I personally find it important to serve my prospective clients beyond the call of duty - and not just sell them my product/Services. How does one feel today's buyer responds to that? Does it fend them off, reel them in, or have no impact on their decision making?"
At my company Tekriti Software (http://www.tekritisoftware.com/) our mission statement says that, "We will always go that extra mile." whether it is with customers or ourselves. We are ingraining it in our work culture not just the sales persons but the whole staff as such to give every prospect and client more than we have to and more than they have paid for. I not only believe this is the right thing to do but it also demonstrates, with action, our commitment to excellence. This leads to loyalty and long-term relationships; and, most importantly, generates referrals and word of mouth marketing that grows our pipeline and our business almost effortlessly.
Going the extra mile, will set one apart from most of your competitors. It lifts one up in the prospect's eyes, build trust, and give one the winning edge. Going the extra mile and demonstrating commitment to excellence has a huge impact on decision making both consciously and subconsciously with buyers. Most sales are lost because the buyer is afraid that they may make a poor decision. But when we consistently demonstrate excellence we counteract their fear and create feelings of well-being about the company and the decision to buy our products or services.
This is a very important point to remember in tough economic times. Buyers, who often have their own jobs on the line, are going to do everything possible to minimize risk. In almost every case, the status quo is a lower risk than buying something from you. So your imperative is to reduce the fear your buyer feels by demonstrating with your actions (what they see you do) that buying from your will solve their problem and be a low risk decision. Another way to think about this is people (that means all of us) buy with emotion, but back those buying decisions up with logic. The beauty of going the extra mile is you check the emotional and the logical boxes at the same time.
In Tekriti we go that extra mile and that makes us stand out amongst out competitors. Here we do little things like showing up early for meetings, returning phone calls, keeping our sales materials in pristine condition, checking spelling and grammar on our emails and written documents, being prepared for every meeting, and being polite and considerate, going out of the way to suggest to the client what else he should require and what his competitors are following all seem very small, but in today's world the majority of the competition fails in these obvious areas and as I pointed out before We at Tekriti Software always go that extra mile.
Vikram Sahay Mathur (vikram.mathur@tekritisoftware.com)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Marketing Lead Generation - Push or Pull Strategy.
In one of my networking websites there was an interesting debate on Push Vs Pull strategy for Lead generation in an IT company. I have explained the concepts and my thoughts on theese strategies.
We all have been using various strategies to generate business leads and maintain a pipe line. Some strategies work for you in which you generate interest and in some strategies Customers hover around you looking for solutions.
The strategy could be defined in 2 ways. (For those who don't know)
A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product. E.g. Advertising a White Paper, Online Advertisements, and Website Inquires et al.
A “push” promotional strategy makes use of a company's sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product. E.g. Cold Calling, Webinars etc.
In Perspective to the It industry I feel Push strategy is suitable for most of the IT industry as per se. With experience I have learnt that there is safety in numbers as most of the companies are small or medium scale, very few which have reached the status of Infosys, TCS et all. These companies need a lot of prospects in a pipeline so that they can convert an get more projects in. So methods like cold emailing and cold calling work best to the advantage. Even though if one has the resources even then I recommend a balance of pull and push strategies.
I work in a medium sized web 2.0 specialist company called Tekriti software (www.tekritisoftware.com) who specialise in providing services in open source technology to media, social, retail and ecommerce companies in the US, UK and the Indian market. I use a mix of both the strategies but always focus mostly on push selling methods / strategy and it gives the best results.
Will come try and keep posting articles as and when I get the time.
Vikram Sahay Mathur
We all have been using various strategies to generate business leads and maintain a pipe line. Some strategies work for you in which you generate interest and in some strategies Customers hover around you looking for solutions.
The strategy could be defined in 2 ways. (For those who don't know)
A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product. E.g. Advertising a White Paper, Online Advertisements, and Website Inquires et al.
A “push” promotional strategy makes use of a company's sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product. E.g. Cold Calling, Webinars etc.
In Perspective to the It industry I feel Push strategy is suitable for most of the IT industry as per se. With experience I have learnt that there is safety in numbers as most of the companies are small or medium scale, very few which have reached the status of Infosys, TCS et all. These companies need a lot of prospects in a pipeline so that they can convert an get more projects in. So methods like cold emailing and cold calling work best to the advantage. Even though if one has the resources even then I recommend a balance of pull and push strategies.
I work in a medium sized web 2.0 specialist company called Tekriti software (www.tekritisoftware.com) who specialise in providing services in open source technology to media, social, retail and ecommerce companies in the US, UK and the Indian market. I use a mix of both the strategies but always focus mostly on push selling methods / strategy and it gives the best results.
Will come try and keep posting articles as and when I get the time.
Vikram Sahay Mathur
Importance of participation in Trade show
Trade Shows are an important and very powerful marketing medium for many companies.
