10 steps sales process

10 steps sales process.

Raising CEO Longevity

In my youth, CEOs hung around till they retired. Today, the tenure of CEOs continues to drop to a point where their longevity is less than an NFL coach. Show me a company or even a country in trouble, and I'll show you a CEO who is about to be fired. Strategy, vision and mission statements are dependent on the simple premise that you must know where you're going. No one can follow you if you don't know where you’re headed. Many years ago, in a book called The Peter Principle, authors Lawrence Peter and Raymond Hull made this observation: "Most hierarchies are nowadays so cumbered with rules and traditions, and so bound in by public laws, that even high employees do not have to lead anyone anywhere, in the sense of pointing out the direction and setting the pace. They simply follow precedents, obey regulations and move at the head of the crowd. Such employees lead only in the sense that the carved wooden figurehead leads the ship." Perhaps this pessimistic view of leadership skills has led to the explosion of hundreds of books dealing with leadership, most of them being downright silly. There's advice on whom to emulate (Attila the Hun), what to achieve (inner peace), what to study (failure), what to strive for (charisma), whether to delegate (sometimes), whether to collaborate (maybe), Americas secret leaders (women), the personal qualities of leadership (having integrity), how to achieve credibility (be credible), how to be an authentic leader (find the leader within) and the nine natural laws of leadership (don't even ask). In fact, there are 3,098 books in print with the word "leader" in the title. To me, how to be an effective leader isn't worth a whole book. Peter Drucker gets it into a few sentences. "The foundation of effective leadership is thinking through the organization's mission, defining it and establishing it, clearly and visibly. The leader sets the goals, sets the priorities, and sets and maintains the standards."
First, how do you find the proper direction? To become a great strategist, you have to put your mind in the mud of the marketplace. You have to find your inspiration down at the front, in the ebb and flow of the great marketing battles taking place in the mind of the prospect. It's no secret that most of the world’s greatest military strategists started at the bottom. And they maintained their edge by never losing touch with the realities of war. Karl von Clausewitz did not attend the best military schools, did not serve in the field under the best military minds and did not learn his profession from his superiors. Clausewitz learned his military strategy the best way and the hardest way--by serving in the front line at some of the bloodiest and most famous battles of military history. The unpretentious Sam Walton traveled to the front lines of every one of his Wal-Mart stores throughout his life. He even spent time in the middle of the night on the loading docks, talking with the crews. Unlike "Mister Sam," many chief executives tend to lose touch. The bigger the company, the more likely the chief executive has lost touch with the front lines. This might be the single most important factor limiting the growth of a corporation. All other factors favor size. Marketing is war, and the first principle of warfare is the principle of force. The larger army, the larger company, has the advantage. But the larger company gives up some of that advantage if it cannot keep itself focused on the marketing battle that takes place in the mind of the customer. If you're a busy CEO, how do you gather objective information on what is really happening? How do you get around the propensity of middle management to tell you what they think you want to hear? How do you get the bad news as well as the good? If you don’t get the bad news directly, bad ideas can flourish instead of being killed. One possibility of finding out what's really going on is "going in disguise" or poking around announced. This would be especially useful at the distributor or retailer level. In many ways this is analogous to the king who dresses up as a commoner and mingles with his subjects. The reason: to get honest opinions of what's happening. Like kings, chief executives rarely get honest opinions from their ministers. There's just too much intrigue going on at the court. The members of the sales force, if you have one, are a critical element in the equation. The trick is how to get a good, honest evaluation of the competition out of them. The best thing you can do is to praise honest information. Once the word gets around that a CEO prizes honesty and reality, a lot of good information will be forthcoming. Another aspect of the problem is the allocation of your time. Quite often it is taken up with too many activities that keep you from visiting the front. Too many boards, too many committees, too many testimonial dinners. According to one survey, the average CEO spends 30% of his or her time on outside activities--and spends 17 hours a week preparing for meetings. Since the typical top executive works 61 hours a week, that leaves only 20 hours for everything else, including managing the operation and going down to the front. No wonder chief executives delegate the marketing function. But that's a mistake. Marketing is too important to be turned over to an underling. If you delegate anything, you should delegate the chairmanship of the next fund raising drive. David Packard of HP fame once said, "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people." Long ago, Drucker advised that since the purpose of a business is to generate customers, only two functions do this: marketing and innovation. All other functions are an expense. He was absolutely correct. If you're a CEO, keeping your job will depend on how good you are at marketing and innovation. - (Branding Strategy, 19 Sep 07)

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Free and inexpensive marketing secrets that works - part 2

Free and inexpensive marketing secrets that works - part 2. This vidoe contains stories of how people creating free marketing secrets to grow their business. the contents is based on the book 49 Marketing Secrets (THAT WORK) to Grow Sales.

