Competitiveness in International Markets / Kilpailukykyä Kansainvälisille Markkinoille

JAMK’s Centre for Competitiveness brings  Harvard Business School expertise to Finnish companies.  Attend seminars and webinars, and strengthen your competitiveness in international markets. We create a package to serve your specific needs!

For more information, please click the link below

http://jamk2.entecore.fi/fi/page/198

Best Regards
Heidi Neuvonen
JAMK, Centre for Competitiveness

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JAMK:n Centre for Competitiveness tuo Harvard Business Schoolin osaamista myös suomalaisille yrityksille. Osallistu seminaareihin sekä webinaareihin ja vahvista kilpailukykyäsi kansainvälisillä markkinoilla. Tilauksesta suunnittelemme juuri teidän tarpeitanne palvelevan kokonaisuuden

Lisätietoja saat klikkaamalla alla olevasta linkistä

http://jamk2.entecore.fi/fi/page/198

Ystävällisin terveisin
Heidi Neuvonen
JAMK, Centre for Competitiveness

 

Cold-Calling Trick: 16 Ways to Start a Conversation

Source: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/cold-calling-16-ways-to-start-sales-conversation.html?nav=pop

The most effective way to open a conversation is to connect your call to one of these “trigger events.” Here’s how.

The purpose of a cold call is to have a conversation to determine whether a potential customer has the following two things:

• a need your offering can satisfy, and
• the money to purchase it.

That conversation can happen, though, only if you get through the customer’s natural reluctance to speak with a stranger.

The easiest way to get through that reluctance is to have a reason you’re calling, other than just the fact that you have something to sell.

For example, suppose you’re selling an inventory control system. Here are two possible ways to begin the conversation:

• “I’m calling because I’m selling a great inventory control system that can save you money.”
• “I’m calling because I understand that you just announced a new product line–and since that usually increases inventory costs, you may be looking to for a way to reduce those costs.”

The second example is more likely to result in a conversation because it relates what you’re selling to what’s called a trigger event, a change in the way that a potential customer operates its business.

The following trigger events are all excellent conversation starters:

1. The company has opened a new factory or facility.
2. It is moving an existing facility to a new location.
3. It has hired a new executive.
4. It has lost an existing executive.
5. It has announced a layoff.
6. It has announced an expansion.
7. It has acquired a new major customer.
8. It has lost a major customer.
9. It has launched a new product line.
10. It has retired an existing product line.
11. It has updated a major existing product.
12. It is acquiring another company.
13. It is being acquired by another company.
14. It has announced a restructuring.
15. It has announced a new round of financing.
16. It has announced a change in ownership.

The trick to using trigger events is creating a reasonable link between the event and what you’re selling. The more logical the link, the more likely that bringing up the trigger will result in a conversation.

Where do you find these trigger events? The cheapest way is to check the press releases on the website of the company that you’re calling. An easier way, however, is to expand your CRM system to include a service, like SalesLoft.com or InsideView.com, that trolls the Web and displays relevant news stories and announcements on potential or current customers.

Geoffrey James writes the Sales Source column on Inc.com, the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog. His newly published book is Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies From the World’s Top Sales Experts. @Sales_Source

What Makes a Great Brochure?

by Ann Fottler-Pierce
Source: http://www.xtremebrandmakeover.com/brochure-design-tips.html

There is hardly a company out there that couldn’t make excellent use of a good product or service brochure. In fact, a well designed, informative brochure is often the cornerstone of a company’s marketing effort. They can be used for a single purpose, such as a leave-behind piece for sales calls, or for multiple uses. They can be mailed to prospects to spark interest, handed out at events and trade shows, mailed to fill information requests and more. A really good brochure can do a lot of heavy lifting for marketing and sales, the operative word being GOOD.

A marketing piece as important as this will be viewed carefully and will reflect the quality and value of your company’s products and services in the recipient’s mind. It can establish your credibility and professionalism, or destroy it. It can make the big sale, or break it. So, when it’s time for your company to produce a new brochure, make it a top priority to get it right the first time.

What goes into the design of a high-quality brochure?

A quality brochure will use a combination of design, visuals, text and layout to create a look and feel that emphasizes your marketing objectives – introducing a new product, selling a service, creating brand awareness or soliciting donations. The objectives can vary as widely as the designs, what matters is that your brochure communicates effectively to your target audience. Often, having an outside firm write and design your brochure will help you avoid the trap of using industry jargon and acronyms. They will help you to view things from the prospect’s point of view instead of a salesperson’s.

