increase sales

1. Save your energy by defining / identifying prospects
   Those who are more likely to be your customers.
2. Qualify early in the sales process
   If the prospect has a budget /  need / good value for money proposition 
3. Have a strong sales message and positioning
   Why should the prospect buy from you
4. Periodically clean up your sales pipeline
   Identify "bad leads" and remove them
5. Contact the real decision makers
   Those owning problem /  budget  / authority
6. Focus on large prospects
   They are likely to have the kind of money to buy - without straining
7. For first-time appointments : Get an appointment any day the customer wants
   Then later you can re-schedule it the day you want
8. Get referrals
   Get existing customer /colleague to suggest your name to a prospect
9. Time is your biggest resource
   Optimize it
10. Have an outcome as an objective for each meeting
    Keep meetings short and sweet
11. Never Surface Objections Yourself
12. Sense the Right Time, Then Close
13. The reason why competition got the sale is they talked to the right people
    And you did not
14. Increase the Amount of Each Sale
15. Decrease Your Sales Cycle Time
16. Flexible Terms and Conditions

10 Offers that make you more attractive to your potential customers

1. Better Product features
2. Better facilities for knowing, choosing, paying, getting delivered, getting trained
3. More expertise leading to better diagnosis and better customization
4. More reputation
5. Better image of the seller / user
6. Lower Price
7. Lesser hassles in the customer's process of arriving at the market 
8. Lesser risk 
9. Better solution 
10. More / Better people of the kind the customer wants to meet / interact

4 ways to determine what "Business" are you in ?

A marketer MUST know all the 4 ways by which a "Business" is defined. 

1. what do you make in your factory ( "Industry" definition )
   vacuum cleaner
2. what use does the customer put it to ( "Use" definition )
   cleaning
3. where does the product excel ( "Application" definition )
   removing deeply embedded dust
4. what is the personal motivation ( "Payoff" definition )
   good impression on visitors

Remember there are 3 types of personal payoffs for customers for any purchase 

• want to achieve something
  Satisfaction that there is no dust in sofa
• want to fix something
  ( people sitting with white dress complained of dust ) 
• want to avoid something
  ( people getting a poor impression of housewife )

10 Ways to sell more -even if your product is the same ...

1. Make your product available to the customers where your competitors is not.
2. delivering it where, when and in quantities customers want 
3. provide easier financing to your customer 
4. Make people more aware of your product as compared to your competitor
5. Undertake effort to educate and  update the customer
6. help the customer in diagnosing the problem and suggesting a solution
7. help the customer to install, fit and commission it
8. Customize your product for the customer
9. Help customer in using, maintaining, upgrading, disposing the product 
10. Make it easier for the customer to compare, purchase, complain

12 Ways to tell if your company's marketing is good

1. Sales Volume
2. Price realization per unit of volume
3. Revenue growth over last year
4. Market share 
5. Reputation that attracts customers
6. Relationship that makes customers loyal
7. Strength and reach of marketing networks
8. Being pioneer or fast follower in "next" markets
9. Being early to get out of "sunset" markets
10. Stronger portfolio of products / markets
11. Innovation ( % revenue from products launched in last 5 years )
12. Barriers to the entry of strong competitors and to the exit of weak competitors

5 Levels of addressing service marketing problems

1. Event level : visible on Surface :  Pacification (Service Recovery) takes lot of time /energy but does little to fix the cause which may be under the surface.
2. Pattern Level :  visible when data is monitored : it is clear which problems continue to emerge regardless of how often you addresses them. Indeed, the same cause  may create multiple negative events.
3. Structural Level :  How systems, structure, staff and skills give rise to these patterns. Origin is in policies, procedures and rules created to run the organization : recruitment, induction, training, supervision, motivation.
4. Mental Assumptions of top management : The formulators of policies and procedures make assumptions regarding the impact on customers and employees.
5. Vision Level : Finally, organizational goals are developed at the “vision” level, which is at the root of the iceberg, where one examines the sense of the direction the organization is taking. At this level one considers what are the tradeoffs we need.

