Face to Face Marketing and Door to Door Marketing

Nothing beats the reality that one gets when you can interact with potential clients face to face physically moving from door to door within a community or household to household, face to face field marketing is also called personal selling or door to door marketing, customers are met directly in order to sell their products, using this method of field marketing we rely on our skills and persuasive abilities. During the period where we get to interact with the client face to face we get more chance to pass across edible information which would be useful to all our customers at that time and it’s also an opportunity for us to get feedback and to gauge your opinion about our business.

I did door-to-door sales for nine years, in hundreds of different cities and towns all across the india. Through long, hard, agonizing trial and error, I eventually developed enough skill that I could take any product into any area on any day and make sales.

In the beginning, I struggled. But when I was about to give up on myself and quit (like 99.9% of people that try door-to-door sales do within their first few days), experienced salesperson to give me a chance to get on track.

What I saw that day changed my life forever.

I watched as the experienced salesperson drove to an area where he had previous sales success, and listened as he explained to me why he parked his car in the exact spot he did to start his day and laid out his exact plan of attack.
Within the first 10 minutes, I learned a valuable lesson that not only made my door-to-door sales career much easier, but has also been the key to bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for my own companies, and those of thousands of others I’ve consulted to:

A current customer is the easiest person to make a sale to – many, many times easier (and less expensive) than trying to get new customers.

Most business owners operate a risky, day-to-day, transactional business, believing that the reason for getting a customer is to make a sale. That’s their biggest problem: making nothing more than “a” sale to a customer. After that initial transaction, they simply hope that their product or service or location is good enough that they will get a repeat visit from that customer.

On the other hand, sharp business owners (and door-to-door salespeople!) know that the point to making a sale is to get a customer. We have systems put together to maximize the value of that customer by making future offers to them, so that they buy more of the same product or service, or a different version, or even an entirely different product or service.

In other words, we recognize that a current customer is the easiest person to sell to, and a prospect is the hardest and most-expensive person to sell to. Therefore, we concentrate on maximizing the value of every new customer we get.

If you want to grow your business during these challenging economic times (and even during boom times), your time and effort should be invested in working to turn prospects into customers and retain them to market to in the future.
While your marketing is doing its job to get you prospects, you need to be working on turning those prospects into customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal. You need to be:

Inviting
Informative
Enjoyable

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dreaded “buyer’s remorse.” You want to minimize this as best you can, and if you’ve provided a quality product or service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made, the risk will be lower.

However, returns can still occur. Here are the two most effective ways to deal with this:

Offer to refund money — no questions asked
Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product

These offers alone will also lessen the impact of buyer’s remorse, because the customer will trust you more just because you showed the confidence in your product or service to offer these options in the first place.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

Offer a special price as an opportunity for them to test the market.
Offer a lower price with a legitimate reason, such as clearing out inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s braces, or another tangible reason. (Added bonus: Customers love you for doing this, because it makes you so much more human to them.)
Offer a referral incentive.
Offer a smaller, less expensive entry-level product to build trust.
Offer package deals.
Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
Offer extra incentives, such as longer warranties or free bonuses, if they order by a certain date.
Offer financing options, if applicable.
Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
Offer special packaging or delivery.
Offer “name-your-own-price” incentives.
Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
Offer to let them trade up or upgrade to something better if they want.
Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options are really only limited by your imagination and marketing skill. You can use these or other ideas to discover what works the best for your specific business, with your specific products, services and target market.

Even if you ever find yourself doing door-to-door sales.

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Process of Sales Management

Sales Planning
- Marketers must plan things well in advance for the best results. It is essential to have concrete plans. Mere guess works do not help in business.
- Know your product well. Sales professionals must know the USPs and benefits of the product for the consumers to believe them.
- Identify your target market.
- Sales Planning makes the products available to the end users at the right time and at the right place.
- Sales Planning helps the marketers to analyze the customer demands and respond efficiently to fluctuations in the market.
- Devise appropriate strategies to increase the sales of the products.
Sales Reporting
- Sales strategies are implemented in this stage.
- Check the effectiveness of the various strategies. Find out whether they are bringing the desired results or not.
- The sales representatives should be aware of their roles and responsibilities in the organization.
- It is essential for the organization to evaluate the outcome of proposed strategies for any particular department. Organizations depend on KPI also called Key Performance Indicator or simply Performance Indicator to measure the effectiveness of implemented strategies.
- Ask the sales team to submit reports of what all they have done throughout the week. The management must sit with the sales team frequently to assess their performance and chalk out future course of actions.
- Mapping individual performance over time is essential.
Sales Process
- Sales representatives should work as a single unit for maximum productivity. A systematic approach results in error free work.
- The management must make sure sales managers follow a proper channel to reach out to the customers. It pays to adopt a step by step approach.

Sales professionals should follow the below mentioned steps for maximum sales and better output. Do not ignore any step.

