April 2010

Selling in a recession stricken market is a difficult job. Customers either order less or postpone buying which directly and adversely affects budget.
During a tight market, customers most loath to spend money. They tighten their budget and strive to make use of every penny and waste nothing. Nobody affords to waste money in tight market. Now is the time to plug up the holes and not let things slip through the cracks.
If all these years you were selling your product by focusing on its key features, then now is the time to think different. Try to answer the questions like—do your products or services help your customers to plug up some holes? Do you help them save money? Are they benefited by your product? If the answer is ‘yes’, then turn the benefits to your key selling points. Think out of the box and find out how you can help them save money or resources.
If earlier you were selling savings now is the time to sell cost. Don’t tell your customers that they are going to save money from your product; they already know that and probably many others also told them the same about their offerings…so what difference will you make? Emphasize on their expenditure and consecutive loss and stress that spending money on your product will be a key to curb this expenditure. Instead of talking about the benefit of your product remind them the existing problems they face. This way they will start looking at your product with some interest.

Here is a piece of conversation between the sales person and the potential customer, demonstrating how to turn the tables and compel the customer to think twice before rejecting your offer.
Customer: “Well, it looks good, but I really don’t think we can spend any money right now.”
Sales Person: “I know that John, that’s exactly why I’m here. But take a look at your monthly expenses incurred while maintaining your existing systems. You are already spending $1980 per month to maintain your older systems. Our product will cut that cost by 80%. I agree, Mr. Customer, spending $1600 every month is difficult but installing our product right now will save you $30,000.

You can start selling even while making an appointment with a powerful introduction.
Sales Person: “Mr. Customer, this is John Doe from ABC Systems. The reason I’m calling is that in these tight economic times, most companies are feeling the pinch and looking for every possible way to save money. Well, we have a new solution that will put thousands of dollars back into your monthly budget, adding to your bottom-line and giving you more money to do your job.”
Now after an introduction like that, a prospect cannot say they don’t have money to spend, the sales person just said that she already knows that. Moreover, the idea of saving thousands of dollars will compel the customer to rethink on your offer rather than bluntly rejecting.

The Three Principles

There are three driving principles which a salesman should keep in mind to sell successfully through recession.

1. Be a true business consultant for your customer.

Tell your customers how your solution can solve their problems and improve their business strategy. Offer them innovative ideas based on the insights from your past experience with similar issues.

2. Do your homework well.

Know your customers, their needs, goals, their customers, competitors, employees, and challenges. In a competitive market you should know your customer well before you call them. This information will help you impress your customer during the call.

3. Focus on both results and relationship.

Be result oriented and aim for a long-term relationship with the customer. Customers are more interested in result than the process which gave rise to the result. Think of each customer as market, capturing which will leverage your successes.

Success Strategies

There are three success strategies which a sales person should keep in mind while selling — retain existing customers during a recession, grow existing customer relationships and acquire new customers during a recession.
Given below is a list of tips which will help a salesperson to sell through tough economy:

Hard work…more and more hard work. Now you have to work hard more than ever. How much ever scary the situation becomes, don’t panic and give up on all hopes. Thinking negative is not going to help. Instead, change your selling technique and strategy. Put resources in marketing and sales. Increase your visibility in market thus increasing the market share. If you don’t increase your market share now then you may loose business opportunities and potential customers too. Be proactive and involve yourself into more networking and social gathering. Stay focused and targeted to increase your sell by the end of the day. Innovate new sales strategy or ideas to sell. Bottom-line is leverage your efforts by all means e.g. ask for referrals, try to upsell and cross-sell, get in touch with dormant clients and follow up on all leads. Grab every opportunity to build a long lasting business relationship. Never treat a customer roughly. Add value to your service so that it in turn helps to improve their service. Show the customer that you care for them. Spend time with them and understand their concern. Keep your word and stick to your commitment. Most important of all, sharpen your skills. After all it’s your selling skill which will get you going in the field. Get yourself into sales training, prepare a development plan and monitor your progress, do everything possible to hone your selling techniques.
Role and Responsibilities of a Sales Manager

Acquire, retain and train talented salespeople with attitude necessary to achieve results. Reward the deserving sales person for their efforts and ensure that the compensation is aligned with their performance. Focus on the continuous growth and development of the sales force. Lead the sales team and motivate the team to stay focused on strategic and financial goals.
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Being a salesperson is one thing; managing a team of several sales professionals is entirely another. Sales management brings more people in perspective along with a completely different set of goals. Thus, sales manager training is a wholly separate tract in business management education. Be that as it may, sales manager training is something which cannot be overlooked for it is the pivotal point at where business proficiency and management acumen must be fully demonstrated by the person in charge — that is, the sales manager.