Free and inexpensive marketing secrets that works - part 1

Free and inexpensive marketing secrets that works - part 1. This vidoe contains stories of how people creating free marketing secrets to grow their business. the contents is based on the book 49 Marketing Secrets (THAT WORK) to Grow Sales

10 P's Marketing Mix by Prof Chris Birch, Professor of Enterprise Development

Prof Chris Birch (Professor of Enterprise Development) from Staffordshire University introduces his first lecture on the Marketing Mix.

10 P's of Marketing Mix

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion
5. People
6. Process
7. Physical asset
8. Perception
9. Projection and prediction
10.Promise

London Business School: Impacting marketing

Professor Nader Tavassoli and Professor Nirmalya Kumar talk about impacting marketing.

Survival and the CEO

Long ago Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting, made a very profound observation that has been lost in the sands of time:
"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business."
Today, when top management is surveyed, their priorities in order are: finance, sales, production, management, legal and people. Missing from the list: marketing and innovation. When one considers the trouble that many of our icons have run into in recent years, it is not easy to surmise that Drucker's advice would have perhaps helped management to avoid the problems they face today.

Ironically, David Packard of Hewlett-Packard fame once observed that "marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people." But as the years rolled on, rather than learn about marketing and innovation, executives started to search for role models instead of marketing models.

Tom Peters probably gave this trend a giant boost with the very successful book he co-authored, In Search of Excellence. Excellence, as defined in that book, didn't equal longevity, however, as many of the role models offered there have since foundered. In retrospect, a better title for the book might have been In Search of Strategy.

More recently, the popular method-by-example book has been Built to Last by James Collins and Jerry Porras. In it, they write glowingly about "Big Hairy Audacious Goals" that turned the likes of Boeing, Wal-Mart Stores, General Electric, IBM and others into the successful giants they have become.

The companies that the authors of Built to Last suggest for emulation were founded from 1812 (Citicorp) to 1945 (Wal-Mart). These firms didn't have to deal with the intense competition in today's global economy. While there is much you can learn from their success, they had the luxury of growing up when business life was a lot simpler. As a result, these role models are not very useful for companies today.

There is a growing legion of competitors coming at new businesses from every corner of the globe. Technologies are ever changing. The pace of change is faster. It is increasingly difficult for CEOs to digest the flood of information out there and make the right choices.
But a CEO can have a future.

The trick to surviving out there is not to stare at the balance sheet but simply to know where you must go to find success in a market. That's because no one can follow you (the board, your managers, your employees) if you don't know where you're headed.

How do you find the proper direction? To become a great strategist, you have to put your mind in the mud of the marketplace. You have to find your inspiration down at the front, in the ebb and flow of the great marketing battles taking place in the mind of the prospect. Here is a four-step process to pursue:
Step 1: Make Sense In The Context
Arguments are never made in a vacuum. There are always surrounding competitors trying to make arguments of their own. Your message has to make sense in the context of the category. It has to start with what the marketplace has heard and registered from your competition.
What you really want to get is a quick snapshot of the perceptions that exist in the mind, not deep thoughts.
What you're after are the perceptual strengths and weaknesses of you and your competitors as they exist in the minds of the target group of customers.
Step 2: Find The Differentiating Idea
To be different is to be not the same. To be unique is to be one of its kind.
So you're looking for something that separates you from your competitors. The secret to this is understanding that your differentness does not have to be product related.
Consider a horse. Yes, horses are quickly differentiated by their type. There are racehorses, jumpers, ranch horses, wild horses and on and on. But racehorses can be differentiated by breeding, by performance, by stable, by trainer and so forth.
Step 3: Have The Credentials
There are many ways to set your company or product apart. Let's just say the trick is to find that difference and then use it to set up a benefit for your customer.
To build a logical argument for your difference, you must have the credentials to support your differentiating idea, to make it real and believable.
If you have a product difference, then you should be able to demonstrate that difference. The demonstration, in turn, becomes your credentials. If you have a leak-proof valve, then you should be able to have a direct comparison with valves that can leak.
Claims of difference without proof are really just claims. For example, a “wide-track” Pontiac must be wider than other cars. British Air as the “world’s favorite airline” should fly more people than any other airline. Coca-Cola as the “real thing” has to have invented colas.
You can’t differentiate with smoke and mirrors. Consumers are skeptical. They’re thinking, “Oh yeah, Mr. Advertiser? Prove it!” You must be able to support your argument.
It's not exactly like being in a court of law. It’s more like being in the court of public opinion.
Step 4: Communicate Your Difference
Just as you can’t keep your light under a basket, you can't keep your difference under wraps.
If you build a differentiated product, the world will not automatically beat a path to your door. Better products don't win. Better perceptions tend to be the winners. Truth will not win out unless it has some help along the way.
Every aspect of your communications should reflect your difference. Your advertising. Your brochures. Your Web site. Your sales presentations.
There's a lot of hogwash in corporate America about employee motivation. Brought to you by the "peak performance" crowd, along with their expensive pep rallies.
The folks who report to you don't need mystical answers on "How do I unlock my true potential?" The question they need answered is, "What makes this company different?"
That answer gives them something to latch on to, and run with.