When starting your brochure project begin by identifying your target audience. Who is this brochure aimed at? CEOs, housewives, human resources managers, affluent males over 50? Know your audience and speak to it, specifically. You may find that you have more than one distinct target audience you need to engage, such as a CEO and an IT manager. These two individuals would have very different concerns and levels of technical expertise. In that case think seriously about creating more than one brochure to appeal to each audience and address their specific questions and concerns. Remember, you need this heavy-hitting brochure to be effective. Creating more than one version may get you a higher ROI than producing just one, all-purpose brochure.

When you’ve determined who you are talking to select the most valuable benefit they derive from your product or service. You may want to do research here with past customers to determine that benefit, it’s not always what you think it will be. Your product may help a busy executive stay organized, but the real benefit to the customer may be the time your product saves him, or the freedom that organization gives him. If you take the time to identify why past customers bought your product it will pay off with new prospects. Then your new brochure can make use of text, pictures, colors and design to emphasize what that benefit will mean to them.

In the initial design process be sure to involve any high-level decision makers right from the start to get the buy-in you’ll need for approval. This will help you avoid costly redesigns and other changes at the end of a project when they are the most expensive and time consuming to make.

As we said in the beginning your brochure will do some heavy lifting for your sales and marketing departments, so don’t strain it too much. Avoid the temptation to overload your brochure with every fact, feature and detail of your offering. Give prospects the information they need to get excited about your product and persuade them to take the next step in your sales process. That could be calling to place an order, visiting a web site, setting up a sales appointment, or visiting a store location. Whatever your sales cycle calls for, make sure your brochure prominently asks your prospect to move forward – this is a Call To Action. That’s what you’re really after, so be sure to ask for it.

A brochure allows you to leave a lasting impression on your prospects. That means a poorly executed brochure will actually do more harm than good, costing your company much more than the price of producing a high-quality piece in the first place. Be sure to check out the materials of the competition. The idea here is not to copy them, you always what to differentiate your company, but to make sure that your materials are as good or better than theirs. You will get the best ROI by using professional designers, photographers, copy writers, proofreaders and printers for your project. Help them gather all the information they need about your company, brand and product, then with guidance from you, let them do their stuff! The next time a prospect asks you for more information, you’ll be proud to present them with your impressive new brochure and you’ll know your well on your way to a new sale.

Ann Fottler-Pierce is founder and creative director of Xtreme Brand Makeover and its parent company, Piercing Communications.

Become an Authority: 6 Steps

EXPLOSIVE GROWTH | Tom Searcy

Source: http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/become-an-authority-6-steps.html

If you want the world to recognize you as an expert, you need to know your stuff–and know your turf.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately talking with companies about their “areas of authority”: those issues, technologies or market segments for which they see themselves as more than an expert. It takes real confidence (and a decent amount of moxie) to declare it–and once you have, you need to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of competitors who would challenge your claim.

What defines authority? You probably need a few things to support your claim.

1. Know Your Turf

I am the foremost authority on key account sales. I’m not kidding: Google “key account sales expert” and you’ll see me. I’m not the foremost expert on all sales, or on sales training, or other market segments. I know my section of the market. What is the segment over which you can claim authority?

2. Be a Standard Bearer

The authority in any market either knows or sets the standards. What defines excellence, or average and unacceptable performance? What do the most credible providers bring to the table, and how should an informed buyer be considering potential providers?

3. Be Current, Relevant & Engaged

The authority knows what is going on. You know the new entrants on the scene, technologies that work, the latest in regulation, recent (and likely) mergers and acquisitions, and who is moving and shaking. The authority is a clearinghouse of knowledge in that space.

4. Set the Trends

Forward-looking language, questions and answers are indicators of authority. Sometimes market drivers shape the future, while at other times your response will set pace and direction.

5. Publish & Speak

You should be a vocal authority in your segment. Among the ways to publicly define the conversation: White papers, blogs, books, articles, videos, keynote speeches, panel discussions, and interviews.

6. Declare Yourself

After all of these more grandiose ideas of authority, let me get back to the first and smallest step: Declare yourself, your authority, and your turf. It doesn’t have to be a press conference; it could be as simple as the sign on your door, or a tagline on your website.

If you are the authority, then step up to the microphone of your market and declare it. Just make certain you have the stuff to back it up. As a great writer once noted, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Read more:

• 3 Big Lies You Tell Yourself
• Sales Advice: Are You a Consultant or an Expert?
• Relationship Advice: 5 Ways to Ruin Trust

Author, speaker and consultant Tom Searcy is the foremost expert in large account sales. With Hunt Big Sales, he’s helped clients land more than $5 billion in new sales. Click to get Tom’s weekly tips, or to learn more about Hunt Big Sales. @tomsearcy

Pushing The Right Button

By Chuck Csizmar

Source: http://www.hrmtoday.com/human-capital/compensation/pushing-the-right-button/

Not every employee is capable of selling products or services to potential customers. The selling process requires an employee to possess a particular set of interactive and persuasion skills, as well as a compatible personality profile (garrulous, self-confident, unafraid of rejection, etc.). While some employees enjoy the challenge, most want no part of it and only a minority are neutral about the idea. For those tasked with a selling job, it’s typically a reflection of individual personality that would generate success or struggle.

