This fall my company is putting in a team for Movember. Movember started in 2003 between friends in Australia has grown into a world-wide movement - in 2009, global participation of Movember climbed to 255,755 people, with over one million donors raising 47 million dollars! The goal is to raise awareness of men's health issues.
For more information visit: http://www.natvd.com/en/company-events/movember-for-mens-health.html
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Relationship management
More and more I am turning to my business partner and saying, "remind me never to do what that salesperson just did." I have another story to add to Casual but not unprofessional.
We had a box supplier come to visit us. It was the big boss, the owner! He was towing along our new sales representative since his former representative quit on him. This was our first meeting with him and the new representative but not our first experience with the company. I shared with both of them our previous poor experience with their 3rd party delivery company. I explained how the driver was not willing to deliver the boxes to the adjacent unit as we specified on our purchase order. They both said, "That's not right. We'll check on that for you."
A couple weeks later the new sales representative comes in and introduces himself like he has never been here before. Then he has no recollection of the conversation we had about the 3rd party delivery company.
If you are going to go through the trouble of personally visiting your customer & make sales calls then be sure to follow up on your findings from these meetings. Otherwise you are wasting your time and your customers.
We had a box supplier come to visit us. It was the big boss, the owner! He was towing along our new sales representative since his former representative quit on him. This was our first meeting with him and the new representative but not our first experience with the company. I shared with both of them our previous poor experience with their 3rd party delivery company. I explained how the driver was not willing to deliver the boxes to the adjacent unit as we specified on our purchase order. They both said, "That's not right. We'll check on that for you."
A couple weeks later the new sales representative comes in and introduces himself like he has never been here before. Then he has no recollection of the conversation we had about the 3rd party delivery company.
If you are going to go through the trouble of personally visiting your customer & make sales calls then be sure to follow up on your findings from these meetings. Otherwise you are wasting your time and your customers.
Casual doesn't mean unprofessional
I know the business world is becoming less formal. You can see it in the way we dress, the way we write emails and the way we greet on another. Business relationships are often strengthened these days by being personable rather than formal. But casual doesn't mean unprofessional.
I have had a few really poor salesmen experiences and thought I would offer them up as cautionary tales for those of us in the sales.
Distracted calling
I had a sales representative from one of my suppliers call me while he was driving & he had me on speaker phone. Besides the fact that the conversation would cut in & out due to background noise. I believe it was start of rush hour and raining outside that day too. He was so distracted from our conversation that he was not thinking about what he was saying. Not thinking enough that the filter between brain and mouth was not functioning. We had to have a make up meeting the following week so he could pull his foot out of his mouth.
My advice is, if you at going to call someone to discuss something important then do not do it while you are distracted. I understand if you receive a call that it might not have control of the timing. But surely if you are going to call your client do it only when you can give them your full attention.
Be prepared
Just like every scout knows, be prepared. Before you make a sales call to a prospective customer have all the information with you. I had a salesmen call me to follow up on a quotation he provided. I had a simple question for him such as "how much of the active ingredient is in the product you quoted to me?". He did not have his quotation in front of him. He proceed to ask me to email my questions to him so he could look at them.
Look if you are going to call me on the telephone to discuss your quotation be prepared to answer some simple questions. If you do not want to talk to me on the telephone then do not call me.
Setting up a time to call
I had one sales rep. write me an email to say I can call him before his first meeting before 8:30 am or between 4:30 & 5:00 pm that day. Otherwise he will be in a meeting all day. The problem with this is I did not want to talk to him. He wanted to talk to me! Or was this to show me how important he was.
Similarly I got this one line email, "let me know when you are free to talk." The problem with this is the person never tried to call me first. I was sitting in the office working all morning. Was I supposed to email back & say, "Now" ? I could understand this message if I was hard to reach or my phone was busy for sometime but to send this before trying to call seems ridiculous.
So please help yourself and do not fall into the above bad habits while contacting your clients or customers.
I have had a few really poor salesmen experiences and thought I would offer them up as cautionary tales for those of us in the sales.
Distracted calling
I had a sales representative from one of my suppliers call me while he was driving & he had me on speaker phone. Besides the fact that the conversation would cut in & out due to background noise. I believe it was start of rush hour and raining outside that day too. He was so distracted from our conversation that he was not thinking about what he was saying. Not thinking enough that the filter between brain and mouth was not functioning. We had to have a make up meeting the following week so he could pull his foot out of his mouth.
My advice is, if you at going to call someone to discuss something important then do not do it while you are distracted. I understand if you receive a call that it might not have control of the timing. But surely if you are going to call your client do it only when you can give them your full attention.
Be prepared
Just like every scout knows, be prepared. Before you make a sales call to a prospective customer have all the information with you. I had a salesmen call me to follow up on a quotation he provided. I had a simple question for him such as "how much of the active ingredient is in the product you quoted to me?". He did not have his quotation in front of him. He proceed to ask me to email my questions to him so he could look at them.
Look if you are going to call me on the telephone to discuss your quotation be prepared to answer some simple questions. If you do not want to talk to me on the telephone then do not call me.
Setting up a time to call
I had one sales rep. write me an email to say I can call him before his first meeting before 8:30 am or between 4:30 & 5:00 pm that day. Otherwise he will be in a meeting all day. The problem with this is I did not want to talk to him. He wanted to talk to me! Or was this to show me how important he was.
Similarly I got this one line email, "let me know when you are free to talk." The problem with this is the person never tried to call me first. I was sitting in the office working all morning. Was I supposed to email back & say, "Now" ? I could understand this message if I was hard to reach or my phone was busy for sometime but to send this before trying to call seems ridiculous.
So please help yourself and do not fall into the above bad habits while contacting your clients or customers.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Adwords the Gym Membership for Business Owners
So if you have a website you've probably signed up for some pay-per-click advertising with Google, Yahoo Search Marketing or Bing etc. After the reality sets in and the fact that you did not get overwhelmed with new customers you have probably set aside the few ad campaigns you made. But did you ever cancel it? Or does it keep running in the background set to your monthly budget. Automatically charging your credit card.
Isn't this the gym membership for business owners. You know you should do it. If you had more time you would do it more often. You know you would be better off if you spent to time to do it. You do it once and a while to make yourself feel better but really is it worth your money? There are so many people already there & they look way better than you.
So just like the gym I am going to make a promise to myself to go in at least 2-3 a week to use it. I am going to make those landing pages direct rather than the home page, I am going to add more variety to the ads to see which are better, and I am going to figure out what the difference between "this" [this] and this is in the adwords. ("phrase match", [exact match] and broad match - in case you were wondering I googled it- I couldn't wait.
There you have it. I have made it known public knowledge. So it is written until I delete this post.
Isn't this the gym membership for business owners. You know you should do it. If you had more time you would do it more often. You know you would be better off if you spent to time to do it. You do it once and a while to make yourself feel better but really is it worth your money? There are so many people already there & they look way better than you.
So just like the gym I am going to make a promise to myself to go in at least 2-3 a week to use it. I am going to make those landing pages direct rather than the home page, I am going to add more variety to the ads to see which are better, and I am going to figure out what the difference between "this" [this] and this is in the adwords. ("phrase match", [exact match] and broad match - in case you were wondering I googled it- I couldn't wait.
There you have it. I have made it known public knowledge. So it is written until I delete this post.
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