Among all departments in a business, it is perhaps the sales department that has the highest turnover rate not just among the basic sales staff but also among sales managers. It is also the department that has the quickest rate of promotions and expansion. The sales manager position is therefore the most dynamic post in the business hierarchy and requires the most attention in terms of learning solutions and continuing education.

Hence, sales manager training is at a critical position. A good and sufficient training can provide an advantage for the company; however a training that is less than ideal may prove inadequate in helping sales managers excel in their businesses.

Focus on Managerial Skills

Most sales managers go up the ranks from being sales agents, to holding supervisory positions, until they get the managerial job either when the previous manager have gone further up the hierarchy, have left the company or when the business unit expands. Sales manager training should already be enacted at the supervisor level or even earlier among key sales personnel.

The primary learning requirement for upcoming sales managers involve augmenting their knowledge and skills to effectively perform their managerial duties. Most rookie managers have not been in a leadership position before. And the tools and know-how expected of seasoned managers are still all new to them. These include, planning skills, organizational skills, ability to motivate their respective teams, what to do during difficult situations — all these and more go into the content of sales manager training to allow new managers to adjust accordingly to their new duties.

Through sales manager training, the trainer brings together the novice manager’s new found skills and knowledge with his or her achievements and proficiency as sales professional. This brings about profound potentials that tend to improve performance of the manager and the sales team.

Discovering Strengths and Weaknesses

One additional benefit of training up sales managers is the opportunity to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the firm’s sales managerial talent pool. This allows higher management to adjust accordingly either at the individual level or as a team. A sales manager with a weakness on a certain area may be given additional training to help the manager improve. Otherwise, at the team level, certain adjustments can be made to let managers and teams complement each other’s respective strengths and weaknesses.

The importance of sales manager training cannot be watered down. A company that provides continuing sales manager training is sure to reap its benefits of a high-performance sales force.

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Export marketing is a serious issue for most growing companies in today’s interconnected global economy. Whether to export or not, where to and how to, are the major questions for companies willing to expand their international markets.

Export marketing is not just a process to find buyers/importers and approach them with the expectation of export orders but a well planned strategic marketing process one should follow and performed well to get success in International Market. Since last 10 years of my International Marketing consultancy practice, I have found that major export marketing efforts get failed due to lack of implementing strategic marketing action plan.

So what is that strategic marketing action plan..?

Strategic marketing action plan is a set of key functional areas of export marketing which should be performed well and followed step by step to get succeed in Export marketing. Performing following key tasks step by step will give you a rapid success in export marketing with sustainable and profitable export sales growth.

Step-1 : Identify your target market

First step of export marketing is to identify target market and market needs where your products/services has good market potential and demand. There are many countries in world and you should pick right one(s) for your product and services. If you know your target market and market needs, you could easily get export orders from those countries. You can identify target market by conducting International Market research activity that will give you detailed knowledge of opportunities in International market.

Step-2 : Developing Export Marketing strategies

After identifying target market, second step of export marketing is to develop a right Export Marketing Strategies including market entry strategy, positioning strategy, product strategy, pricing strategy, branding strategy, supply strategy and promotional strategy according to target market needs. Based on the conclusions of the International market research, you will be able to develop the strategy to meet your export marketing objectives. Your Export Marketing strategies should be able to develop a sense,

• To enter in right market where your products/services has good market potential and demand
• To position appropriately that give you and edge over competitor
• To develop products/services that satisfy needs of buyer,
• To offer prices that give both of you and your buyer a competitive advantage,
• To offer own brand or private label solution
• To supply as per ready stock or buyer’s requirements
• To promote your company that creates awareness among buyers/importers

If you have developed right export marketing strategies you could enter and develop international market faster with sustainable export sales growth.