4 Differences between good marketing and poor marketing

1. Frequency of changes : Good marketers are continuously scanning the environment for opportunities, customers, profitability, partners etc. They change more, experiment more and probably even fail more during this experimentation but they quickly learn. The most important point is that, among these failures, they find a few successes also which enables them to grow. On the other hand poor marketers do not have good market scanning mechanisms - hence they do not come to know of changes in time - till they are all too visible. Poor marketers change less,  experiment less, fail less but they do not have any successes on which they can build their future.  
2. Source and style of  innovation and adaptation : Good marketers learn proactively from the customers and the behavior of their competitors and from marker intelligence . Poor marketers innovate and adapt reactively by copying competitors or merely through internal discussions.
3. Management : Good marketers manage their people, priorities and focus well. Poor dont.
4. Basis of competition : Good marketers compete based on value and value-for-money. Poor marketers compete based on low prices and low margins.

5 common reasons for marketing failures

1. Not  knowing: Which market, whom to serve, what to deliver 
2. Not planning: No goals set .  No resources  allocated.  No  activity planned. 
3. Not mobilizing : Unsuitable People. Unclear Jobs. Unmotivated people. 
4. Not  implementing : No focus.  No tracking.  No  Review.  No  consequences. 
5. Not  evaluating and improving : No learning. Giving up too soon. Or coasting. along.

13 Differences in marketing of products and of services

13 Practical Differences Between

Marketing of Products and Services

The distinction between “Pure products” or “Pure services” is used mainly for pedagogic purposes so that the students understand why the two types of businesses need to be managed differently. This handout explains howhow What The reason for this distinction is that because the customers need both specific products and services in their buying and usage journey over a period of time. Customers will not buy many products if  process of before together at the time of ; most of the time they come bundled together. When you visit a restaurant, you look forward to the food (product) as well as ambiance and experience (service).  

1.     TRAVEL IN PLACE AND TIME : Products can be made in one  place at a given time and  can travel to customers who are at  another place and time. Hence there is a channel transporting goods from one place and time to another. Hence there is inventory which needs space, money and handling. For services there is no such gap between the producers and users as both service givers and buyers need to be in the same place at the same time. Customers travel to service sites where service givers are present or the service givers travel to the customers hence there is concept of appointments, reservations, time tables,  stations and sites.    .

2.     WHAT GETS BILLED : The benefits of a product are inside a box and such boxes get transported to the customers through distribution  channels. The unit of sale for a product is the physical unit. On the other hand, the services are site /location based and the customers need to be travel to these locations. The unit of sale for a service is by time (per hour, per visit) or per experience (play, flight) or per procedure  (haircut, surgery, hair colour).   

3.     CUSTOMIZATION :  Customers like their products to be standardized so that they can search, pre-inspect, buy and use the same standard benefits put into the package by the factories. Customers like the services to be personalized or customized . A service cannot be pre-inspected and  needs to be undergone. Part of the service can be inspected (service scape and personnel)  , part of it can be experienced (music, art, haircut) and some of it needs to be believed (education).  

4.     QUALITY : expected from a product is mostly embedded in the product itself at the time of its manufacture and depends in turn on the quality of the materials used and the settings of the machines. Both materials and machines, being inanimate, can be standardized. On the other hand the qualities that people expect from  service are different : customization and variation is appreciated in service and this depends a lot on the experience, skill and motivation of the service-giver on the spot.

5.     TANGIBILITY : The products are tangible and can be inspected / sampled before buying and can be carried in a bag by a customer. Service is experiential and sometimes based on a belief.

6.     SCALABILITY :  The product business is scaled up by expanding the manufacturing capacity , distribution and sales reach, and access to more customers. On the other hand, the service business is not easy to scale up - it needs a supply of trained service providers and this involving either poaching people from the competitors or increased activity of recruitment, induction, training and motivation. Attrition of trained manpower is a danger to service business.

7.     OWNERSHIP : A product ( flat, car, machine) can be owned and can go into your balance sheet as an asset and is re-salable and you can accumulate it to build your wealth. A service ( degree, surgery, haircut) cannot be owned as is always shown as an expense. It is not resalable and cannot be transferred to someone else. Products begin as materials and machines work on those materials to create improved / shaped / transformed materials which are called products. Services begin from service givers and improve / shape / transform  objects (woodwork), bodies (surgery), minds (education).

8.     BENEFITS: The customers buy "products" essentially for what they find inside the box. The  customers buy "services" for the value of they find in the "encounter" with the service provider - whether doctor, waiter or a consultant.

