As a software engineer one of the first lessons I was “taught” by my peers after graduation was to despise the sales team as they would promise the customer anything they wanted with scant regard to what the team could actually deliver within the available timeframe and budget.

The reality I quickly learned was a little more complex. When selling bespoke software unless the sales staff have a deeply technical background or are well supported by the technical team they don’t understand the implications to the budget and schedule of what they have promised. As a result the sales people would often make promises that the project team couldn’t keep, resulting in a dissapointed customer and an angry and stressed project team.

While it’s easy to blame the sales people the reality is that both the salespeople and the project team are to blame, the team should be managing their relationship with thier sales force to ensure they have the right technical support and the once the project is up and running they should be managing their relationship with the customer making sure the customers expectations are being suitable managed and any unreasonable expectations are addressed. The sales person in turn should set about educating themselves and ensure that they request feedback from both the project team and the customer to ensure that any mistakes are not repeated on future projects.

So are your back and front office staff talking to each other? Are you making sure they work together to provide the best possible service to your businesses customers?

Like John, I am a great fan of business books. Something I enjoy is re-applying a good book at a tangent to its original context. With this in mind, and fresh from a conversation about the “credit crunch” and its effect on businesses selling luxury goods, I started to think anew about a small book I read 3 years ago.

“Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, M.D. is a small, but powerful little tale about two mice and two little men who find themselves searching for cheese in a maze. When their cheese is moved, how do each of them deal with the change? You will most often find this book being given to people who are victims of corporate change programmes – that is how I found it. However, it has some profound lessons for business owners who are finding that their once great business is now less than great.

One definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result each time. We have all done it. We know there may be a better way but we keep on using the same formula hoping that results will improve. Just like an Englishman abroad who shouts the same English phrase louder and slower expecting to be understood. Just like the computer user typing the same sequence of keys and clicks over and over again and each time being surprised when the computer still refuses to do whatever is wanted.

So it is with sales and marketing. Our customers and our markets change. Something that was working really well stops working. No matter how well we segment, prospect, direct-mail and sell – we no longer get the returns we need to keep our business growing as we planned. Somebody moved the cheese!

Change the Model

If your cheese has been moved – go in search of new cheese in new places. Perhaps your chosen customers have changed their priorities and no longer want what you sell.

Thoughts on How

1. Go back to basics and re-evaluate what your business is good at – at a basic level.

2. Work out who is likely to be buying – today. If you cannot think of any group of people or businesses who might be buying, go back to step 1 and start again.

3. Find a way of communicating your new offer to your new target customer base.

4. Choose one or two of your references that are closest to your new offer and re-write them (stay truthful!!).

5. Review your existing sales pipeline. Which of the people or businesses you have failed to convert to a sale would make an ideal prospect for your revised offer?

   • People buy from people – you will always sell more effectively when people know you and trust you.

6. Start from scratch to build a new sales pipe-line.

7. Make sure that you do not alienate your old customer base – you need those who are still spending to fund the transition in your business.

Things to consider

If this process leads you to embark on a radical change of direction, you might need to consider launching a new business to exploit the new opportunity, leaving your old business to make the best of the change in market conditions.

The usual health warnings apply – if you are not sure how to start this process, then get professional help.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Alan Lakein

Yet few startups have a business plan and those that do have generally only written it to raise funding. Having started several successful businesses and a few unsuccessful ones I can tell you from first hand experience that the time you invest in preparing a business plan is time well spent.

Now I’m not suggesting you need to write a twenty to thirty page plan complete with detailed financials that is beautifully presented. Rather I suggest you have a three to five page plan that addresses the following questions:

• What is the the business concept? In other words:
  • What do you sell?
  • Who do you sell it to?
  • How much will you sell it for?
  • How much profit will you make?
• What is required to start the business?
• What is required to operate the business?
• How will the business be marketed?
• How will the business be financed?
• What are the possible problems the business faces?

The point of the exercise is not to create the perfect plan, but to go through the process of answering these questions. Let me repeat that important point, the value is not in the plan you produce but process of answering the questions required to create the plan. Don’t be afraid to add more questions as they will help you to carefully think through your business idea.

I’m a knowledge geek, I can’t stop learning new things. My favourite way of learning is to read, read and then read some more, before seeking out other people I can discuss the topic with. As such my first step is always to buy a number of the best books on a topic.

Normally I start on Amazon, I search for books on the topic, find the ones that: are new; have a good review or are suggested in reviews of other books. Then I start gathering together a list of three to five likely candidates, enough to immerse me in the topic for a week or two. Unusually the on-line reviews weren’t sufficient for me to determine which books I wanted this time so I decided to pop into Waterstone’s and see if I could flick through a copy first.

