Street Level Marketing Can Boost Sales
Street Level Marketing Can Boost Sales
Much of my background has had one leg in sales and one in marketing. I love both areas, probably because I see them so intertwined. In my mind, the role of marketing is to conduct research to understand market potential and customer focused connections to the company’s product or service. Then marketing charts a course for the organization to follow to achieve their revenue goals.
The sales force for the most part provides the foot soldiers who execute marketing’s plans. Ideally sales provide detailed feedback to marketing in order to fine tune the game plan as required. Marketing responds with lead generation and contemporary and competitive product so that sales can drive the revenue engine for the organization. When everyone is firing on all cylinders … life is good.
During our discussion, I make the observation that in my experience most field sales professionals don’t lack for sales skills as much as they do for marketing skills. I was asked to explain.
Most companies have extensive training programs which focus on sales methodology. That said many could do a better job in providing more frequent refresher training to reinforce previously learned skills. Sales managers and mentoring programs tend to focus on activity levels and salesperson/prospect interaction. Both admirable and needed focuses for sure. What is regularly missed is the discussion around micro-marketing in the salesperson’s territory.
Sales reps, once ‘trained’ are sent out to the market place and instructed to sell. Bring in the business, the more the better. Some do, many don’t. Some excel, many don’t and eventually become a sad statistic on someone’s retention report.
In most cases the post mortem revealed the sales person simply did not get in front of enough prospects to utilize the selling skills they were proficient in. This is not selling, its marketing but we don’t talk enough to reps enough about this critical component of their role. It would be a wonderful world if all the sales person had to do was open their laptop or turn on their Blackberry to find a long list of qualified and pre-booked prospects supplied to them by marketing. This is usually where my dream ended and I woke up!
What type of micro-marketing are we talking? I’ve long subscribed to the ‘own your territory’ model, where you define a geographical area and work that area. Get known in that area. I’ll use an example of someone who may be promoting financial services, but you can substitute many different product or service providers. The question is how would prospects in that area find out about you? There are many things you can do.
• Guest author a short advice column in a local weekly paper. This is work so be prepared to give a 3, 6 or 12 month commitment to the paper. Perhaps your company can supply a ghost written article for you.
• Arrange a mail-drop flyer to homes identifying your services – local testimonials work well.
• Work with local community associations and offer to be a guest speaker at one of their meetings. Focus on a crisp advice focused messaging. Don’t get too detailed, relate to your audience, and don’t turn it into a commercial about you. Most people can figure why you are doing it. If you impress them and they are interested in your service they will connect with after the presentation. You can let them know you have left business cards or brochures by the coffee and invite them to call you any time.
• Would your local dry cleaner or bakery allow you to put a business card holder on their counter, or post one on their community bulletin board?
• If there is an annual community event such as a picnic, festival, or charitable fund raiser? If so, set up a booth, or sponsor one of the activities. Be present to meet and great, don’t over do it, a business card, handshake, warm smile and positive comment about the event will leave a lasting impression.
• Volunteer as a member of the local community association. Get to know local issues, local centers of influence, and demonstrate your talents, knowledge, and commitment to the community. The more you give the more you get.
• Engage with a local elementary school or two in your target area to help sponsor a parent-teacher night or school event.
• Don’t ever be without a business card. This happens all too often. A business card is your least expensive form of advertising.
• Door knocking. It may seem old-fashion but what a great way to get to know the neighbourhood. Saturdays work well with people out in their yards or washing the car. Again, don’t sell. Offer a quick friendly hello and comment about how nice their yard or their car looks. Then ask if they would mind if you left a flyer in their mail box. Create a favourable impression and keep moving. Create a systematic route to ‘work’ your territory. Then just do it.
The objective of the above activities is to create awareness. Repetition is good. Ask yourself, “Do the know me? Will they remember me? Do they know how I can help them? Will they know how to contact me?”
There are many excellent articles and books on networking, prospecting, local marketing and territory management. I encourage you to become as expert at local marketing as you are with your sales skills. The last advice I’ll offer is to dedicate a specific amount of time each and every week for your marketing investment.
At a corporate level, or at street level, when sales and marketing come together as one, good things happen.
Street Level Marketing Can Boost Sales - To learn more about this author, visit Clayton Shold's Website.