For compensation practitioners, having the right person involved in the selling process can be more important than the compensation program itself, because dangling potential rewards in the face of the wrong person can be a waste of money and represents lost business opportunity.

It’s All About Motivation

Success in the selling process depends on the right motivating elements aimed at the right employee personality. To do this correctly within a sales compensation program requires the design to take that into account, to focus financial rewards toward whatever engages, whatever motivates the employee to perform in the manner the organization wishes.

Costly mistakes can be made when an organization assumes that all employees will react in the same fashion to the same stimulus.

Have you considered what motivates your sales employees? Chances are that not everyone would have the same answer.

• Money: Everybody’s first response is that all you have to do is offer the opportunity for a cash bonus and the employees are off and running. But in chasing the almighty dollar, employees could also drive your company in the wrong direction – even off a cliff – because they may take the path of least resistance (difficulty) and greatest financial reward. If those activities fail to align with what the company needs to assure business success, money is not only wasted but used to reward behavior that could be detrimental to the company.

Do you really want to reward the sale of a money-losing or low margin product?

• Mission: Especially prevalent with not-for-profit organizations, many employees have a “fire in the belly” belief in what the organization espouses, be it products, services or awareness. This internal value system often provides motivation enough to ensure concerted efforts. In such a scenario, money is deemed less important (though not dismissed) as a motivator. Employees are already motivated by the worthiness of the organizations mission.

Helping others or helping a cause can be reward enough for some employees.

• Brand identification: If you identify with the organization’s offerings and have a belief in what you are selling, you’re already halfway to becoming an effective sales representative. For these employees the ingrained belief in what they sell is already present; they just need a bit of training.

Employees are proud to be associated with a particular product or service. They’re always wearing the logo shirts and are the organization’s biggest fans.

• Self-motivation: Here the employee possesses an internal reserve of self worth that helps to make excellence its own reward. It’s a state in which success in one’s endeavors is self-fulfilling. The reward system for these employees is often a nice addition, but isn’t necessarily the prime motivating factor.

A certain level of performance would be forthcoming, no matter what financial rewards are offered.

• Challenge: The mindset here is the joy of climbing the hill, especially if there’s a pot of gold at the peak. Similar to self-motivation, some personality profiles relish a good challenge, and if you provide a reward for goal attainment, so much the better.

For such employees, the game is always afoot. They enjoy breaking down barriers, solving problems and grabbing for the brass ring.

• Competition: The fierce desire to be better than others; where winning (which means that others lose) is critically important. Note: such employees might not be effective team players.

Sometimes this motivational factor is less about achieving company goals than simply doing better than other employees. Like a loose cannon, these players may have their own definition of winning, which may not be synonymous with yours.

The takeaway point here is to understand what motivates your employees and then to place your rewards in front of them in a fashion that leads and directs their behavior.

If you design your incentive program with the wrong assumptions about what engages your workforce, you’ll risk missing your targets, misspending your financial assets and perhaps not even achieving the required level of success – regardless of the money paid out in rewards.

Designing A Better Carrot

When putting together the elements of your incentive program it would be worth your effort to focus rewards in a manner that recognizes the type of activity and performance you’re aiming for. That sounds like a simple and straightforward concept, yet is all too often missed by plan designers.

• Change in behavior: Providing an incentive opportunity should hinge on performance that you would not ordinarily receive. Don’t waste money paying extra for what you can gain for free.

• Longer term focus: Building relationships is often just as important as making a quick sale. Repeat and additive sales are much easier to achieve than finding a new customer.

• Worthwhile rewards: If the reward isn’t deemed worthwhile (“why should I put myself out for so little?”) the motivational factor will be diminished – leaving you with only employee self-motivation to rely on. In such a case your incentive plan would be viewed as worthless.

• Reasonable targets: If the employees don’t see their performance targets as “reasonably attainable,” their effort and engagement will suffer. They should have an expectation that they can succeed and that they can reach their target. Without that belief, no incentive plan in the world will be able to stimulate the right degree of motivation.

To motivate sales employees to achieve a win-win solution, where they deliver the right performance and achieve financial rewards while the company achieves operational success, you have to push the right buttons. But always be mindful that it’s not as easy as simply waving a dollar bill.

Chuck Csizmar is the Founder & Principal of CMC Compensation Group,an independent global compensation consulting firm whose expertise lies in helping companies manage the effective and efficient utilization of financial rewards for their employees. He also maintains a popular blog on compensation at his website www.cmccompensationgroup.com.