Marketing, Strategy and Management: My Observations.

I’ve done sales for a few years before moving into more strategic role in marketing. I’ve sold cookies in door-to-door sales job, tried and sold few jars of chocolates from table-to-table, sold investment packages from cold calling, sold training programs from cold calling and office-to-office and I am currently selling my Marketing Plan e-book.

Along the way, I have managed a number of sales people and groups. I think until today I have the mindset of selling and because I am currently doing a lot of idea-selling. My stakeholders are people like you, my partners, customers, potential investors and sometimes to my wife. It is very important to know how to sell your ideas because if you don’t, your life is going to be very boring.

But as a salesman or sometimes people call it marketing executive (though I disagree with the actual meaning of marketing executive!), there are some pertinent and must have skills to at least give you the comfort and some sort like a guarantee so you can be a better salesman or marketing people. The skills mentioned are uniquely yours but it can be learned from other people like me, but the performance of it is dependent on you. Let’s begin.

1. Cold Calling

Yeah…this skill is as cold as the ice when you first heard it. But to convince you, salesman that cannot make cold calls will not make any sale. Trust me! If you have done cold call, you will agree what I am about to say after this. “Cold call breaks the ice and heightened my confidence to make my first step and subsequently my first sale!” Agree?

It can come in many forms. One is calling from a “cold-list” you receive from your supervisor. Another is to go from office-to-office setting appointments. Thirdly is meeting people at your booth during exhibition, fourthly you are given fliers and you need to pass it around and convince people to buy, finally convince your close friends about what you do. How to do it? Start it and delay no more.

2. Presentation Skill

This skill is a must have for anyone in this century. It used to be difficult to learn and some say it’s a born talent. But honestly speaking I think this skill is acquirable and can be duplicated quite easily. There are a lot of books and training programs that teach how to have a better presentation skill. I was born as a very shy boy and timid. Now, many said I talked too much!

The boom of presenters in this era has made salesman / marketing people job more competitive. But remember, it is not enough to just talk and parroting. You need to have solid content and know what you are talking about. That’s where you can carve an edge and make a difference. Grab a book or Google on presentation skill.

3. Listening

Usually when you listen, it means you are focusing on the other person and not keep on talking. Many salesman claimed to be listening, but they keep loading you with a lot of brochures and information about their products from all over directions. Sometimes in some customers, your product or service just doesn’t fit their needs. It is best to move on and do it peacefully.

I have seen salesman where when get rejected, they stopped smiling and that face that I loathe. This is because it quickly tells me that the person don’t really care about you and was never paying attention to what customers needs are. This listening skill is so important because it separates you from other salesman. But there is a caveat, by listening you are actually extend the sales cycle a little bit longer. Nonetheless when it comes, it lasts.

4. Flexibility

Yes, this is a skill. As a salesman or marketing executive, there are 2 numbers that are quite flexible as a salesman. One is target and another is price, one for you and one for the customer. The purpose is to make the sales happen so we set target and price so with these numbers we can multiply it to make our commission. Some sales people are overly engrossed with the numbers and they blind with other things. They started hard sell, curse sell and end not selling but pushing.

I’ve experienced a customer that really doesn’t have the budget to buy training program that I was selling. I asked them, “What if I convince my boss that you can pay by instalment?”, he said OK. But I have a request, “You need to give me 5 participants and all of them on instalment with 30% deposits, at least I can show your commitment.” Fantastic?

5. Sense of Humour

This too is a skill. I don’t mean making fool of yourself or clowning. You do this by relating it to your customer. Humour ease up tense situation and makes it better to talk about something heavier after few doses of humour. It also can be in many forms, based on my experience.

I once sent a birthday card to a high profile CEO (but a customer) with a napkin in it. He called me and asked why did it put a napkin in his birthday card? I told him that I would like to invite him for a dinner for his birthday and some business discussions. We had dinner and we resolved few issues on the business side. I really suggest you to look into humour in your sales team and it would be better if you can plan it. Especially to some clients you have forgotten.

6. Knowledge

Knowledge develops over time but my experience tells me that you can accelerate knowledge. As if you can scoop it and build a mountain after many scoops. Yes you can! But you need to sacrifice a little bit because you got to do a lot of reading, further your study, mix with more people, attend social events, take time to travel the world, go to seminar that you never plan to go and say hi to as many people as you can. Because when you do all these, you will quickly get over your shortcomings and gained from the experience.

There are 2 types of knowledge. One is the social knowledge which is about socializing with people and another is professional knowledge. The first one is quite natural when you are in the business. The later is more important in the long run as a salesman or marketing people because as years go by you need to convince more people about yourself more than what you are selling. You need their trust and that trust will do the selling.

7. Discipline

This differentiates you from “just a salesman” and “D salesman”. I have a friend whom at the age of 50 years old he is still a waiter. I asked him, “Aren’t you want to be promoted as a manager perhaps at this age?”, his reply was, “I can’t be late if I am a manager and I don’t think I can live with that.”

Unless you decide to be “just a salesman”, then you can throw discipline out the window. Discipline will take your further and give you a career than just a job. Salesman job is a key path to greater management position if done with solid discipline, persistency and consistency. Discipline also will help you become more organize and improves productivity. Wouldn’t you be interested to earn more and drive a better car some day?

8. Closing Technique

This skill makes almost all salesmen nervous. Whenever I am training a group of salesman, this question is a must-ask and I have a standard reply for this, “How do you normally do it?”. There are various closing techniques but I recommend you to observe the closing that earned you business and didn’t give you business. Sometimes it’s not in the closing, its your personality.