9.     QUALITY : of products depends essentially on how materials are chosen and converted and can be specified and objectively inspected. The quality of the service depends on the servicescape and the skills and attitude of the service givers.  

10. SENIOR MANAGEMENT :   In product business the decision makers and the managers are the heroes because of their decision making ability. In service business the front line employees are the real heroes because of how they interact with the customers in  a customized and pleasing way. .

11. VALUE  DEVELOPMENT : The process of creating a market-driven design in a product business involves lot of time by experts doing off-line work at the back (invisible to the consumer not present) of situation analysis, formulating specs of material, machines, men and methods. On the other hand, the same process of creating a market driven design needs to happens during interaction with customers  in few minutes in services. The front line - far away from the HO - and without the luxury of experts and time – is tasked with understanding the customer and producing service to satisfy the customer.

12. FIRST  CUSTOMER : In the product business, the customer is outside the manufacturing process and hence two processes need to be created (1) The process of bringing the voice of the customer in the process of product creation (2) The process of physically taking the products to market where the customers are. In the service business the customer is inside the business and his voice / requests /  demands force your front line service providers  to understand and adapt to him. In service business, it is worthwhile to treat the front line service givers as the “first customers” themselves.

13.  THE ROLE OF STANDARDIZATION AND MECHANIZATION : In the product business, a company proactively anticipates what the customer wants, frequently standardizes its products which are made to stock off-line (when the customer is absent) and brings them through the supply chain to where the customers are. Mechanization is used extensively in the processes. The machinery is used to process materials and machines. In product business the role of the machines is primary and the role of the workers operating those machines is secondary. On the other hand in the service business, a company is managed in a reactive mode by asking customers on-line what they desire and then the company tries to deliver it in an individualized manner in real time at the front line. Since the value is created mainly through conversation, individualization and customization , the role of employees is primary and the role of the machines is to assist the employees.

A good way of conducting a marketing audit - 5 basic marketing processes

How well are the 5 vital processes of marketing established ?

Check if these 5 vital processes of marketing are existing in your company & also how well are they established ?

MARKET SENSING PROCESS : Process of observing the reality and learning from it so that a sound plan can be formulated depending on it. This process tracks, analyzes and interprets what the  environment  and  competitive developments and thus provides a foundation of reality to all actions. 

 
STRATEGY FORMULATION PROCESS : This process helps the marketing company decide what value it plans to create, for whom, and how will it compete sustainably.  

CUSTOMER FULFILLMENT PROCESS : This is a process of coordinating with internal departments so that the strategy gets implemented, the product portfolio gets developed and supported in line with the market needs, the stock gets produced and distributed to the right locations and supply chain works properly end to end. 

 
GO TO MARKET PROCESS : This process consists of locating, prospecting, contacting, promoting, advising, closing, transacting - and thus acquiring customers - in order to generate revenues for the company. 

 
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK PROCESS : This process gives frequent customer feedback on existing operations / marketing mix . It consists of  managing complaints, customer recovery, learning from mistakes. It also consists of what gives rise to customer satisfaction from existing ways of the business.

What happens if these 5 processes are absent ?

WHAT HAPPENS IF MARKET SENSING PROCESS IS ABSENT ?
The “alignment” between the markets and the company is never measured (except by the very obvious and post-facto measure of sales – “if we are selling well, we must be aligned to the market”). If you do not sense the market at the time of market entry you will fail because you may not be able to give what the market wants – and which is better than what the competition is offering. Even if you start with a good alignment and hence success in sales, the market and the company may drift in different directions without continuous market sending and thus the "fit with the market" may goes down progressively till the company finds itself  hopelessly out of date. 

 WHAT HAPPENS IF STRATEGY FORMULATION PROCESS IS ABSENT ? the company will try and go after multiple types of customers - and for each it will try to create value – and in multiple ways. Ultimately the company does not create a superior focus on any of these markets (customers) and does not become a leader (among top 3) in any of the markets it operates. In each market it becomes a "follower" and is subject to the pricing and other rules set by the leaders and hence operates with its margins under pressure. Being not a leader it also does not enjoy warm patronage of the users, buyers, trade and vendors. No one's life depends much on such a company but the company is at the mercy of a lot of people.   