Initial Contact/Lead
- Collect necessary data of potential customers once the target market is decided.
Information Exchange
- Inform the customers about various product offerings.
- Make the customers aware of your brand and its benefits.
- The information exchange can be either:
  Over the telephone or
  Face to face interaction with the potential customer.
Lead Generation
- Make a list of the people who show inclination towards purchasing your organization’s products or services.
- The sales representatives must identify those who have the potential to buy their products.
Need Identification
- Fix a meeting with the prospective buyers. Sit with the client and try to find out more about his needs and expectations.
- Suggest them various options which would fulfill their demands.
Qualified Prospect
- Identify individuals who are keen on purchasing your company’s products or services.
Proposal
- Once the buyer agrees to purchase particular products, the seller presents a written proposal to him quoting the rates as well as other necessary terms and conditions. Such a document is often called a proposal.
Negotiation
- Negotiation is a stage where two parties (buyer and seller) discuss and negotiate for the best deal beneficial to all.
Closing of Deal
- This is the stage where the transaction between the seller and buyer takes place. The selling happens in this stage.
After Sales Service
- Keep in touch with the customers even after the purchase for higher customer retention.

Co-branding – Meaning, Types and Advantages and Disadvantages

What is Co-branding

Co branding is the utilization of two or more brands to name a new product. The ingredient brands help each other to achieve their aims. The overall synchronization between the brand pair and the new product has to be kept in mind. Example of co-branding – Citibank co-branded with MTV to launch a co-branded debit card. This card is beneficial to customers who can avail benefits at specific outlets called MTV Citibank club.

Types of Co-branding

Co-branding is of two types: Ingredient co-branding and Composite co-branding.

1. Ingredient co-branding implies using a renowned brand as an element in the production of another renowned brand. This deals with creation of brand equity for materials and parts that are contained within other products. The ingredient/constituent brand is subordinate to the primary brand. For instance – Dell computers has co-branding strategy with Intel processors. The brands which are ingredients are usually the companys biggest buyers or present suppliers. The ingredient brand should be unique. It should either be a major brand or should be protected by a patent. Ingredient co-branding leads to better quality products, superior promotions, more access to distribution channel and greater profits. The seller of ingredient brand enjoys long-term customer relations. The brand manufacture can benefit by having a competitive advantage and the retailer can benefit by enjoying a promotional help from ingredient brand.

2. Composite co-branding refers to use of two renowned brand names in a way that they can collectively offer a distinct product/ service that could not be possible individually. The success of composite branding depends upon the favourability of the ingredient brands and also upon the extent on complementarities between them.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Co-branding

Co-branding has various advantages, such as – risk-sharing, generation of royalty income, more sales income, greater customer trust on the product, wide scope due to joint advertising, technological benefits, better product image by association with another renowned brand, and greater access to new sources of finance. But co-branding is not free from limitations. Co-branding may fail when the two products have different market and are entirely different. If there is difference in visions and missions of the two companies, then also composite branding may fail. Co-branding may affect partner brands in adverse manner. If the customers associate any adverse experience with a constituent brand, then it may damage the total brand equity.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Did It Get Done?

That is a question most executives worry about and often have to ask their direct reports, this is especially true when thinking about Sales Management. In some situations the President of the company may have responsibility to manage the sales team or maybe they are attempting to manage a sales manager(s). In either case-attaining revenue objectives becomes a critical success factor-to a point where it might be distracting from achieving other responsibilities of sales management.

However the job of sales leadership demands more than revenue focus, in fact in my training programs and client consulting engagements I tell my clients that it is not sales management’s job to achieve quota-that is the salesperson’s job! It is the job of sales leadership to hire, train and manage the team properly and position them for success-that is why “getting it done” becomes a critical question. Ensuring that the necessary basic foundations are being achieved becomes important.

If the issue of not “getting it done” seems to be occurring with a client, we implement the following process to train and keep everything in focus. Each Friday afternoon each field Sales Manager submits a weekly and at the end of the month, a simple standard form or checklist that was created to ensure that “all the bases are touched”. I’ve listed a few examples from a typical checklist:

Attended on-site sales calls with reps to observe sales behaviors and to coach?
Listened to phone calls to observe sales behaviors and to coach?
Scheduled a well-planned weekly sales team meeting to discuss results, new plans and build excitement?
Reviewed new salesperson applications and executed interviewing plans?
Randomly inspected CRM updates by salespeople to ensure they are updating it correctly?
Scheduled monthly sales training meetings and topics that are planned with specific dates/times?
Scheduled monthly one on one meeting with each direct report?
Confirmed future marketing programs

The key element is not to make the checklist exhaustive but detailed enough that the fundamental aspects of the job is accomplished. I have seen many growing organizations begin to fail simply because the basics were being overlooked and without a foundation the system begins to fall apart.

Our clients have also taken this approach to each department within the organization. Building a prescriptive approach and holding direct reports accountable will almost always propel the organization to the next level.

If you are the sales manager or you are managing sales managers and want our weekly/monthly “Manage a Sales Manager” template send me an email; Ken@AcumenMgmt.com This tool was designed to ensure both the President/EVP and the sales manager(s) are in synch and are working on mutually agreed to goals. I have found quite often the field sales manager is busy and productive but their management is frustrated that other corporate objectives are not being achieved. The reason? Simply a lack of clear communication and lack of mutual priority setting. This tool will help resolve those kinds of problem.

What other items should be on your monthly sales manager’s checklist? Get it done.

Ken Thoreson “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 17 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for organizations throughout the world.

He was recently ranked for the third year in a row by Top Sales World magazine as one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers for 2015.

Ken has written 5 books, his latest book is: SLAMMED! for First Time Sales Managers, Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. Need more sales management resources? Check out his Sales Management Tool Kit or the Acumen Project and his new Ignite Your Sales Team online video training program for sales leaders.