Trade shows help level the playing field for smaller firms, since booth space is generally inexpensive, and even small companies can usually afford attractive displays. With creative marketing and booth design, small businesses can actually appear as substantial as much larger corporations.
Aside from the obvious PR need to be seen at notable exhibitions, companies also hope to conclude business deals. The basic objective however, is to gather high quality sales leads resulting from conversations with prospects who’ve stopped by for information and also to try and tie up with similar companies for partnerships as channel sales strategy. I have always felt that Trade shows also ties up with branding policy of the company. It is used for enhancing your image and improving visibility for the company. Another advantage of exhibiting in trade shows is that you are reaching out to your specific audience. It is especially very useful when you are launching your products and services.
The leads generated in a trade show needs to be contacted and qualified for the sales through a proper lead qualification and intelligence gathering process. It’s essential to ascertain that all those important trade show leads return a positive ROI. One has to keep in mind that it is not always that you can measure the ROI as it is not necessary that we categorize trade show participation as tangible.
One knows from experience though that the most sales conversions come from people who have spoken to the sales personnel. A conversion rate could be anything from 5 % to 30 % from my experience. It all also depends on what you’re selling and the value of the new customer to your company.
Trade shows are always a great place to network and look for potential partners and not just customers. You get to meet similar companies and try and work out synergies between yourselves. It is a good place to learn about your competitors and their offerings.
Some suggestions which I feel one might consider when next exhibiting at a show: Invite your best prospects to a pre-scheduled meeting at the booth. Remind prospects and clients that you’ll be exhibiting. Announce new/improved product launch etc.
At the booth make sure you quickly scan in prospect names into the computer and be sure to document any important information about their needs. Speed of follow up is critical because your prospects are visiting other competitor booths too. Follow up immediately next day, to qualify and confirm the sales potential. You can electronically upload these prospects for your sales team to start work on leads ASAP. A good practice for trade shows is keeping a box for collecting Business cards especially saying that you will send brochures and more information about the company. A lot of people in hurry and who need to go through the exhibition would appreciate and drop their business cards expecting you to reach out to them.
No matter how much you invest in a trade show exhibit, your booth workers will have the biggest impact on your success at the show. Although most employees want to do a good job, many have not been taught how to conduct these brief but important conversations with attendees and represent you company to its best advantage. So make sure your best sales persons are at the booth.
Here ends my thoughts on Advantages for participating n a trade show.
Vikram Sahay Mathur.
Trade shows help level the playing field for smaller firms, since booth space is generally inexpensive, and even small companies can usually afford attractive displays. With creative marketing and booth design, small businesses can actually appear as substantial as much larger corporations.
Aside from the obvious PR need to be seen at notable exhibitions, companies also hope to conclude business deals. The basic objective however, is to gather high quality sales leads resulting from conversations with prospects who’ve stopped by for information and also to try and tie up with similar companies for partnerships as channel sales strategy. I have always felt that Trade shows also ties up with branding policy of the company. It is used for enhancing your image and improving visibility for the company. Another advantage of exhibiting in trade shows is that you are reaching out to your specific audience. It is especially very useful when you are launching your products and services.
The leads generated in a trade show needs to be contacted and qualified for the sales through a proper lead qualification and intelligence gathering process. It’s essential to ascertain that all those important trade show leads return a positive ROI. One has to keep in mind that it is not always that you can measure the ROI as it is not necessary that we categorize trade show participation as tangible.
One knows from experience though that the most sales conversions come from people who have spoken to the sales personnel. A conversion rate could be anything from 5 % to 30 % from my experience. It all also depends on what you’re selling and the value of the new customer to your company.
Trade shows are always a great place to network and look for potential partners and not just customers. You get to meet similar companies and try and work out synergies between yourselves. It is a good place to learn about your competitors and their offerings.
Some suggestions which I feel one might consider when next exhibiting at a show: Invite your best prospects to a pre-scheduled meeting at the booth. Remind prospects and clients that you’ll be exhibiting. Announce new/improved product launch etc.
At the booth make sure you quickly scan in prospect names into the computer and be sure to document any important information about their needs. Speed of follow up is critical because your prospects are visiting other competitor booths too. Follow up immediately next day, to qualify and confirm the sales potential. You can electronically upload these prospects for your sales team to start work on leads ASAP. A good practice for trade shows is keeping a box for collecting Business cards especially saying that you will send brochures and more information about the company. A lot of people in hurry and who need to go through the exhibition would appreciate and drop their business cards expecting you to reach out to them.
No matter how much you invest in a trade show exhibit, your booth workers will have the biggest impact on your success at the show. Although most employees want to do a good job, many have not been taught how to conduct these brief but important conversations with attendees and represent you company to its best advantage. So make sure your best sales persons are at the booth.
Here ends my thoughts on Advantages for participating n a trade show.
Vikram Sahay Mathur.
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