In Waterstone’s I found one of the books and decided it was worth buying, but unfortunately it was totally devoid of a price, so I stood in line and asked the cashier for the price. She scanned it and told me it was £21.99. I looked visibly shocked. I’d just been looking at the same book on Amazon for £10.99 and while I did expect to pay a premium in a high street store I didn’t expect it to be quite so high!

I mentioned this to the cashier, after all you might as well try to get them to negotiate/price match and sure enough there was a solution. I could buy the same book from the Waterstone’s website for £10.99. Great I said I’ll buy it from you now, but at the price quoted on the website. “Sorry you can’t do that” she replied, “but you can order on-line and have it delivered to the store for collection”. Which strikes me as rather silly, I order online and they send another copy of the book (that’s currently in my hand) to the store, but the other copy is somehow worth £11 less to me that the one I’m currently holding.

Needless to say I walked out and ordered the book (and several others) from Amazon, after all I have an account with Amazon. I have a relationship with them, hell they’ve even sent me Christmas presents I spend so much with them. So why would I go to the hassle of learning to use Waterstone’s website, creating an account and then wondering if I can trust them to deliver the book when I want it, instead of returning to my trusted Amazon?

It seems that Waterstone’s doesn’t get it. It seems to me that they think their on-line store competes with Amazon and their off-line stores doesn’t, otherwise why the disparity in prices? Yes I know, a high street store has higher costs than an on-line retailer. The trouble is I as a customer don’t care about your costs, I care about the value you provide me and the high street store has not added nearly 100% value to the book. Personally I’d be happy to pay more on the high street for the value in having the book now, however as Amazon can normally get me a book within 12 to 24 hours it’s not a very high premium, certainly not 100%.

After this experience I doubt I’ll buy from Waterstone’s again and my love affair with Amazon continues.

There is a very good reason why we live in the land of the perpetual sale. If you run a shop or pub, then your primary goal is to create foot-fall. You know that once you have people inside your premises, the likelihood that they will spend money improves significantly (they can hardly spend any money with you if they do not visit). Similarly, whatever your business, the first step in the sales cycle is to create some interest that leads to some form of conversation. Special Offers and deals are a good way of arousing peoples’ interest and getting more conversations. More conversations means that you get the chance to understand the “pains” of more people and therefore you get to prescribe your products and services more often.

What Kind of Offer

You have to work out what kind of deal will work for you, both in terms of creating the desired effect and in terms of being affordable. Solicitors offering 2 for the price of one deals on conveyancing or offering a free divorce with a house transaction may not do so well. But there will be bundles and deals that will work for your business.

Some of the following list may prompt you to think of something that will work for you:

• No value, no fee – I use this one for some workshops and I have always been paid;

• Half price wills with conveyancing;

• Sign up for 12 months and get 40% discount;

• Half-price initial consultation;

• Buy one, get one free (sorry, had to include that one!!);

• Free site survey / MOT / inspection

Now Tell People

You know who you are targeting with your business. You have to find the most effective means to let them know about your deal. It is no use whatever advertising in a publication that is sent to house-holds only if your target customers are businesses. Look at the costs and the number of people that you will reach with each method and weigh up the options. Then start – but measure the results. Make sure you put a time limit on the initial offer:

• If you are overwhelmed you have an exit plan;

• If response is poor, you can try something else.

Persistence Pays

If your offer or deal is good value for your target customer and you get the message to people consistently and persistently, you will see results. Doing one leaflet drop to the wrong kind of business and then going off to sulk is not going to work. Think in terms of a campaign:

• Leaflet drops

• Telephone Calls

• Direct mail

• Email broadcast

• Telephone Calls

Still Struggling

If you get professional help with your direct marketing campaigns, you will get a return. But – be very careful to use somebody who is recommended to you by people who have used their services.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

I recently met a fellow geek, Paul Mutton, who as well as being a techie geek is also a photography geek and whilst looking at his collection of photo’s last week, I came across three collections that he’d titled "Geek P0rn". Each of which consisted of around ten photo’s of a lady wearing nothing but an item of technology (i.e. a ribbon cable, floppy disk or CD-ROM).

The pictures immediately reminded me of those taken for the 2000 Alternate WI Calendar which consisted of photos of the members of the Rylstone Women’s Institute posing nude, their modesty typically hidden by objects taken from around the house. The calendar became a run away success selling nearly 300,000 copies world wide and their story was subsequently made into the hit film Calendar Girls.