Step-3 : Preparing Marketing Communication tools

Once you have developed strategies based on target market needs, third step is to prepare informative and appealing marketing communication tools like Company Profile, Sales letter, Product Catalogue, Brochures, Website etc. that can supports in positioning and promoting your company. Your all marketing communication tools should be well designed, informative, professional and appealing that can deliver all necessary information of your company and products/services to prospective buyers/importers and influence their decision to start business communication with you.

Step-4 : Promotion

After preparing marketing communication tools, next step is Promotion which plays a major role in export marketing success. Main objective of promotion is to create awareness among buyers/importers of what you are and what you offer. Promotional mix should be cost effective and should deliver right message, in right time and at right place. Promotion should lead buyers/importers to get attention, capture interest and take action in initiating business communication with you. Internet is the best cost effective and fastest promotion tool in present export marketing practices. It has been seen that major buyers/importers using search engines, B2B portals and directories to find and contact genuine suppliers. So presence of your company profile and products/services in major search engines like Google, yahoo and B2B portals like Alibaba.com will give your company a global exposure and creates awareness among buyers/importers effectively. Participating in Trade fairs, Exhibitions and catalogue shows is also a good offline promotional strategy which can generate a direct and live contact with buyers/importers.

Step-5 : Generating Export Inquiries

Success in export Marketing begins with generating genuine export inquiries from prospective buyers/importers which requires expertise and focused work of promotion, sourcing genuine buyers and approaching them professionally. One should study buyer’s profile and/or buy leads to know whether you can offer them what they requires. It has been seen that many suppliers contact majority of those buyers/importers who have no interest in their product/services without understanding their profile and needs. A Buyer/importer can send you inquiry only when he needs your products/services either better than his existing supplier in terms of either Quality, Price, Services and/or developing more suppliers and/or for other reasons. So contact them by offering competitive advantage which can get them interested to send you inquiries which can be converted in to export orders by communicating and negotiating professionally.

All above steps are inter connected and can only give results if each step performed or performing well. Export marketing is a continuous process and all those key functions can be reviewed and modified time to time as per changing global economic and market situation.

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Overseas trade is a key sales expansion route for many businesses around the world. Selling products and services in foreign countries may attract significant business revenue. Over time, foreign trade could even outpace home country sales and become the primary source of business.

It is true that there are many barriers to operating successfully overseas. For one there is the language! There are also government regulations to consider, some of which could end up being very costly if not complied with.

Other barriers include the logistics (and costs involved) in shipping product to another country, as well as storage and distribution. Companies must also think about just how they are going to establish a demand for their product overseas.

Thankfully, there is a simple solution to these issues that can make overseas trade seem like a walk in the park. What’s more it need not cost your company a dime to set up!

The Power of Joint Ventures

Establishing joint ventures with businesses in your target foreign market is the key to success in overseas trade. All you need do is locate a business partner that is situated in that country with whom you can collaborate.

You can then broker a deal where the partner receives a financial reward on sales revenue generated in exchange for promoting your products in the foreign market and handling the supply chain logistics from your premises to the end customers in their country. By doing so you’ll gain access to an overseas market for very little effort and no money down!

Finding Joint Venture Partners

Overseas joint venture partners are easily found through joint venture search companies such as www.jvbase.com

Joint venture search companies are specialists in matching businesses together that have a natural powerful synergy. They can provide business partner contacts in overseas markets who are specifically looking to market the type of product your business is offering.

Furthermore, many contacts will already have established customer networks. This could mean that you’ll find yourself tapping into an instant database of buyers. Just think, you could be generating overseas sales within days of you setting up your joint venture agreement!

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Here is a video I made over a year ago about making major sales. If you are considering entering any business that involves selling any product or service that will require more than one sales interview is usually a major sale.
Selling a car is a major sale, selling the car cleaner is a simple sale. There is a very big difference. Take a look at the video, it may help you.

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