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I met with a senior marketing professional yesterday who wanted to pick my brain on sales models, different types of distributions systems and channel conflict from a sales perspective. I always enjoy exchanging view on the differences, similarities and co-dependencies of sales and marketing.
Much of my background has had one leg in sales and one in marketing. I love both areas, probably because I see them so intertwined. In my mind, the role of marketing is to conduct research to understand market potential and customer focused connections to the company’s product or service. Then marketing charts a course for the organization to follow to achieve their revenue goals.
The sales force for the most part provides the foot soldiers who execute marketing’s plans. Ideally sales provide detailed feedback to marketing in order to fine tune the game plan as required. Marketing responds with lead generation and contemporary and competitive product so that sales can drive the revenue engine for the organization. When everyone is firing on all cylinders … life is good.
During our discussion, I make the observation that in my experience most field sales professionals don’t lack for sales skills as much as they do for marketing skills. I was asked to explain.
Most companies have extensive training programs which focus on sales methodology. That said many could do a better job in providing more frequent refresher training to reinforce previously learned skills. Sales managers and mentoring programs tend to focus on activity levels and salesperson/prospect interaction. Both admirable and needed focuses for sure. What is regularly missed is the discussion around micro-marketing in the salesperson’s territory.
Sales reps, once ‘trained’ are sent out to the market place and instructed to sell. Bring in the business, the more the better. Some do, many don’t. Some excel, many don’t and eventually become a sad statistic on someone’s retention report.
In most cases the post mortem revealed the sales person simply did not get in front of enough prospects to utilize the selling skills they were proficient in. This is not selling, its marketing but we don’t talk enough to reps enough about this critical component of their role. It would be a wonderful world if all the sales person had to do was open their laptop or turn on their Blackberry to find a long list of qualified and pre-booked prospects supplied to them by marketing. This is usually where my dream ended and I woke up!
What type of micro-marketing are we talking? I’ve long subscribed to the ‘own your territory’ model, where you define a geographical area and work that area. Get known in that area. I’ll use an example of someone who may be promoting financial services, but you can substitute many different product or service providers. The question is how would prospects in that area find out about you? There are many things you can do.
• Guest author a short advice column in a local weekly paper. This is work so be prepared to give a 3, 6 or 12 month commitment to the paper. Perhaps your company can supply a ghost written article for you.
• Arrange a mail-drop flyer to homes identifying your services – local testimonials work well.
• Work with local community associations and offer to be a guest speaker at one of their meetings. Focus on a crisp advice focused messaging. Don’t get too detailed, relate to your audience, and don’t turn it into a commercial about you. Most people can figure why you are doing it. If you impress them and they are interested in your service they will connect with after the presentation. You can let them know you have left business cards or brochures by the coffee and invite them to call you any time.
• Would your local dry cleaner or bakery allow you to put a business card holder on their counter, or post one on their community bulletin board?
• If there is an annual community event such as a picnic, festival, or charitable fund raiser? If so, set up a booth, or sponsor one of the activities. Be present to meet and great, don’t over do it, a business card, handshake, warm smile and positive comment about the event will leave a lasting impression.
• Volunteer as a member of the local community association. Get to know local issues, local centers of influence, and demonstrate your talents, knowledge, and commitment to the community. The more you give the more you get.
• Engage with a local elementary school or two in your target area to help sponsor a parent-teacher night or school event.
• Don’t ever be without a business card. This happens all too often. A business card is your least expensive form of advertising.
• Door knocking. It may seem old-fashion but what a great way to get to know the neighbourhood. Saturdays work well with people out in their yards or washing the car. Again, don’t sell. Offer a quick friendly hello and comment about how nice their yard or their car looks. Then ask if they would mind if you left a flyer in their mail box. Create a favourable impression and keep moving. Create a systematic route to ‘work’ your territory. Then just do it.
The objective of the above activities is to create awareness. Repetition is good. Ask yourself, “Do the know me? Will they remember me? Do they know how I can help them? Will they know how to contact me?”
There are many excellent articles and books on networking, prospecting, local marketing and territory management. I encourage you to become as expert at local marketing as you are with your sales skills. The last advice I’ll offer is to dedicate a specific amount of time each and every week for your marketing investment.
At a corporate level, or at street level, when sales and marketing come together as one, good things happen.
Street Level Marketing Can Boost Sales - To learn more about this author, visit Clayton Shold's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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