Strategy: Think Big

In today's fast-moving marketplace, companies typically compete by improving their products in small ways. They make them visually more attractive, or more reliable, or less costly. Maybe they tinker with the marketing. The result is predictable: Competitors make a countermove -- and in the end, market share moves slightly, if at all. In thinking small, though, companies miss out on the chance to win big. Instead of trying to influence what brand people buy, they should be focusing on what people buy. Real innovation involves creating categories or subcategories with distinctly new value propositions. They change the competences and strategies required to compete and, at their most powerful, transform markets by making competing products irrelevant. The Prius hybrid, for example, developed with new technology from Japan's Toyota Motor Corp., has made other cars irrelevant for some buyers, and has helped Toyota establish itself as a leader in industry efforts to make more environmentally friendly cars. Often, important innovations come from smaller companies, whose success with a new idea can catch much bigger competitors flat-footed. Today's beverage arena, for example, has undergone dramatic change in recent years, thanks largely to innovations by smaller players in the sector. Indeed, PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. missed out on much of the high growth in sports and health drinks through the 1980s and '90s, focusing instead on their long-established dueling colas for much of that time. Among the big winners that Coke and Pepsi eventually were forced to acquire were Gatorade, bought by Pepsi as part of its acquisition of Quaker Oats Co. in 2001; the Odwalla line of juices and other health drinks, which Coca-Cola acquired in 2001; and SoBe, formerly the South Beach Beverage Co., a maker of juice blends and teas purchased by Pepsi in 2000. While creating new product categories and subcategories is not always possible -- and can be risky -- research has shown it produces far greater rewards than sticking with the tried and true. In 2004, two professors at the French business school Insead made a study of 108 business launches over a recent five-year period, some 14% of which represented innovations that went beyond incremental improvements in an existing market space. The study, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, found that those 14% produced 38% of the revenue and 61% of the profits for the entire group. Innovating 101:So how does a firm identify, or better yet, drive, these real innovations, without depending on technological breakthroughs? Here are some ways: • Augment the offering with a feature or service that consumers will regard as essential. Westin Hotels, a property of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., created a subcategory of hotels that offer a premium bedroom experience with its Heavenly Bed, a pillow-like mattress filled with down, and, later, the Heavenly Shower, extra roomy and with dual shower heads. General Motors Corp.'s OnStar service, which allows motorists to get help or get directions, has changed automobile buying criteria for some. • Provide faster access to new products. Two successful clothing retail chains, Zara, part of Spain's Inditex SA, and American Apparel Inc., have innovated in fashion by keeping design and manufacturing primarily in their home markets, Spain and the U.S., respectively. This helps the companies deliver new fashions into their stores much faster than some of their competitors. • Find an underserved segment. That's what Clif Bar Inc. did with the Luna energy bar for women, introduced in 1999. Clif Bar still markets the Luna as the first nutritional bar with a taste, texture and nutritional ingredients chosen to appeal to women. • Expand the offering from components to systems. This is what software companies do when they go from selling isolated applications to offering a system to handle all of the customer's related needs. Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite, for one, bundles features such as word processing, spreadsheets, calendars and email. • Market a new and distinct use or application. Bayer Corp. helped create a new market for itself by offering the regular use of Bayer Low Dose aspirin as a way to ward off heart attacks. The innovation brought new users into the market. • Create a new product form or delivery method. Packaging yogurt in Go-Gurt's colorful nine-inch tube helped Yoplait, a subsidiary of General Mills Inc., forge ahead of Danone SA's Dannon, a brand that Yoplait had trailed for decades. Go-Gurt's tube changed what parents were buying, making yogurt easier and more fun for kids to eat. Similarly, the invention of cereal bars, in response to a society on the run, succeeded in changing where and how consumers bought and ate cereal. • Capture a market need, whether latent or visible. There was no general outcry for upscale coffeehouses when Starbucks Corp. started