Not surprisingly it occurred to me that Paul could turn these photo’s (perhaps with the addition of a few more models into a calendar aimed the techie markets, perhaps tailoring one for software developers, one for web developers and one for those special techies that are referred to as BOFH.

It’s unlikely that the calendar would have anywhere near the success of the WI one, but even selling 5,000 for £5 would net a healthy income for relatively little effort. Alternatively, or as a complimentary product Paul could create a series posters with amusing or inspirational techie focused quotes on them.

As the photo’s aren’t really pornographic and I believe demonstrate some artistic talent there may well be scope of create a book, or publish a series of prints as a work or works of art on the theme of "Naked Technology".

Finally of course lets not forget that whatever our personal views on the morality of pornography, it is a big business. There may well be an untapped niche in creating material for aimed at geeks.

Starting at the softer end I suspect a blog with a daily photo using topical technology would generate traffic and that traffic could be monetorised with advertisng. After all as the character Steve on the UK series Coupling (Inferno episode) puts it:

When man invented fire, he didn’t say, "Hey, let’s cook."  He said, "Great, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark."  As soon as Caxton invented the printing press, we were using it to make pictures of, hey, naked bottoms!  We have turned the Internet into an enormous international database of naked bottoms.  So you see, the story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been the story of our struggle to get a better look at your bottoms. 

You can view the collections in full by visiting Paul’s website, specifically the Geek P0rn galleries 1, 2 and 3.

Which idea do you think is best?

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

If you’ve ever wandered around an UK town for more than half and hour you’re certain to have come across someone standing on the pavement holding something and shouting (sometimes just dejectedly saying):

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

If you’ve bothered to look at them as you rush past you’ll have noticed it’s a magazine that they are holding, you might even notice, or guess that the magazine is called "The Big Issue". But do you know what the magazine is about? Do you know why you might want to buy it? Do you know why the salesperson is (probably) so scruffy?

No? Well that’s not surprising really is it? After all, all he has done is shout the product name at you:

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

Big Issue?

He hasn’t made any attempt to engage you in a relationship (people buy from people they like), nor has he explained to you what the benefits of the Big Issue are and addressed the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) factor and explained what you would get out of buying it.

Now ask yourself, is my sales technique any better? Is that of my staff any better? If not, then it’s time to take a long hard look at your sales process from your customers point of view, not yours. How can you quickly and politely communicate the benefit of your product/service to the customer? How can you build a relationship with your customer? Believe me even if they’re just rushing past on the street it’s possible.

Selling the right way, doesn’t have to be a Big Issue!

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t intend this to be a negative criticism of either the Big Issue or it’s sellers. I really admire the homeless people that have chosen to take a positive step to improve their situation by selling the Big Issue and I encourage you to buy a copy next time your offered one. If you’d like to find out more about The Big Issue and how it helps the homeless, please visit The Big Issue Foundation’s website.

Many of us who run small and medium sized businesses envy the very large corporations who can afford to invest in large-scale market research projects before they make any changes. What we forget is that we already have access to a bountiful supply of market research – and it is all free (well, maybe the price of a coffee).

While you are prospecting, selling or delivering your products and services always remain alert for information that will help you to refine your offer. Sources of information vary in quality and ease of extraction but they all help you to build a picture of your market opportunity.

How often do you ask one of the following groups of people that extra question?

• Lapsed Customers

• Lost Customers

• Existing Customers

• Suppliers

• Competitors

• Networking Contacts

If your business is a shop, how often do you take the trouble to engage that casual browser in conversation?

How many more times do you ask the sales prevention question?

And then, how often do you really listen to the answer?

What are you looking for?

• Trends

• Changes

• Potential new products or services

• Products or services that might be coming to an end

• ……..

Some ideas for those extra questions:

• What is changing about the way you buy <<stationery, consulting, graphic-design, printer cartridges, technology,…….>>?

• What factors are making you re-think?

• What has changed about the way that you buy for your business / home / family?

• What alternatives to <<stationery, consulting, graphic-design, printer cartridges, technology,…….>> would you consider?

Other questions to think about:

What would need to happen before you would buy a lot more from my business?

What is changing about the way you plan your spending?

Problems need Solutions

You are looking for a problem without a solution. Then you start looking for evidence (or otherwise) that there are more people or businesses with the same problem. Before long, you may well have enough to give you the confidence to test-market some new product or service.

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.