WHAT HAPPENS IF CUSTOMER FULFILLMENT PROCESS IS ABSENT ? the right products, with right product specifications, may not come to market at the right time.  Or the right products may not get produced and distributed such that the right product is available at the right time.  

WHAT HAPPENS IF GO TO MARKET PROCESS IS ABSENT ? The revenue generation and customer relationship creation suffers. Even if you make the right product, revenue will not get generated unless you reach out to them, talk to them, convince them, demonstrate to them, persuade them and make them buy.

WHAT HAPPENS IF CUSTOMER FEEDBACK PROCESS IS ABSENT ? you lose out on chances to learn by doing. Since the customers do not connect back to you, you never learn what they think and want, and you do not come to know where are the areas of opportunity. The customer relationship suffers because there is no connect. The customer loyalty suffers and you lose a part of the "total lifetime value" of the customer base - created by you - to your competitors.

3 Ways of formulating your marketing strategy

1. These types of companies are pro-active as well as strategic in following the marketing process : discover , diagnose, design and deliver. Here the company proactively studies the market and comes to know not only the current status but even emerging trends. In most such companies it is the CEO who drives this exercise. The company sees far down the road and has time to prepare itself to face the situations that will come down the road. In such companies many executives are aware of what will the customers need in future, how the competitors will behave, how the situation is likely to unfold. This enables these companies to lead the market by being first movers or rapid followers.
2. There are some companies who make annual budgets - and sometimes even long term marketing plans -but they do it more as a mechanical routine. Mostly such exercises are driven by the accounts and finance departments and as such they are focused more on generating P&L numbers. In such situations the senior managers frequently leave such planning to middle and sometimes even junior levels. Such exercises have little value in the long run and mangers wonder why their forecasts of revenue and profit dont come out right. They do not realize that the forecasts are the result but the causes are in the external environment and, unless they focus on environmental analysis, they will not get it right.
3. The worst ways of formulating your marketing actions are two. First, purely based on internal office discussions without having much touch with the market, without hearing the voice of the customer. Second, almost as bad, is when you have been taken by surprise by a competitor and are put in a position to react (rather than act). The time is not on your side - you are in a hurry - valuable time is going by. In such a situation it is difficult to think coolly and take right decisions.   

CMO is answerable for these 10 Questions

Do We ....

1. have a proven ans established "market sensing" mechanism ?
2. know what are the current and emerging needs of our customers?
3. have a granular data of how many customers of which kind ?
4. know who are competing with us and for which customers ?
5. have current list of opportunities & what they can add to top / bottom line?
6. have a marketing plan - at corporate / division / product / market level ?
7. have people / roles / processes to make the plan work ?
8. know what we are offering to the market and why ?
9. know who and how will communicate our offer to our customers ?
10. Know what  competence matters the most - and have plans to build it ?

6 Stages how marketing evolved over centuries

16th century : Craft and Art Era
CRAFT  of making a product well. "Made to Order" operation.  Customers came because of craftsmanship reputation. Furniture, carriages, carpets, houses, clothes were all made to order. Generally there was a scarcity of crafted products in the world. Craftsmen and artisans were respected.

17th & 18th century : Manufacturing Era
USING MACHINES for mass manufacturing. Products became standardized and mass manufactured. The cost came down as a result of mass manufacturing. Lower prices enable more people to access the products. The industrial era began. The population of craftsmen and artisans began shrinking

19th century : Sales Era
Machine owners realized the power of SALES NETWORKS which amplified their increased customer access and considerably improved volumes  This increased batch sizes and brought down the cost mush more. Example : Ford Model T. The era of mass manufacturing was born. . Manufactured products at affordable price were accessible to many and significantly improved the life of many people. 

20th century : Marketing Era
Competition came in. Many started making similar products and using the mass marketing techniques. The mass media like radio and TV were born. The road and rail networks improved and the storage systems also improved. People even in remote locations began enjoying the benefits of mass marketed products due to awareness and availability. Since all made similar "me too" products, the marketing people focused on differentiation based on what the customer's needs were. The era of marketing was born.

21st century : Services / Experience era

It is now becoming difficult to differentiate products based on physical attributes because similar technology of making and selling is available to all. Internet has brought possibilities of individual access, prosperity has enabled people to afford customization. The service economy is booming everywhere.