building its chain of stores that delivered consistent high-quality coffee in a social and aesthetically pleasing environment. Driving Forces: For a different look at how powerful real innovations can be, consider a brief history of the U.S. auto market, in which a dozen or so innovations each changed the way consumers bought and thought of cars: Henry Ford's Model T, which in 1913 rolled off the first moving assembly line, revolutionizing mass production; the enclosed car, an early winner being the affordable Hudson Essex in 1921; GM's marketing strategy of combining multiple brands in one large corporation; the ability to buy cars in installments, making them more affordable; automatic transmissions, which made cars easier to drive; rental cars, creating a market for short-term use; Ford's 1955 introduction of the Thunderbird, an affordable two-seat personal luxury car; the Volkswagen Beetle, a 1960s icon, of which more than 21 million were sold; inexpensive and reliable Japanese cars of the 1970s; and finally, the vehicles at the heart of three key market shifts since the 1980s -- the minivan, for its convenience: SUVs, for power; and hybrids, for their better mileage and lower emissions. The innovators behind each of these developments achieved above-average profits that sometimes extended for years. In particular, the Chrysler minivan, which was introduced in late 1983, sold more than 200,000 cars in its first year, maintained leadership in the subcategory it invented for at least a decade, and was a critical contributor to the company's survival. Other innovations that have supported high returns for companies that were early market leaders: Charles Schwab Corp.'s OneSource, a mutual-funds supermarket with no transaction fees; Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatic group whose dramatics breathed new life into the circus business; Southwest Airlines Co., which specializes in point-to-point, no-frills service; Home Depot Inc., which sells advice and home-improvement products for the do-it-yourselfer; Cable News Network, which put 24/7 news on television; and Apple Inc.'s iPod and iTunes, the music player and online music store that have helped rewrite the rules for marketing music. Advantage, Innovator: The high returns that innovations produce are sometimes the result of advantages the innovator already holds: entry barriers based on technology, assets and expertise, the loyalty of a customer base, and an image as the originator of the innovation. Other times innovators extend their profits because their rivals are held back by the curses of success and size. Competitors in an established market, for example, may believe that participating in a new subcategory will cannibalize their existing business. When Chrysler invented the minivan, for example, its peers decided to protect their station-wagon businesses rather than invest in a new line of vehicles. Chrysler, on the other hand, with a weak position in station wagons, had little to lose. Alternatively, big companies may believe that an emerging subcategory will be too small to materially affect their business. Such thinking held Coca-Cola and PepsiCo back while the new health- and sport-drink categories were blossoming. Innovators need to be aware that their challenge is not only to create an offering and brand, but to create, manage and protect the perception of the new subcategory. The ideal way is to make the brand synonymous with the subcategory. The assumption should be that competitors are irrelevant because they lack visibility, credibility and authenticity. The inevitable result will be that the innovator is also considered the most relevant brand -- perhaps the only relevant brand -- for the subcategory. --Dr. Aaker is professor emeritus of marketing strategy at the Haas School of Business, the University of California at Berkeley.

Hot Prospects Turn Cold, Build Defenses When You Look Like A Salesperson

If you talk or act like a salesperson, you immediately trigger your prospect's sales defenses, which he uses to keep you at a distance. This puts you at a serious disadvantage because it causes your prospect not to trust you. And it may erase your opportunity to ever win that prospect as a new client. One fundamental difference between education-based marketing and selling-based marketing is the issue of control. Selling-based marketing tries to wrest control away from the prospect. Then, through key questions, the salesperson dominates and manipulates the prospect until the prospect makes the desired commitment. Education-based marketing does the opposite. It gives up any attempt to control the prospect. Instead, you help your prospect understand his problem through education and solve his problem through services. You always make sure your prospect knows that the decision to hire you is his -- and that he is always in control. Education-based marketing treats prospects the way you and I like to be treated, with dignity and respect. - (by Trey Ryder)