Tim (of Seriously Home Business) originally posted this as a comment on Give Them Sandwiches, but after a quick chat we thought it would make an interesting post. Here’s what Tim had to say:

Two guys in a car or van, each has a large portable cool box. Between the hours of 8am-2pm they visit around 10 office blocks/industrial estates/factories.

They’re selling individual plastic pots of fruit salad freshly made from tropical and standard fruits (they have a variety of choices)and possibly a few other products, fruit smoothies etc. Each fruit salad pot has a max cost of £1.00 and sells for £2.00 - £2.50/.

Each coolbox carries 30 pots - the guys restock the coolboxes from the van and then each guy trawls the offices/workplaces at each site, until they exhaust their coolbox stock. Each guy sells an average of between 150 - 200 (175)pots/day.

Van total average pots sold per day = 300-400(350)

Van total average daily t/o = £700-£875

Van total average daily profit (before other costs)
= £350-£525(£437.50)

Van total average weekly profit ( 5 day week )
= £ 2187.50

The guys are both entrepreneurial and decide to ’scale up’, they lease 4 other vans, hire 2 sellers for each van (paying £6-£7 basic plus a small % on ‘pots sold’ to each seller- £390 basic/week/van standing wage costs), expand their ops. to cover 4 other southern uk towns/cities and think up a memorable name for the business.

With the same levels in achieved daily sales numbers, the business now generates:

5 Vans total average weekly profit = £10937.50

ie. £547k+ /year

Now obviously, the guys total costs include: a place to prepare the fruit/the van expenses/wages and commissions/insurance etc. so say a ballpark costs figure around £170k/year (£78000 basic wage costs, £50,000 premises(5x £10,000/year), 5 vans lease costs £12000/year,
other c.o.s £20,000). So the guys make £377k/ pa.

The guys have bigger ideas though:

They lease a further 5 vans, apply the memorable name and venture into supplying fresh fruit catering for kids and adults parties, they lease highstreet shop premises, from which they supply their products to passing trade and save costs by preparing the van delivery products from a commissary based on the shop premises. With ten profitable van routes running,the guys now decide to franchise the busines model. The guys are targeting a 7 seven figure yearly profit and the nation’s office workers are getting their 5 a day!

What do you think? Do me a favour and pull this one apart, I’d love some feedback?

Anyone fancy giving this a try in the Bournemouth/Poole area, I’m open to offers.

John’s thoughts

I think it sounds like a good idea. There’s also potential to expand it and cover local events as I suggested in Fast Food For Runners. But what do you the reader think? I look forward to seeing you pull this idea apart for Tim and if you’re interested in giving it a go with him, the you can contact him through his blog Seriously Home Business.

I went to see a craftsman at the weekend. I was not sure about what I needed. At the end of the discussion, he had talked me out of the most expensive options (saving me several hundred pounds) and had shown me two examples of his work. His quiet confidence in his own skills, coupled with a testimonial from somebody I trust already really helped me to decide to trust him. This made me think about my own business and the time it takes new contacts to trust me.

Before people will deal with us, they need to trust us. Just how much they need to trust us will depend on the nature of our business.

Things to think about

That trust upon which we depend has to be earned. It is not ours by right.

It takes time to establish trust with a new contact.

How much Trust is Sufficient?

Any new contact will have their own perception of just how much they need to trust you before they will confirm a transaction. Both the trust required and the time to achieve it will be a function of several variables:

• What is at stake;

  • Cost;

  • Non-financial impact of failure – falling off a cliff if somebody who I trusted with a rope lets go has a much greater impact than my new poster being slightly fuzzy – and this influences the way I make decisions;

• Complexity;

• The contact’s own knowledge and experience.

Credibility

To be trusted to do something is to be a credible supplier of that product or service. Credibility is derived from:

1. Integrity
   Your behaviour matches your motives.

2. Intent
   The intent, or motive that generates trust is caring about the quality of what you do and the outcomes for your customers.

3. Capabilities
   Can you prove that you have the skills and abilities that you are selling? Do you promote YOUR strengths?

4. Results
   Take responsibility for the outcomes of your work.

Marketing Trust

• Request testimonials from clients – and ask their permission to use these in your marketing materials and on your web site;

• Know your advocates – and make sure they have first hand experience of your work – if you are just starting out you might have to consider a discount;

• Opening offers – demonstrate your skills to people – some ideas to think about:

  1. No value no fee;

  2. First 20 customers vouchers;

  3. Give something for free – to the right people – in exchange for referrals.

Further reading:

Stephen M.R. Covey with Rebecca R. Merrill, The Speed of Trust, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-10: 0-7432-9560-9

This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.