But there are few phrases that you can use to close. Such as, “Is there anything else that I can help you with, When can I send you the first order, Who would be receiving this delivery, Can you hand me the document first, Would you like to just try for 1 week see if you are happy with it, Perhaps I can give you a test drive, If I can solve your money problem would you buy from me” and so on. Note down your powerful closing so you can repeat (or milk it!) over and over again.

If you are a small business owner and entrepreneur, you would want to consider my latest Strategic Marketing Plan e-Book for your business. Many business owner don’t really know how to write a marketing plan and as a result they find it difficult to improve their business. It is very cheap if you compare with asking a consultant to do it for you or buying a marketing software. check it out at my Marketing Plan Book blog.

You can also be my friend on Facebook/Mike Entreprenovator. Any inquiry please email to entreprenovators@gmail.com

I recently received some photos from a friend wedding. He has been dating the same girl for more than 10 years (what??!! but yes!!) and he surely deserved a nice and memorable wedding with his long time girlfriend now wife. But amidst the celebration moments captured in the photos, i wondered how people find money to wed in time of crisis like this? Why people don’t postpone wedding and struggle to find the money? Why wedding while spending a lot of money make the couple happy? Why people that come to wedding gives money to bridal purse while they themselves are short of money? Is wedding an economic activity? Who involves in the entire value chain? I set to investigate and dig further. Here what i found.

That guy who just got married spent nearly USD 20, 000 for a 1 month celebration including few events. This amount is equivalent to his paycheck for 12 months but he spent it in a month and whooosshh! The caterer that catered the wedding received total 4 bookings on the same day and monthly bookings stood at 25 weddings. Per wedding the caterer charged around USD 5, 000 for 1,000 patrons. The caterer employed 8 waiters per wedding and paid each of them USD 50 per day for 12 hours and that made up to USD 400 per day for 8 waiters. She has 4 weddings on that day, therefore the waiters wages cost her USD 1, 600. Each of the waiter is part time waiter, therefore every weekend they make extra USD 200 – USD 400 per month depending if they only work one day or two days. And figures are on and on.

In other words, from my observation that wedding is an economic activity. It generates income for many more people in the value chain just from one wedding. Lets look again.

The caterer has to buy meat, vegetables, ingredients and rice for the wedding lunch. She needs to rent the space to place all the tables and chairs. She needs to buy fruits too. Because it is wedding season, the grocery store owner needs to stock extra meat, vegetables and fruits because the caterer will buy from him. As the wedding season coming, the poultry farmer and vegetable farmer need to plan their produces, so the distributor will buy more from them and they get extra money. Besides, they need the extra money for the coming school opening for their school going children.

As for the wedding couples, months before their wedding they have to work harder and save more money so they have money to spend on the wedding. They also buy less stuffs for the next few months so they can buy more discounted items during the year end sale period where they buy nice goodies as wedding gifts. The parents of the wedding couples start calculating on how much they want to chip in for the wedding. If too much, it might burden them but if too little, they might have ego stripped from their neighbours. The neighbours can’t wait to see what’s in store and keep comparing from previous weddings thus push the wedding couple parents to spend more than they should.

The wedding planner is promoting the latest wedding gown and tux for the couples. This is limited edition and no one use this before. With the money they have, they said Yes! The wedding planner then has to hire a tailor to measure and sew wedding gown and tux. The weddin planner also work with the wedding space design and decoration. They need to have a flourist for the flower supplies. They also need a candle supplier for the candle supplies.

Now, the wedding planner needs to look for professional photographer. The wedding couple said, ‘Let’s make it memorable and sweet!”. Thus the wedding planner hired an established photographer. This photographer has done it at another wedding and with his experience, he is charging around USD 1, 500 for the whole session. Looking back, the wedding couple realized the wedding gown and tux is not enough. Since they are hiring a professional photographer perhaps they should wear various and traditional costume so they are “memorable and sweets!”

Later they have miniature wedding gifts and cakes for the patrons. They need to look for collectibles shop for a designer gift or simply a gift from a wedding shop. Since they have at least 1,000 patrons therefore they need to buy at least 1,000 gifts. Usually they end up buying 10-20% extra to be on the safe side and to make sure no one missed the gift. One gift costs them USD 2 and total around USD 2, 500. Then they need to fill the gift with sweets or simple mementos.

Another is the directional signboard to the wedding. And also the wedding card. It needs to be nice and well designed so it reflects and give desirable first impression. People said first impression lasts and the wedding card is designed properly. the map, name, contact number, quotations and so on are selected carefully. Then the signboards just follow accordingly.

on the wedding day, the patrons come with smiles and usually with family. They don’t come empty but with some token for the bridal purse. Usually each family will contribute USD 50 for the bridal purse and assuming the wedding “generates” 500 families, therefore the bridal purse collects as much as USD 25,000 for that wedding. Substantial amount? Yes, not too bad! Then the collection later distributed as return on investment (or expenses) then the wedding couple whom happily married go on a honeymoon. which now give a business to travel agency, airline and tourism.

As you can see, wedding is a big business and indeed an economic activity. when there is no wedding, the economic acitivity can go haywire and halted. last month alone, i spotted at least 50 weddings around the areas i live. Wedding is very important and when happy people become wedded, they generate more income because later they are going to have a lot more needs and some children.

P/S: Congratulations to Kamarul Akmal and Erni Yusnani on their wedding!! May you live happily ever after!!